GPU Comparisons

The Zotac GeForce GT 1030 Low Profile Graphics Card is featured at #1 on this list as it offers great balance between a GPU made for gaming and barebones video output. For those who are looking for a cheap, low-profile video card that offers them an acceptable performance on gaming at 1080P, the Gigabyte GT 1030 low-profile graphics card may be a good option for you. Even if you are looking to play current PC games on a PC, when having a low-profile graphics card, then you could still do that with the help of Gigabytes GeForce GTX 1650 Super OC.

In fact, the most effective and powerful graphics cards are usually available in low-profile form, and I cannot leave out ZOTACs GeForce GTX 1050 Ti in this regard.

Overall, Gigabytes Geforce GTX 1050 Ti OC graphics card offers great performance, a reasonable aesthetics, and a solid cooling design, making it a great option. If you have a system prone to overheating, because of the dimensions of the package, as well as the cooling that is available, the Gigabyte Geforce could be an excellent replacement for the GPU. This card gives you more space inside the machine for cooling, but at the same time, it will still keep those strong graphics that you require.

The Gigabyte Geforce means anyone who is interested in turning around the life of their older computers has the option of doing so with a relatively low investment. While not powerful enough to get into advanced pro gaming or specialized, the card is capable of taking a modestly appointed computer up to casual hobbyist level of play, just by installing it easily.

If you are planning to build a gaming computer within a mini-ITX or micro-ATX case, and need a smaller graphics card to fit within, then either option above should do. If you are planning to build a smaller system, the following are the options below that are compact graphics cards that will meet your needs, regardless if your budget is big or small.

Nearly all of the lower-profile graphics cards are designed to fit into stock mounts, meaning that you can probably buy another mount that allows the lower-profile graphics cards to fit into standard-sized PC cases. Both of these will generally share the same chip size and brackets, although these will differ a fair bit, so be sure the low-profile graphics card you purchase is suitable for your case as well, and there is plenty of room inside your case. While some low-profile GPUs are really tiny, there are a large number of them that are a bit larger than others, which could become an issue, particularly if you are trying to build the smallest gaming PC possible or are aiming for a specific build.

A lower-profile card that has lower power requirements, is silent, and is smaller in size is generally going to have somewhat less sophisticated graphics processing, though, and a card like this cannot generally compete with the performance of larger video cards. A low-profile high-quality card may be a bit harder to come by, however, and dedicated PC gamers will generally find that such a cards graphics processing is insufficient for running new games at higher video settings.

You will barely find high-end graphics cards at lower profiles, although you can easily find low-end GPUs at mid-range prices that can handle 1080p high graphics settings at a playable framerate. You can easily envision lower-profile GPUs being comparatively cheaper than typical graphics cards, and then it depends on various factors including aesthetics, RGB, heat-cooling design, and general performance.

Often misused as an umbrella definition of smaller/more compact GPUs, Low-Profile GPUs are actually graphics cards that have a maximum height of 2.536 inches, and depending on MD1 or MD2 size specifications, maximum lengths of 119.91mm (4.721 inches) or 167.64mm (6.6 inches), respectively. A Half-height graphics card is also known as a low-rise graphics card, where it is installed comparatively lower in height compared to the rest of the offerings. Typically, low-profile graphics cards feature single slots in contrast to a standard GPU, and are shorter.

If you want to buy a smaller, lower-profile graphics card for your PC, you can look at GPU models such as GT 710, GT 730, GT 1030, and GTX 1650 from Nvidia, and the Radeon 7750 from AMD. Today, users do not just have one choice to go for the high-end GPUs; rather, they can get even half-sized graphics cards that offer nearly as much horsepower required by AAA gaming titles, as well as reasonable FPS results.

If you are looking to build a gaming PC in the smaller form factor, we have listed the top seven lower-profile graphics cards in this guide, in different price points and level of performance, to help you find the right choice for your system. To make it easier to make a decision, we have provided the table below with a brief overview, listing our top choices for the best low-profile and mini-form-factor video cards across various categories.

If you want an absolutely tiny GPU, you are going to have to deal with lower clock speeds and temperatures, which can in some cases prove to be unpleasant. You are getting a GPU that is a little worse performing, but it might be quieter, and will require less fuss in terms of cooling. You get a GPU that performs exactly like a full-size model, but it will get hotter and produce more noise.

Single-fan GPUs are extremely compact, meaning that there is less surface area to heat up, plus, they have just one fan, making cooling that much harder. Incredibly powerful graphics cards come with dual fans, but due to their reduced size, you will not find that they produce nearly as much noise as fans on standard-sized GPUs. In the end, however, low-profile, compact GPUs are niche markets for PC builders who, above all else, must work within size constraints, and can tolerate a hit to performance from thermal throttling or slower clock speeds.

One of the fastest ways to solve this issue is by reseting your graphics card on Windows 10, including using the hotkey, but there are several other ways of solving this issue. One of the fastest ways to reset or reboot your graphics card is to hit the keyboard shortcut Windows Key + Ctrl + Shift + B. Please press the windows, Ctrl, Shift, and B keys together to reboot your graphics drivers.

