Nvidia has introduced a brand new graphics card at its GTC 2023 occasion, the Nvidia RTX 4000 Small Kind Issue (SFF) Ada Era, and it might repair one among my largest points with Workforce Inexperienced’s newest GPUs – their dimension.

Because the identify suggests, as a Small Kind Issue graphics card, this GPU has a compact design meaning it could actually slot in smaller PC instances. With a peak of two.7 inches (68.58mm) and a dual-slot width of 6.6 inches (167.64mm), this can be a a lot shorter (but barely thicker) GPU than the RTX 4080. It additionally has a comparatively low energy consumption of 70W.

That is a horny proposition for anybody who needs to suit a robust GPU right into a compact PC. As somebody who has sadly needed to transfer on from my small kind issue PC as a result of ever-expanding dimension of contemporary GPUs, this has acquired me excited – however there’s a catch.

Not for gaming

As you may guess from the truth that the RTX 4000 SFF was introduced at Nvidia’s GTC occasion, which is primarily aimed toward enterprise, AI, and scientific customers, the RTX 4000 SFF isn’t a gaming GPU however is as a substitute aimed toward compact workstations. So, when you might not wish to put it in your SFF gaming rig, it does imply you possibly can construct a robust small PC that provides the Mac mini, Mac Studio, or perhaps a Mac Professional (if a brand new one ever will get introduced) a run for its cash.

With 6,144 CUDA cores, 192 Tensor cores, 48 RT cores, and 20GB GDDR6 reminiscence, the Nvidia RTX 4000 SFF seems to be prefer it’ll be a robust little GPU, even when it doesn’t compete with the RTX 4090. In keeping with Nvidia, the RTX 4000 SFF can “switch knowledge to and from its reminiscence extra shortly, leading to improved graphics, compute, and rendering efficiency,” due to its elevated reminiscence bandwidth, and it additionally helps DLSS three upscaling. Whereas used rather a lot in gaming, this will also be helpful for 3D modeling and recreation improvement.

The specs additionally counsel that the RTX 4000 SFF might definitely deal with trendy video games, although regardless of how eager I’m to get a compact Lovelace GPU to place in my small gaming PC, I wouldn’t suggest it. It’s doubtless that Nvidia will solely launch Studio drivers for this GPU, fairly than Recreation Prepared drivers, so recreation efficiency wouldn’t be optimized. As a compact, highly effective, GPU aimed toward artistic professionals, it’s additionally more likely to be very costly (Nvidia hasn’t disclosed costs simply but).

So, I’m going to have to attend a bit longer for a compact RTX 4000 gaming GPU. Nevertheless, with the  RTX 4000 SFF, Nvidia exhibits that it’s potential. The sheer dimension of the newest gaming GPUs has been disappointing to see, because it’s made them not possible to put in in some PC instances. I hope that whereas the corporate won’t produce any small RTX 4000 gaming GPUs any time quickly, third-party producers like Zotac, Gigabyte, and Asus could possibly be impressed.