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Single-Slot Graphics: Whose Card Is Fastest?

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  • Graphics
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a b U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 4:00:04 AM

Double-slot graphics cards seem to be the norm, much to the chagrin of enthusiasts trying to build systems with only a single slot of upgrade space. We hunted down three of the fastest cards able to slip into one slot and tested their gaming mettle.

Single-Slot Graphics: Whose Card Is Fastest? : Read more

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June 1, 2011 4:32:47 AM

I'm not sure this needed so many pages to state the obvious (a 6850 board was faster than 440 and 450 boards, the concept is a good one. There are a lot of areas that sites do not cover that should be, and many of them are logistical like this one.

For example, there are few, if any, reviews on noiseless CPUs (meaning, fanless) and too few if any reviews on GPUs without fans. Small form factors have thankfully been addressed a bit, but some of the smallest sizes are still not represented well in reviews.

Even if you are into killing evil Zargons with your pimped out main computer (which many are not anyway), there is still a cool factor of a computer that fits in your hand that can be used in other locations like a kitchen, or living room, or both since you can pick it up and move it easily.

Articles like this, that might not pertain to a main computer (or may), are interesting, since most of us have several computers, and know several people that ask our assistance in making decisions, and there are often criteria like this involved.
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June 1, 2011 4:35:10 AM

I've read up to but not including the benchmark results, but is there honestly any question as to which card will perform best? The HD6850 is in a completely different performance segment. I'm just impressed they were able to get it down to a single slot form factor.
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Related resources
June 1, 2011 4:35:25 AM

wonderful idea for an article, for those who have cramped areas
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4
a b U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 4:47:43 AM

You could have also included a standard reference board of the 6850 and GTS450 to see if there were any differences in power draw, heat, noise and why not, performance.

Still, I also like the idea of reviewing different approaches of hardware pieces. We all have different needs, so different hardware (forms) need to be addressed as well 8)

Cheers!
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a b U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 4:55:44 AM

dragonsqrrlI've read up to but not including the benchmark results, but is there honestly any question as to which card will perform best? The HD6850 is in a completely different performance segment. I'm just impressed they were able to get it down to a single slot form factor.
Afox wanted to present this to prove its solution viable. Lots of people thought it wouldn't work due to the missing 6-pin connector and tiny fan. A couple weeks after Afox released its card, PowerColor announced a single-slot version WITH the 6-pin connector so now you have three choices: Galaxy's 460, Afox's 6850, and PowerColor's 6850.

The Tom's Hardware team put a lot of effort into getting as many companies onboard as possible for this. PowerColor should have been excluded since its product was actually too late to meet the test deadline, but that's a non-issue since the card didn't show up. And Galaxy, Galaxy Where Art Thou? You would think companies like that would be in touch with ALL the major sites, wouldn't you?
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a b U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 5:02:53 AM

I was looking into these cards because I have a BTX case from Dell, Crashman just listed all the cards I was looking at except for the Afox. However I'm not likely to get any of these since the single slot comes with one big con, a price tag of at least $220.
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June 1, 2011 5:06:55 AM

Where is the Galaxy GTX 460 razor?
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1
June 1, 2011 5:12:19 AM

CrashmanThe Tom's Hardware team put a lot of effort into getting as many companies onboard as possible for this. PowerColor should have been excluded since its product was actually too late to meet the test deadline, but that's a non-issue since the card didn't show up. And Galaxy, Galaxy Where Art Thou? You would think companies like that would be in touch with ALL the major sites, wouldn't you?

I wasn't questioning the work ethic of Tom's Hardware's authors and reviewers, you guy's almost always deliver high-quality review material. But thanks for clarifying the situation.

I really don't know what I would think, I'm completely unfamiliar with the process of acquiring test hardware from companies. Is this really unusual behavior from Galaxy and Power Color (ignoring or passing up a request to review one of their new products)?
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June 1, 2011 5:28:03 AM

Cool. where can I get 4?
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a b U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 5:43:11 AM

dragonsqrrlI wasn't questioning the work ethic of Tom's Hardware's authors and reviewers, you guy's almost always deliver high-quality review material. But thanks for clarifying the situation.I really don't know what I would think, I'm completely unfamiliar with the process of acquiring test hardware from companies. Is this really unusual behavior from Galaxy and Power Color (ignoring or passing up a request to review one of their new products)?
I believe the OTHER companies simply didn't want to get "shown up" by the bigger card, where ECS and MSI sent a card they knew would lose the performance race in order to show off their lower power consumption and price.

As for PowerColor, they said they sent one. Either they screwed up, or something happened to the card along the way. Either way, I wasn't going to worry about the cause of this conundrum since it was too late to deal with.

