[Mining Review] ZOTAC GTX 1070 mini

I recently expanded my Rig with a ZOTAC GTX 1070 Mini, I was actually looking for the MSI version but it was sold out, then the seller told me he could get me an ASUS, I went down the shop and he actually had a ZOTAC. Because I was already there and I because really wanted a 1070, I just took it and asked him for a discount.

The first thing I thought when I unboxed it was “ok, this doesn’t look so bad”. Don’t get me wrong, it is not up there with the MSI in regards of design but I was expecting a lot uglier than this…

I use MSI Afterburner to overclock my cards, here is the current settings I have for the Zotac 1070 are:
• Power Limit: 80%
• Temp Limit: 65 oC
• Core Clock: 99
• Memory Clock: 700

Hashrate

Ethash: 31 Mh/s
Equihash: 450 H/s
Power Consumption: 130W

One thing I was pleased about was the power consumption, I was told that a 1070 can pull up to 170w from wall, but I believe that they have improved this on the “mini” version.

However, the card does have two weaknesses in my eyes (and ears!):

1.- The heat: they are up to 20% hotter than the MSI version, I have it working at 64C with a 70% fan speed, the same MSI version can do the same at 52C.
2.- The noise, it is a lot louder than the MSI or the Gigabyte versions, and if you push up the fan to anything above 80% it sounds like a ceiling fan in a cheap hotel.

Overall, if you can get this card for anything below 400 USD, it is a good buy.