Not all gamers are so hardcore that they need the newest and fastest processors and graphics cards. Maybe they use their PCs mainly for work and only occasionally play some current games without worrying about maximizing resolutions and frame rates. For such people, spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on high-end gaming equipment would be a real waste.
Thankfully, Nvidia has come to the rescue with an excellent line of entry-level GPUs for just that kind of gamer. The GeForce GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti are excellent entry-level GPUs the provide decent performance but are relatively inexpensive and don’t require high-end power supplies. Now, Gigabyte is introducing new cards based on those GPUs that can also fit into the tiniest of cases, according to Tech Report.
The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 OC Low Profile 2G and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC Low Profile 4G are much smaller than their exceptionally long names might imply. In fact, Gigabyte managed to pack the GeForce GTX 1050/Ti GPUs into half-height PCIe cards that are small enough to fit into the smallest cases. They also managed to pull all of their required power from the PCIe slot, meaning they don’t require additional 6-pin power connections and should work with smaller power supplies.
In spite of their tiny sizes and power-sipping designs, however, both cards still provide a bit of overclocking. The GTX 1050 version can boost from the base clock of 1,366MHz up to 1,468MHz, while the GTX 1050 Ti can jump from its base clock of 1,303MHz up to 1,417MHz. In both cases, memory duties are provided by GDDR5 VRAM at 7GT/s, with 2GB on the GTX 1050 and 4GB on the 1050Ti.
Although the cards are half-height, their cooling solutions take up two slots, and so that’s a space constraint that buyers will need to keep in mind. Both cards offer two HDMI ports, one DisplayPort, and a DVD-D connection. Gigabyte hasn’t yet provided pricing on the new cards, but equivalent offerings from other manufacturers such as MSI are going for around $155.