I really don't know what's up with Galaxy. Chances are they might have simply cut their marketing department.
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June 1, 2011 6:42:59 AM

Bought the MSI a few weeks ago, to replace a buzzzie nVidia GT220 from Zotac. The sound is not nearly as bad, but I guess that "woosh" sound isn't really quite …

It drives a pair of 1080x1920 Samsungs. But they aren't the screes I game on. It does render .pdf a hell'of'a lot faster…

Glad I picked the better of the two nVidias!
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June 1, 2011 6:46:16 AM

Clearly can tell you guys were pissed at not receiving the other card samples :p 
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June 1, 2011 7:55:32 AM

On the Page
Benchmark Results: F1 2010
Noticed a typo on the F1 2010 1080 chart.
Resolution is listed as 1800 not 1080
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June 1, 2011 8:23:28 AM

Crashie in articleWhile older games often suffer from latencies higher than CAS 9 at DDR3-1600, those bottlenecks only occur during moderate graphics loads.


Do you have a link to an article or something with regards to this? I've not heard of latency induced performance bottlenecks in recent years (then again I'm running C7 parts)
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June 1, 2011 8:26:10 AM

You could get dual-slot cards like the GTX580 to fit with a water-block. The only issue is most water blocks are again a 2 or 3 slot solution once you add SLI fittings. I'd love to build a SR-2 with seven GTX580 cards for a folding rig. Except the only thing holding a project like that back is finding a water block that offers practical connections for zero-slot spacing. Koolance/Swiftech/EKG are you listening?
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a b U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 9:01:00 AM

neiroatopelccDo you have a link to an article or something with regards to this? I've not heard of latency induced performance bottlenecks in recent years (then again I'm running C7 parts)
It's in one of the System Builder Marathon $2000 builds, where we picked the "legendary" Crucial RAM and got a new, sucky, high-density version instead. The new stuff was stuck at DDR3-1333 CAS 9, and Far Cry 2 suffered most by comparison to a previous system with the same graphics card.

That sounds worthy of an article but it's not, because the Far Cry 2 settings that showed the huge performance difference were far lower than anyone would use with those graphics cards. We're talking about way more than 100 FPS for the "slow" system. In other words, it's not a realistic test scenario and should be ignored.
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June 1, 2011 9:03:27 AM

the title should read, "whose card is fastest without killing your eardrums?"
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June 1, 2011 9:05:18 AM

okay so the timing issue really isn't worth mentioning? Good. Explains why I haven't heard about it before.

ps. usually only browse thru the smb articles to see if I agree with your hardware picks - mostly don't bother reading the blah blah surrounding it.
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a c 177 U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 10:29:00 AM

id like to start seeing Witcher 2 used as a benchmark.
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June 1, 2011 11:45:29 AM

yeah, a single slot gtx 460 should have been included in this article.
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June 1, 2011 12:10:55 PM

Ok, now do low profile cards?
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a b U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 12:25:47 PM

hixbotOk, now do low profile cards?
Did those, they suck. I mean, the low-profile "performance" cards are two-slots thick, so they don't fit the same cases, and those are the ones Don used.
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a c 204 U Graphics card
June 1, 2011 4:30:23 PM

I agree with TA152H; with the benchmark results intuitively obvious,I think a better article could have followed the title: "Single-Slot Graphics: Viable Gaming Options?"
There are single-slot HD5670 and HD5770 cards too, by XFX, so I suppose they must have chosen not to participate. Either seems likely to work very well for gaming in a mini-ITX system like Lian Li's PC-Qnx line of cases.
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June 1, 2011 5:40:18 PM

Following Jadavis and Rottingsheep, I think it would have been fair and good to add a Galaxy or KfA2 GTX 460 Razon Single slot. Just saying.. Makes sense
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June 1, 2011 6:13:16 PM

Earlier in the year I built a matx build and was in the market for a single slot graphics card. I looked at the MSI 450, the XFX 5770 and the Galaxy 460razor. The Galaxy was listed as "deactivated" at NewEgg and was over $200. The XFX won because it was on sale w/a MIR as well.

I needed a single slot video card to enable the use of the remaining slots for a wireless card, a tv-tuner card, and a sound card carried over from a previous build. This wasn't a power gamer build, just a desktop that I wanted to have better than average graphics response.

It's a shame single slot cards more powerful than the basic entry level card get no love anymore. We don't all need/want the 3 slot $700 ultimate gamer cards and double slot cards kill a matx or itx build by taking up so much space.

