List of low profile GPUs for small form factor PCs (SFFs)

Last updated 🌔 Thu, Apr 24th, 2025.

We are now seeing year to year LP card uplifts after many years of stagnation and segment drought, it’s an exciting time!

Most GPU marketing materials will use the term LP or “low profile” to refer to graphics cards that are 69mm, or half the height of a normal GPU, not full-height short-length GPUs meant for Mini-ITX cases. As far as discrete graphics go, these are the most space and energy-efficient GPUs available today, ideal for use in space-saving PCs, small form factor PCs (SFFs), home theater PCs (HTPCs), slimline cases, specialty server hardware, converting a used office PC into a budget game console, and other niche applications where size and power draw are constraining factors. Low profile PCIe cards with power draw requirements below 75W can be powered from the PCIe slot alone and do not require additional PSU power connectors.

Advancements in GPU computing since 2020 have prioritized higher power draw to make larger generational leaps in graphical power, sub-75W cards will soon become a relic of the past as low profile cards with 6/8-pin PCIe power connectors become more common and, in the near future, will become your only option for meaningful performance uplift in a small form factor build.

This is a reference list of common, rare and/or discontinued low profile 75W PCIe GPUs up to 2 slots wide introduced since 2011. Recommended cards are highlighted in bold, cards older than 2013 will be undoubtedly worse than your onboard graphics. Some common or long-running cards will have had changes to VRAM configuration over their lifetime, see the attached remarks for versions to avoid. Cards older than 2014 may have their driver support discontinued by the vendor, check compatibility with your operating system before purchasing.

Notes on upgrading an existing prebuilt desktop PC

Dell Optiplex 9020 SFF (2014), i7-4790, RTX 4060 LP, 500W flex ATX, 32GB DDR3-1600, 1.1TB fast/14TB slow, mikuu, DVD±RW, etc..

Some people might find it appealing to drop in a 75W GPU into an existing prebuilt desktop PC to make an entry-level gaming PC, as these often have proprietary power supplies with no additional PCIe cables for expansion cards.

Voltage throttling

If you do decide to go this route, be aware of the limitations of pre-built OEM motherboards, their BIOS settings often inhibit or prevent customization such as undervolting, fan curve editing, and can often throw startup errors when swapping out OEM equipment such as case fans.

If you decide to swap out the stock PSU for a standard ATX-compliant model, you may also experience inadequate or non-standard voltage regulation issues which can lead to performance throttling. Things like your CPU not being able to maintain boost clocks, or your motherboard being unable to maintain a solid 75W to the PCIe connector leading to GPU never reaching boost clocks can be the result of your stock PSU being designed for your specific motherboard and providing non-standard voltages at certain pins which ATX PSUs aren’t designed to do.

You may very well not be satisfied with the performance gains compared to published benchmarks running on enthusiast-grade hardware.

PCIe lane cost-cutting

You might also find that some SFF prebuilts have less than ideal PCIe placement. In the case of many late model Dell Optiplex SFFs, they come outfitted with 2 PCIe slots, with the larger 3.0 16x slot rammed against the power supply, unable to accommodate most modern cards which are 2 slots at the bare minimum. In this case, you’d have to run a 2-slot 16x card in the much smaller 2.0 4x PCIe slot and accept a performance loss of at least 10% on a GTX 1050ti/1650, potentially more on more powerful cards, your performance will depend on how hard you saturate the PCIe bus.

Non-free graphics drivers

If you intend to run a hackintosh system or you refuse to use non-free graphics drivers on GNU/Linux, then your options are AMD and Intel ARC.

Intel ARC cards require motherboard platforms with Resizable BAR, you will see substantial performance bottlenecks on systems older than 3rd gen AMD Ryzen or 10th gen Intel Core.

AMD’s low profile cards have substantially worse price/performance than Nvidia options, the RX 6400 for example, is comparable to a GTX 1050ti in performance yet lacks a hardware video encoder for streaming or video encoding, for the time being, please don’t pick AMD for low profile builds trying to chase FOSS zealotry.

Space constraints

I always forget what order to remove components, the GPU has to come out before I can disconnect the drive cage.

You should also be mindful of available space in your SFF case, low profile RTX 4060s (and possibly later cards) are much longer than the standard low profile length of 167mm.

Both the Gigabyte and GALAX low profile versions of the RTX 4060 are 182mm at their longest point, the Gigabyte version has a 182mm fan shroud with a 167mm PCB behind it, allowing for a recessed PCIe plug. ASUS’s version has a much longer 188mm fan shroud and PCB that would very likely not fit in the application above without mods, measure twice and click buy only once!

A dying breed of graphics card?

Low-profile cards are often launched to little fanfare and are quietly announced halfway through the lifecycle of a particular graphics card, they don’t represent a very profitable slice of the market for the companies still making them.

The “stagflation” of entry level and low TDP gaming GPUs is well documented, the entry-level price/performance floor on dGPUs have stayed roughly the same since 2019, meaning the the same amount of money spent in 2019 will buy you roughly the same amount of performance in 2025. In order to achieve worthwhile generational uplifts, it is no longer enough to upgrade from an old entry-level card to a more current entry-level one, you must go upmarket.

The entry level bar has stagnated for so long that upcoming integrated graphics dies on AI-focused Ryzen APUs (Ryzen AI Max+ series) will have have comparable performance to an RTX 4060, and will likely be an appealing option for entry-level gaming in the near future instead of putting a discrete GPU into a used office PC.

In order to illustrate that many users can avoid having to buy a low profile GPU at all, the integrated graphics on many recent AMD APUs are highlighted below for comparison. This list also includes workstation cards for completeness. They tend to offer a much worse price-to-performance ratio compared to cards meant for gaming, customers of workstation cards expect world-class customer support and it comes rolled into the price.

1-slot Low Profile under 75W

These can be passively cooled or have a narrow heatsink/fan, requiring only 1 PCIe slot, running the gamut from bare minimum display adapter to provide hardware accelerated video encode/decode to competent light gaming performance @ 1080p.

2-slot Low Profile under 75W

These run hot and have heatsink/fan assemblies that are 2 PCIe slots wide, you probably don’t need more than this if you’re hoping for light gaming at 1080p.

NOTE
Some of these cards may have single-slot LP versions available from lesser known Chinese brands, worthwhile ones noted below.
Some lesser known brands may make changes to TDP or come with substandard VRAM, these are not recommended and their substandard performance will not be represented on benchmarking sites due to their rarity.

2-slot Low Profile exceeding 75W

NOTE
Consider other form factors if you need this much graphical power, if you don’t strictly need an SFF it can be much more economical to opt for a build with a used 2-3 year old full-height card.

These are dual slot low profile and will likely run very hot on account of sucking down external power via PCIe 8-pin power connectors and are not recommended if you’re still on your prebuilt’s stock PSU.

If your SFF’s PSU does not feature PCIe 6/8-pin connectors, you can draw power from unused SATA power connectors using SATA to PCIe power adapters, but you are also likely to exceed the power limits of your SATA rails either from the PSU or the power delivery on the motherboard.

Even if your PSU has enough overhead, a 115W card will draw 75W from the PCIe slot and 40W more from PCIe 8-pin—you risk damaging your system if drawing that power from SATA power adapters as the SATA spec only guarantees 54W per rail and you are most likely already drawing 3W for every connected SATA SSD.

Do yourself a favor and replace the stock PSU in your SFF if you want to go this route, you’ll unlock a whole upgrade path and even improve cooling if you opt for a flex ATX model.

vistors

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