[SOLVED] Mini gpu vs full size

Chimi02

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Mar 15, 2015
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Hello, there's currently a few rtx 3060 ti cards at my local shop and was hoping to go buy one today. However there are two variants, a
"Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GAMING OC 8GB LHR" and a "ASUS DUAL GeForce RTX 3060 Ti V2 MINI OC 8GB LHR".
The Asus card is about 80 USD cheaper than the gigabyte card. How would a mini card perform against a full size? Would the smaller card perform like a 3060 non-ti or will it just be louder? I noticed that it has a lower clock speed.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Card/GV-N306TGAMING-OC-8GD-rev-20#kf
 
Solution
Shorter card more for confined space, if you can fit the Gigabyte then get that. More fans, quieter running as they don't need to spin as fast. Besides the noise, which probably won't bother you anyway with either card, performance will be pretty much identical between them. Maybe 2~5 fps more for the higher boost.
Shorter card more for confined space, if you can fit the Gigabyte then get that. More fans, quieter running as they don't need to spin as fast. Besides the noise, which probably won't bother you anyway with either card, performance will be pretty much identical between them. Maybe 2~5 fps more for the higher boost.
 
Solution
Performance is the same, within limits. The smaller card has less cooling ability, smaller heatsink area and usually a single central fan or 2 very small fans. So while it'll perform as a 3060ti, under stress it'll get warmer and if pushed hard in a lousy ventilated case, can reach thermal limits far faster than the full size card.
 
How would a mini card perform against a full size?
Usually, bigger cards that are larger in size tend to have more performance
Bigger cards have more fans in them, which infer that the GPU chip within is powerful and needs a lot of cooling.

But however this is a fallacy alone, the correct answer is to look at the specs of both cards - in this case, they perform the same.
In this case, it is up to the AIB manufacturer how they designed their cooling. Gigabyte used 3 fans, ASUS used 2 fans

Temperature and noise comparison between the 2 cards under gaming load would be a good metric for performance, so one can see which GPU gets cooler temps.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N4_dMHpu1I


However yes, they will perform the same (in terms of FPS) because they're essentially the same chip.