Most powerful low profile single slot card !

[Gripen90]

Powerful low profile cards are fairly easy to find, powerful single slot cards are usually a quite a bit harder to find... but to find a powerful low profile single slot card is almost an impossible task, especially if you set to find a card that will fit in a compact and restricted case !

Yesterday I got what i dare to say is the most powerful low profile single slot card which is available today. The ASL G1504.

It's a very slim and sleek looking card and with cooler and shroud in all aluminium. It has a copperbase with a heatpipe inside to transfer heat to the internal heatsink but also the whole fan shroud. The card is a bit long with 19cm in length.

I had to modify my Emachines EL1352 cases front connections for audio and power a bit. The plastic connectors were a bit too tall to make it possible to plug the card into the PCIE slot. However some coarse sandpaper I was able to sand down the plastic on the connectors to reduce the height and then it was a snug fit in the case. The card warps a bit due to the fact that the PCI bracket itself sits a bit lower than the PCIE slot.

The only "issue" with the card is that it only has a 2pin fan speed connector so you cannot use MSI Afterburner/EVGA Precision X to control the fan speed. The card untill windows boots is quiet, but the nVidia drivers loads the VBIOS fan profile and it's default speed is 50%. So you well hear the card when using/browsing in windows.
I know others have "fixed" this with buying a VGA fan 2pin to 2pin fan noise reduction cable to lower the noise or a 2 pin to 3pin cable and plug it into the motherboard or a fancontroller like a Zalman Fan Mate 2 controller.
The maximum temperature I ever got the card to hit was 74°c in Unigine Superposition loop in 1920x1080 Medium. The fan speed indicated 75% in MSI Afterburner, but I couldn't tell the difference in noise between 50% and 74%.
Under 3Dmark Fire Strike, Doom 2016, Overwatch the temperatures howevered around 66°c even after prolonged gaming sessions. I think that is quite impresse overall, it show that there is potential in the heatsink design !

As mentioned, I have the card mounted in an Emachines EL1352 which is a pretty tiny machine and only room for low profile single slot cards. It's my parents old machine I've gotten and used as a small htpc. Originally it came with 4GB DDR3, Onboard GeForce 6150 graphics, AMD Athlon II X2 245 2.9GHz CPU, 220w Chicony PSU. Since then it has been through many upgrades from 4 to 6GB ram, from Athlon II X2 245 to X2 265 to Phenom II X4 840 CPU and from Onboard GeForce 6150 to GT 710 2GB to GT 1030 2GB. The final upgrade configuration is now 8GB DDR3, AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz (95watt version), 250watt Delta PSU.
I did try an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 6 core CPU, but the BIOS wouldn't recognize the CPU properly and it wouldn't even being to load Windows 10 . So back to the X4 955 !.

Before the ASL G1504 card I had a Gigabyte GT 1030 2GB Low Profile card, it really has served me well - I had it overclocked to it's max. I have played Fortnite, Overwatch, Doom (2016), GTA V, COD MW2, COD B.O etc. wil no issue in a mix of medium/high details.

Going to ASL G1504 gave a 85% performance boost across all games and benchmarks vs the GT 1030 2GB !

3Dmark11 compare https://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/12698280/3dm11/12765947
3Dmark Fire Strike compare https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/15337828/fs/15459806

Unigine Superposition 1920x1080 Medium
GT 1030 2GB = 2800 point
GTX 1050Ti = 5258 point

Fortnite 1920x1080 Medium settings
GT 1030 2GB = 62 FPS
GTX 1050Ti = 114 FPS

Overwatch 1920x1080 High settings
GT 1030 2GB = 53 FPS
GTX 1050Ti = 112 FPS

Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 1920x1080 High multi-player.
GT 1030 2GB = 82 FPS
GTX 1050Ti = 153 FPS

I'll keep you updated






Oh by this time I guess you are all wondering what the hell is an ASL G1504 ?...
it is also called the ASL GTX 1050Ti Battle Flag 4GB (G1504)

 

[Gripen90]

Wasnt there a 1080 Katana which was single slot?

There is the Galax GTX 1070 Katana single-slot, albeit it's only single slot and not low profile.

 

[Gripen90]

It already is. A laptop 1070 would probably fit in that form factor, maybe slightly underclocked, but the market for that is likely to be very small indeed given the extra premium price.

It's possible someone could make a bespoke form factor PC with a 1080 and a decent CPU in the size of a PS4 since there are laptops already available less internal space. But given the cost and low demand, it probably won't happen as you could just buy a laptop version and have the added benefit of laptop usage.

It would be great if they'd make some more low profile single slot high-end cards. I know it's a niche category, but some still want/need them

 

[Gripen90]

So I got all my stuff last week to "mod" my G1504 too.
I took apart the ASL G1504 and installed some Arctic thermal pads and replaced the thermal paste with some Gelid GC Extreme thermal paste instead. Initially I had installed the fan shroud, but I found out that cooling improved by 3°c when I took it off, because the 2x 60mm side fans could cool the heatsink better. I also installed a 5v noise/rpm reduction adapter onto the graphics card so it runs a lot more silent than before. After applying new thermal paste and thermal pads the load temperature of the card stays completely the same as before, but at a much lower noise level = mission was a succes !

After this video I did a little overclocking and set +75MHz on the core and + 200MHz on the Vram, and the card still maxes out at 82°c max while keeping a boost clock around 1620~1650MHz. I am pretty happy with the results.


Next project is my Dell Optiplex 7010 which gets upgraded with new CPU core i3 3200 -> core i5 3470, Ram 4GB DDR3 -> 12GB DDR3 , SHDD and graphics card MSI GTX 1050Ti 4GB Low Profile .