Low profile, narrow video card options

[qualdoth]

Hey folks,

A while ago, I put together a mini-ITX HTPC built around a Silverstone ML-06B case (details are at viewtopic.php?f=14&t=68169). When putting together the HTPC, I always left the door open on potentially adding a discrete video card. Well, that time has now come as I'm thinking about doing some light gaming on this PC.

The case I'm using allows for a discrete card to be installed as long as the measurements are (7.5"L x 2.95"H x ~1"W). I've been looking around at various options, and am hoping that folks here can maybe chime in with some suggestions.

Options I've been looking at:

- GT 730 (for example http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1988/g ... t-730.html)
- GTX 760 (ex: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX49906 This seems like it would fit)
- GTX 750 (ex: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 00524&SID=)
- R7 250 (for example http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 00524&SID=)

Any additional ideas?

Edited for clarify after taking measurements.

[CA_Steve]

When you say single slot...do you mean it can't have the additional width for the connector plate or that there is no room for a cooler that uses up part or all of a 2nd slot?

If the former, you could step up to a GTX 750. Zotac has a single slot plate / 2 slot cooler solution.

If the latter, then all of the solutions may be a bit whiny...and you have to hope CCC can help make a decent fan profile. PowerColor and
Sapphire also have a single slot cooler.

The GT730 isn't a gaming card.

[qualdoth]

When you say single slot...do you mean it can't have the additional width for the connector plate or that there is no room for a cooler that uses up part or all of a 2nd slot?

If the former, you could step up to a GTX 750. Zotac has a single slot plate / 2 slot cooler solution.

If the latter, then all of the solutions may be a bit whiny...and you have to hope CCC can help make a decent fan profile. PowerColor and
Sapphire also have a single slot cooler.

The GT730 isn't a gaming card.

I've adjusted my initial post as I was doing a bit more reading and I think I have more room than I initially thought, width wise. The connector plate can certainly be only single width. According to Silverstone's documentation, the requirements for the expansion card are a "low profile, width restricted to 2.95" or less". I think the example you linked should work (I also popped in another GTX750 example as of my own into the original post).

Thanks for the heads up regarding the GT730, I'm in my earlier stages of research so I hadn't arrived at the 730's inadequacy yet

[CA_Steve]

The MSI mini 760 cooould work. It's got a 170W TDP, so there's a bit of heat load to get rid of. It's a great 1080p card...The fans overhang the top of the card by a bit - do you have the headroom?

I recommend grabbing a tape and measuring the critical distances.

Because, it may open you up to getting a nice GTX 960card - only 120W TDP, better performance than the GTX 760 and may be cheaper.

[qualdoth]

You're right, I should just measure this stuff. Will do that when I get home this evening and will report back. Thanks for pushing me

[CA_Steve]

Just be glad Mike doesn't have the poke-with-a-stick emoji loaded.

[qualdoth]

I'm really glad I measured things out, as it turns out, I had misread the Silverstone documentation. So the measurements are as follows:

• Length: 7.5" is the absolute maximum. Would prefer a little bit shorter to leave a bit more room for simpler cable management, if necessary. I'm running a power cable from the PSU along the inside of the front panel currently.
• Height: 2.95". This is what I'd misread in the Silverstone docs, I read this as the width, but it's clearly the height.
• Width: 1" is the measured space between the side of the PSU and the processor side of the expansion slot on the motherboard. Essentially this would be the distance from the PCB to the top of the cooler on the video card. I've included a picture below. As you can see, there is additional room on the CPU side of the expansion slot if the video card happens to have anything mounted on the back. So in theory I can handle a card with a width > 1" provided not all of that width is on the cooler side of the PCB.

Width measurement:


Based on those measurements, I'm going to say I'm probably out of the running for a GTX960 I think the Zotac may be my best bet.

[CA_Steve]

Here's the product page for the Zotac card. Doesn't provide the complete dimensions. I suggest emailing them and asking for a copy of the mechanical outline...or at least the complete dimensions. I had a zbox question and their tech support responded pretty quick (a day). Besides the cooler clearance, you really want 1/2" or more to keep the PSU from obstructing the airflow intake. Looks close.

The good news is the 750 is only a 55W card. So, doesn't take a killer solution to keep it cool. Tight quarters will add a little stress. Could be pretty doable.

