Bear in mind again in 2008, when you may get a high-end graphics card that solely took up one PCI slot in your desktop case? Good occasions, good occasions. It isn’t 2008 anymore, and as we speak a “slim” model of a mid-range card nonetheless wants 2.5 slots…which successfully means three slots taken up in your motherboard and housing. So it’s with the brand new MSI GeForce RTX Gaming Slim sequence, coming in RTX 4060 Ti, 4070, and 4070 Ti flavors, with 4080 and 4090 variations coming later. The playing cards nonetheless include assist brackets.
To be truthful, the Gaming Slim playing cards are smaller than most playing cards with OEM-supplied coolers in the marketplace as we speak. In line with MSI’s promotional website (noticed by AnandTech), the RTX 4070 model of the cardboard is simply 46mm broad…which continues to be 6mm wider than the inventory Founder’s Version cooler. And that 6mm makes an enormous distinction, blockading one other PCI-Specific slot in your motherboard, and presumably even making MSI Gaming Slim model of the cardboard incompatible with some Mini-ITX circumstances. The 4070 Ti model is a hair thicker at 51mm.
At 46mm broad, the RTX 4070 Gaming Slim card continues to be thicker than the Founder’s Version model, and nonetheless blocks a 3rd PCE Specific slot in your motherboard.
MSI
At 307mm lengthy, the playing cards are additionally greater than 60mm further in size versus the 4070 Founder’s Version, and 22mm longer than the 4070 Ti. Once more, it’s nonetheless shorter than a lot of the OEM card designs, however should you can’t beat the dimensions of the unique cooler, what’s the purpose? The triple-fan Slim and X Slim MSI playing cards provide the same old delicate overclock versus inventory playing cards, an additional 135Hz on the 4070 Ti model…however that hardly appears cogent should you’re promoting a “slim” model of the cardboard that’s nonetheless fatter than the inventory design.
Possibly the 4080 and 4090 model of the Gaming Slim playing cards will provide higher comparative sizes — Nvidia’s inventory coolers for these chonkers are 61mm broad, a hair over the complete triple-slot width. However for the launch variations of those new MSI playing cards, they stand extra as an indictment of the large dimension of recent high-end graphics playing cards than an answer to them. MSI didn’t provide any dates or costs on the time of the announcement.
