NVIDIA has announced its effort to shrink large graphics cards in the PC gaming world and outlined its new plans. NVIDIA has launched a new initiative called “SFF-Ready Enthusiast GeForce Cards” to support small form factor (SFF) gaming PCs. But are these cards really small? Here are the details…
NVIDIA is coming with smaller graphics cards
Last month, when leaked information suggested that NVIDIA would encourage smaller gaming PCs, we all envisioned a small but powerful Nvidia GPU, perhaps something like AMD’s old R9 Nano card.
However, the newly announced SFF-Ready cards from NVIDIA are not actually that small. For example, even an RTX 4070, which is 2.5 slots thick, 304mm long, and 151mm wide, falls into this category. These dimensions are still quite large for many SFF cases.
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NVIDIA’s Director of Desktop Products, Justin Walker, summarized the goal of this program: “Leave this much (SFF-Ready) space in your case, so you can fit a graphics card like a 4080 or 4070.” Thus, this initiative is not just about the cards but also aims to improve case and card compatibility. Instead of checking the dimensions on manufacturer websites to see if a card will fit, you can simply look for the “SFF-Ready” label to make your job easier.
Walker expressed that he wants more effort to be put into reducing the size of NVIDIA’s partner cards. NVIDIA’s own Founders Edition cards are typically only two slots thick. However, Walker hopes that more partner card manufacturers will produce cards in this form factor.
Walker said, “Putting a 4080 in this form factor requires a lot of work and very intentional design,” indicating that NVIDIA plans to make more efforts in this direction. Although NVIDIA’s new “SFF-Ready” initiative may not create a major revolution in small form factor cases, it will contribute to the widespread adoption of smaller gaming PCs.
By increasing the compatibility between graphics cards and cases, it aims to make things easier for users. Additionally, only RTX 4070 or higher cards are included in this program, meaning lower performance cards do not fall into this category.
In summary, NVIDIA’s new initiative could help the proliferation of small gaming PCs. What do you think about these new cards and cases? Don’t forget to share your thoughts with us…