[qualdoth]

Just e-mailed them to get official confirmation, but it's not looking good. I found a listing on amazon.ca for this card. According to that listing, it's 3cm wide which is just over 1". We'll see what Zotac says but it might be back to the drawing board!

[qualdoth]

CA_Steve, you were certainly right about them responding quickly. Got a response today, that card is 5.5" x 2.5" x 1.25". As suspected, too wide!

At this point it looks like my options are down to the R7 250 single slot type cards.

[CA_Steve]

Nods. Now for the elephant in the room...what games do you want to play? The R7 250 should be good enough for lower end games at 1080p, but may struggle if you want to play a more intensive gave without dialing down the resolution and/or gfx quality.

[qualdoth]

At this point, the only thing that's on the immediate horizon that I would want to play in the living room is Cities: Skylines. An R7 250 should slightly exceed the minimum requirements for the game, especially since I'd only be playing at 1080p. My initial concern would be that, as you pointed out, these cards could get whiny. This seems to be reinforced by a couple of reviews that I'd read. I suppose I could always try disabling the card when not gaming (ie, use on-board video for the normal HTPC uses).

I suppose the other option for PC gaming in the living room is experimenting with Steam In-Home streaming (results on this seem to be mixed) or leveraging Steam Link to stream the display over (and plug a keyboard/mouse into Link).

[CA_Steve]

If you only plan to play Steam games, then yeah, having a gaming PC elsewhere and using either this HTPC or Steam Link would be the way to go. I haven't tried the in-home streaming, yet. The beta reviews implied it worked well if on a wired network. If using wifi, then it's as good as your wifi reception.

Heck, it's worth trying out b4 you opt to buy a lower end and possibly noisy gaming card.


Also looks like a future project for me. Use my gaming PC as server and the little zbox in my den as the client.

[qualdoth]

If you only plan to play Steam games, then yeah, having a gaming PC elsewhere and using either this HTPC or Steam Link would be the way to go. I haven't tried the in-home streaming, yet. The beta reviews implied it worked well if on a wired network. If using wifi, then it's as good as your wifi reception.

Heck, it's worth trying out b4 you opt to buy a lower end and possibly noisy gaming card.

Also looks like a future project for me. Use my gaming PC as server and the little zbox in my den as the client.

I'm using a set of powerline adapters to provide ethernet to all of my media devices (have a little 5-port switch attached to the powerline that everything else in then plugged into), works surprisingly well since I'm in a condo and the electrical runs are not overly long. That's what I use for all of my media streaming and it works well.

I've been thinking about trying in-home streaming a shot, so now is as good a time as any. I'll keep updating here with progress

[CA_Steve]

I just loaded Steam on to my HTPC as well. I'll mess with it later today.

[CA_Steve]

I played some Civilization on Steam (ok, far too many hours of Civ) using the gaming PC in my sig as the server and streaming to a Zbox Nano with just a Baytrail quad core in it via my wired network. Worked fine. CPU loading was really quite low (in the 20% range). It's a turn based game, so I don't know how well it'd work for a shooter or RPG.

[qualdoth]

I did some testing last night with This War of Mine and Cities: Skyline using my gaming/photo editing PC as a host and my 2012 Macbook (wireless) and the HTPC (powerline wired). The games ran fine, it seems like a completely doable setup. Unfortunately, I wasn't getting any audio on my clients, despite the fact that both of the client machines have functioning sound in general.

I'm going to try and do some more tinkering to see if I can get the sound functioning properly in the streamed gameplay. I'm assuming you didn't have any issues with sound with your tests? I even went as far as disabling on-board audio, etc on my host machine to eliminate that from the picture (I have a discrete Creative SB X-Fi).

[CA_Steve]

I'm assuming you didn't have any issues with sound with your tests?

Worked fine on start up. No issues.

[qualdoth]

In true Windows fashion, problem resolved itself after doing a restart on the host. I guess with the various game installations I'd been doing, a restart was in the books. Going to try a couple of gaming sessions tonight and over the weekend, but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to avoid putting in a crappy card into the HTPC. Nice thing is too, this way it actually means I can likely play more graphically intensive games on the HTPC via Steam. Whee.

[CA_Steve]

Yep, it's pretty cool.