Nvidia only seems to want to talk about AI these days, and that’s really annoying to someone like me, who wants to hear about graphics cards. The humble graphics card, once the backbone of Nvidia’s business, feels like it has faded into the background in favour of chasing impossible numbers on the stock market.
Well, good news, dear reader: they didn’t just have AI news this time. Nvidia rolled out a new ‘SFF’ standard, for Small Form Factor PCs, which basically means it’s gearing up to release smaller GPUs.
That’s an extremely welcome thing because if you’ve been browsing the graphics card market lately, you’ve probably noticed that these things are about the size of a house brick, if not bigger. It’s difficult to fit some of these larger cards into smaller cases, such as the Fractal Ridge or the Hyte Revolt 3, and it usually involves diving into the measurements to make sure it’ll even be able to stuff in.
Most standard-sized PC cases wouldn’t have a problem fitting these big graphics cards in, but even then, you can run into issues with cable management when your card is quite large.
Nvidia’s SFF focus aims to make GPUs, well, smaller, but still as powerful.
The company is putting together a new guideline for small PC builds, and is working with third-party GPU and PC case companies on the standard.
Included brands are ASUS, Cooler Master, Fractal, Galax, Gigabyte, Inno3D, InWin, MSI, NZXT, Palit, Phanteks, PNY, Sliger, Thermaltake, and Zotac.
“Now it’ll be much easier for GeForce DIY gamers to determine which small form factor cases are compatible with specific graphics cards,” Nvidia’s Jacob Freeman said.
The maximum height of an SFF-ready Nvidia card will be 151mm, width is 304mm, and depth is 50mm (about 2.5 case slots). Height also needs to comply with power cable bend radius estimations.
Nvidia put out a long list of SFF-compatible graphics cards and PC cases with its announcement, however, there’s a catch. It’s only including RTX 4070 cards and higher with this standard, which means more affordable options, such as the admittedly smaller RXT 4050 and RTX 4060, will not be getting a compatibility label.
That’s honestly a bit disappointing, as someone who typically likes cards with the ’60’ suffix, because the label would just give builders more piece of mind. That being said, these cards are generally smaller, so builders shouldn’t have as much trouble expecting compatibility in smaller cases as 4070s.
“Soon you will see retail listings for compatible products with text clearly identifying that they meet the requirements, and compatible graphics cards will be labelled as SFF-Ready Enthusiast GeForce Cards,” Freeman added. “And cases that meet the requirements will be labelled as Compatible with SFF-Ready Enthusiast GeForce Cards.”
Most of the list includes RTX 4070 cards, though there are two 4080 cards included – one from ASUS and the other from Palit. 36 GPUs in total are compatible with Nvidia’s SFF standard, along with 23 small PC cases.
To be honest, this has gotten me more excited to build a small form factor PC. I’ve been planning to pick up a Fractal Ridge recently and stuffing it with components to rival my full-size computer, but with this standard, things will be a lot easier.
Image: Nvidia