Low profile graphics solutions are not new, but most of these parts use low-end GPUs, which means that they end up being not much more powerful than the onboard graphics they're meant to replace.

Today we're looking at one card that is more powerful than we're used to seeing from low-profile cards. The Galaxy GeForce 9600GT Low Power Low Profile 512MB aims to provide decent mid-range gaming performance in a slim and svelte package.

The addition of video playback acceleration to graphics cards in recent years has also opened up a nice market for otherwise underpowered low-profile graphics solutions. The Albatron GeForce 9500GT x1 256MB targets just this market. Seeing its PCIe 2.0 x1 interface quickly brings Atom motherboards to mind...



Read on to find out whether these cards deserve a home in your small form factor system...

Specifications

The specifications of the cards are listed below. For reference we've also listed the two cards' standard-sized counterparts.
 

Inno3D GeForce 9500GT 512MB DDR2
 Albatron GeForce 9500GT x1 Low Profile 256MB GDDR3
 Inno3D GeForce 9600GT 512MB GDDR3
 Galaxy GeForce 9600GT Low Power Low Profile 512MB GDDR3
Core
 G96b (55nm)
 G94b (55nm)
Core Clock
(Mhz)
 550
 650
 600
Shader Clock
(Mhz)
 1375
 1625
 1500
Memory Clock
(Mhz)
 400
(800 effective)
 700
(1400 effective)
 900
(1800 effective)
Memory Bus
 128-bit
 256-bit
Memory Type
 DDR2
 GDDR3
 GDDR3
Memory Size
(MB)
 512
 256 512
Interface
 PCIe 2.0 x16
 PCIe 2.0 x1
 PCIe 2.0 x16
 PCIe 2.0 x16
Outputs
 DVI, VGA, TV-Out
  2 x DVI, TV-Out
 DVI, HDMI