GPU ZOTAC 1080 Mini measurements and review!

3lfk1ng

King of Cable Management
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Jun 3, 2016
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A long but thorough read, we review the ZOTAC 1080 Mini.

Originally announced back in December of 2016, showcased at CES, and then released in January, the ZOTAC 1080 Mini is the veritable King of graphics cards among SFF enthusiasts. At present, there doesn't exist a single more powerful GPU capable of fitting into the some of the smallest chassis around.

You can read the entire review here

(beware the load times!)

(5/18/2017): Load times resolved!.
 
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Qrash

Cable-Tie Ninja
Aug 10, 2015
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Zotac has joined the mini graphics card club started by Asus and Gigabyte and extended its offerings with the 1080 Mini. It will be interesting to see if any other manufacturers follow suit.
 
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GreatestUnKnown

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Dec 30, 2016
108
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Love the high quality review with the numerous pictures documenting any and all measurements that a SFF enthusiast or case designer would want/need.

Great job guys and hope to see more outstanding content in the future!
 
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|||

King of Cable Management
Sep 26, 2015
775
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Needs more cowbell :p

Good article; we need more with measurements like that.
 

danielbatmanj

Average Stuffer
May 16, 2016
83
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isnt it possible that the 7600k bottlenecked the 1080? not saying it did, just wondering if it could have done even better with maybe a 7700k
 

3lfk1ng

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No, thankfully this particular generation of i5 (7th generation, the i5-7600k) wouldn't be the bottleneck of a GTX 1080. It's possible that the use of a 7700k would have provided slightly higher framerates all around due to the increased clockspeed but the 7600k is a modern contender. Maybe if we used an older z87 platform with a 4th gen i5, then it would likely start to become the bottleneck (at stock clockspeeds).

We didn't have an i7-7700k on hand for this review so we simply pieced together the best hardware that we had.
 
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Boil

SFF Guru
Nov 11, 2015
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Why oh why oh why could they not make it an actual ITX-sixed GPU though…?!?

At this point, I am wanting to see teardown pics of this unit, the Gigabyte GTX 1070 Mini, the MSI GTX 1070 Aero ITX & the EVGA GTX 1060 Gaming SC; I wonder if the heatsink off of any of those units might be used on the Zotac 1080 to be able to get this "ITX" 1080 into a true ITX chassis…

Now, if one were to trim back the heatsink to make the Zotac a true ITX unit, what would be done with that one heat pipe…?
 

CubanLegend

Steely-Eyed NVFlash Man
Dec 23, 2016
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Very nice review! :D Odd benchmark results though. I seemed to notice a small bump in my Firestrike and Timespy results over yours. Did you provide the GPU scores alone or the entire system score? for reference: my stock 1080/7700k scored 6733 in Timespy and 17605 in Firestrike accordingly. Could it just be the score bump i get from having the 7700k? probably.... either way, thanks for providing some more benchmarks! I'll certainly now have to download Heaven and Valley and try those out on my system and update the benchmarks portion of my Build thread.

Also, a heads up to any reading. The 1080 mini is $100 USD off on Newegg right now. Once the 1080ti hits, this should be it's permanent price anyways, but I figured some might have been saving for this price drop. Have fun!!! :D

Also, another heads up to any reading and considering a 1080 mini inside of an S4 mini: if you buy a new S4 mini and opt to purchase and use the NEW 7mm Acrylic Bezel that Josh has on his site (and choose the "OPEN" variant) and also purchase the vent plate for it, The ZOTAC 1080 Mini will fit inside the S4 MINI, without mods. :D
 
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Boil

SFF Guru
Nov 11, 2015
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But I would have to say, the most important question regarding this GPU; where is the link to the forum post for the give-away…?!? ;^p
 

Boil

SFF Guru
Nov 11, 2015
1,253
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Now I really want to see someone cut one of these down to that 180mm mark that the article mentions…!
 

stevey500

Trash Compacter
Feb 16, 2017
46
37
Well put review ! Couldn't agree more with it.

Two days in with the card after receiving it from the almighty egg; nothing short of absolutely impressed. One day I'll have a nice SFF case build to put it all in. Bada$$ video card > case to put it all in.

Running a 4790k with no issues; (no, I'm not on the bleeding edge of processor/motherboard tech, like I said, I've got strange priorities) framerates are sky high and smooth.


 
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CubanLegend

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Dec 23, 2016
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has a 1080mini, uses stock intel cooler. ;) nice bro, it's a great card, indeed.

Mine's been able to GPUBoost itself up to 2075MHz on the core in synthetics, but it's usually sitting at 2025-2050 in real-world gaming. :D
 
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3lfk1ng

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Due to the obscene load times of our initial ZOTAC 1080 Mini review, our original interactive/dynamic graphing program has been sacked. The review that once took a pathetic 23 seconds to load should now load in an impressive ~2 seconds.

As a disclaimer to all members of our community, no other information from the review has been changed but I did take the opportunity to fix a few graphing mistakes that I had made by including 'maximum framerates' instead of 'minimum framerates' (derp).

For complete transparency, here is what was altered during this optimization process:
- All of the dynamic graphs have been painstakingly replaced with static .PNGs.
- All 'maximum framerates' have been replaced with the values for 'minimum framerates'.

I apologize for any inconvenience that the the longer-then-normal load times may have caused and I hope that you with find the review, as well as the included measurements, to be a valuable resource.

You can see the review here: https://smallformfactor.net/reviews/zotac-1080-mini-review
 

CubanLegend

Steely-Eyed NVFlash Man
Dec 23, 2016
832
1,011
smallformfactor.net
Due to the obscene load times of our initial ZOTAC 1080 Mini review, our original interactive/dynamic graphing program has been sacked. The review that once took a pathetic 23 seconds to load should now load in an impressive ~2 seconds.

As a disclaimer to all members of our community, no other information from the review has been changed but I did take the opportunity to fix a few graphing mistakes that I had made by including 'maximum framerates' instead of 'minimum framerates' (derp).

For complete transparency, here is what was altered during this optimization process:
- All of the dynamic graphs have been painstakingly replaced with static .PNGs.
- All 'maximum framerates' have been replaced with the values for 'minimum framerates'.

I apologize for any inconvenience that the the longer-then-normal load times may have caused and I hope that you with find the review, as well as the included measurements, to be a valuable resource.

You can see the review here: https://smallformfactor.net/reviews/zotac-1080-mini-review
dude no worries. And BRAVO on the trasnparency, that is rare in places today. Thats part of why I love this forum. :)

At least you guys didnt go at it with a sawzaw and chop into the heatpipe. ;)
 
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