Thanks to Toms for at least staying on top of these few cards, maybe they can stay after the manufacturers to not abandon those of us who need a good mid-range single slot card.
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June 1, 2011 7:00:39 PM

blibbaSingle slot GTX 570.

cool but you would still need to 3 to run 3 monitors in vision surround so a single 2 slot card would still be more efficient in that case.
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June 1, 2011 7:08:10 PM

Thanks for another interesting article. I had been researching single slot cards for a while. I knew of Galaxy's GTX460, but not AFOX. I'd never heard of AFOX. Kudos to them for powering the 6850 off of the PCIe slot alone. As far as I knew PCIe x16 could only supply 75 watts. I guess PCIe 2.0/1 can supply more, but no one uses for compatability reasons? I think it's kinda cool that AFOX went on a limb to try something different --- especially since smaller cases can always use less cables. I'd switch to the AFOX in a heartbeat except for one issue no single slot card can escape --- god awful noise.
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a b U Graphics card
June 2, 2011 1:36:25 AM

Cool article!
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June 2, 2011 3:23:37 AM

So, due to no 6-pin connector the 6850 wont be good in Crossfire?
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a b U Graphics card
June 2, 2011 5:00:02 AM

cobra5000So, due to no 6-pin connector the 6850 wont be good in Crossfire?
I would have loved to test that, but I didn't have two cards. I'm going to GUESS that it really depends on the board.

Another option would be to pair a regular (6-pin powered) 6850 and this one in a system that has three slots of mounting space.
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a b U Graphics card
June 2, 2011 7:06:31 AM

Thanks for the article Crashman...but I really would like a comparison between these cards and their reference counterparts at identical clock speeds.

I think the power, noise, temp, & efficiency comparison could be really interesting. It would probably be worth still doing this since you already have the test data for the above cards.

Also, I cannot find a definitive answer on RAM speeds & timings for gaming. If you could expand on the 1600CL9 being necessary statement in a future article, that would be great! I saw that mentioned in the system builder that once and have recommended 1600CL9 ever since in the forum, but I'd like a thorough test to corroborate that tidbit of evidence (since I like to cite reasons for my choices).
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a c 124 U Graphics card
June 2, 2011 2:58:51 PM

That 6850 is impressive.
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a b U Graphics card
June 2, 2011 3:53:33 PM

GT 440 and GTS 450
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a b U Graphics card
June 2, 2011 3:56:15 PM

True, Witcher 2 should be used a benchmark as of now.
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a b U Graphics card
June 2, 2011 4:03:37 PM

Gman450GT 440 and GTS 450

I meant GT 440 and GTS 450
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June 2, 2011 8:46:10 PM



Yeah, that'll fit well someone who has "hearing impaired" problems with deep enough pockets, to get him self an EATX as well while his at it.
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June 2, 2011 9:24:16 PM

assmarCool. where can I get 4?



hello.....6850 don't support CrossfireX
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June 3, 2011 2:13:39 AM

That 6850 is nice. Glad to see a manufacturer pushing the envelope a little with their designs. Sweet performance from a card with no extra power connector.
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June 4, 2011 5:44:59 AM

blibbaSingle slot GTX 570.


That's pretty impressive, but I would be surprised if they ever end up selling that. I mean, what the hell kind of PC that needs a single slot card has room for a card over a foot long?
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June 4, 2011 6:20:33 AM

The graphs were intense. Such beautiful linear scaling!
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Anonymous
a b U Graphics card
June 4, 2011 1:30:11 PM

Another great article :) I was wondering about single slot cards a few days ago for my HTPC build where space is very limited. Very helpful.
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June 5, 2011 5:39:23 AM

That Afox card is really dangerous - I'm sure it will be bought by lots of people wrongly thinking it uses less power and can be combined with their old power supplies without PCI express power connectors. Or, people may buy them thinking they'll be able to run 3 in Crossfire using a 500-600w power supply.

Otherwise, motherboards can't really deliver 150 watts per slot - that power has to come from somewhere and it won't come from the 4-8 pin CPU connector, that power is usually only for processors (though I think those motherboards with 4 way crossfire/sli do use a part to power slots). So it has to come from the ATX connector, which has only two wires for 12V.

You can't really put more than 10-15A of power on each one and even that depends on the gauge of each wire, so we're looking at best at around 350 watts through those two wires... but that's pushing it. They connector would probably start smoking and wires would probably start to melt the insulation.

So considering the motherboard itself uses about 40 watts, imho one card may work but two cards is seriously pushing it.
I really don't see the need to remove that connector, it's not like it would mess up the "1U" height.
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June 8, 2011 10:54:05 AM

256bit vs 128bit... hmmm
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June 11, 2011 7:38:43 PM

HQV benchmarks would be good.

Seeing as these cards might end up in media/game pcs.

(For those who don't know HQV test dvd/blu-ray video playback quality)

Please.

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June 14, 2011 9:51:12 AM

Dont the EVGA gtx580 hydro copper count as a single slot card?
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a b U Graphics card
June 14, 2011 10:48:40 AM

KabooseDont the EVGA gtx580 hydro copper count as a single slot card?
That depends, does the entire cooler fit into a single slot?
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June 14, 2011 9:25:30 PM

No such thing as afox in Cali so must be a new company.

Would of been nice if it was a known company

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June 15, 2011 3:05:02 PM

Same here ( witcher 2 as Benchmark), also this 6850 single slot as 4X CF
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