This command will cause your screen to go black for a second, but restarts your graphics driver, potentially fixing whatever problems you are having. You do not need to wait for Windows 10 and 11 to catch the error, since you can reboot the graphics driver manually. This ability to restart the driver automatically is incredibly handy, but you should not wait for the system to catch up.

Other drivers may also get stuck, sometimes, and can be restarted manually, with some help from the device manager. Other drivers may also eventually freeze, and that requires visiting the device manager to be reloaded. If this does not fix your issue, you may want to try to reinstall the drivers for it.

Restarting a driver may fix small problems that appear out of nowhere. For instance, if your monitor suddenly starts showing artifacts, restarting its drivers might solve the issue.

If your graphics card has a lingering issue, restarting its drivers will not solve it. If you killed the driver process, Windows automatically restarts it. Once the removal is completed, you can restart the device, and Windows will automatically install the graphics drivers again.

After the graphics driver finishes its restarting process, your Windows experience will appear the same as before. Your Windows experience will resume once this process is completed.

You will see the PC froze, your screen went black, and the PC came back to normal life with the sound of the alarm. By default, doing this will make a Beep sound, and your screen goes black for a brief moment. Your screen will go black for a brief moment, you will hear the beep, and then it will return to normal.

Anytime you start doing anything that involves a visual graphics, the system can freeze, bringing up a blue screen before you. If your system stops working, and there is a blank blue screen before you, you have to assume your graphics card is what is causing problems. If your graphics card is malfunctioning, then you might encounter a black or flashing screen on your Windows device.

There may be a few reasons why the graphics card is not working, or why you are seeing a message on the screen saying the display drivers stopped responding and recovered. If your Display Driver has gone bad, then simply rebooting might not fix your issue easy. Remember, it is quite possible in rare cases your PC will not reinstall your drivers automatically.

Windows 10 will update your graphics cards drivers automatically via updates it deploys. Heres how to update graphics card drivers on Windows 11 machines. You can restore the graphics drivers using Windows Shortcuts or the Device Manager, the step-by-step is given below.

Using the Win+Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut in Windows is the easiest way to reboot graphics drivers in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Use the Win+Ctrl+Shift+B combination on the Windows 11/10 keyboard.

If your PC does not respond to either of these shortcuts, even after you rebooted its graphics drivers, then you probably will have to do a hard shutdown. This shortcut for Windows is a useful way to make sure that your GPU is working properly, without having to reboot the whole PC. After you do, your screen might go black for a brief moment as your troublesome graphics driver re-initializes.

If the windows shortcuts are not working due to any reasons, such as Ctrl keys do not work, then you can reinstall the graphics driver through Windows built-in tool, the Device Manager. To manually reset graphics drivers, you can use Win+Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut. Pressing Reset Video Driver Hotkey whenever there is any display problem, just hit the keyboard shortcut Windows + Ctrl + Shift + B.

This will bring up an Updates window, click Automatically search for drivers. Search the driver from the list, and then click Update to download and install it. The Driver Easy software will scan all of your drivers that are causing problems, and the screen will display the option to update.

Also, Windows may fail to automatically install a damaged driver once you have removed it. If Windows 10 and 11 continue to lock up after you reinstall your driver software, it could be deeper problems. It does not matter how powerful your gaming PC is; you are probably going to run into problems using Windows.

While the GPU is going to run the best way if and when it does not exhibit any of various major issues such as overheating and unsustainable performance, thankfully, there are plenty of ways you can diagnose and fix the flaws of your graphics card. Especially if a dying GPU is just failing when playing heavier games, or even lighter games, there is a very high probability the graphics card is defective.

If your GPU has damaged parts, or debris in important components like fans, then chances are that it will get too hot and die. Sometimes, if the fan stops working, this will result in your GPU running hotter, causing malfunctions and shortening your GPUs life. Fan noise is not directly related to GPU dying, but can be the reason for the graphics card dying.

Listen out for GPU fans suddenly getting louder, or constantly shifting to overdrive even when not gaming, etc. A complete lack of fan noise could also suggest an overworked fan has failed, with a graphics card not far behind. If GPU fans are making a consistent, loud noise, that means that they are working overtime to keep the GPU cool, and that may be the problem. When your system is under stress, or you have been using it for an extended time, its cooling fans are running at higher speeds and making more noise.

When playing games around the clock, this causes excessive heat, which may impact the performance of your system. You might not realize your GPU has failed or died until the PC crashes while using it. Most often, you will know that your card has died when you cannot restart the system.

You will begin to notice signs of your video card dying, like stuttering, forced restarts, and so on. If fans stopped working on your card, or if you see any leaky or bulging capacitors, then its time to get a replacement. If overheating is an issue, or the dying PSU is defective, look at the fans and cables, as these are probably the root problems that are causing your problems.

If problems such as stuttering occur on various media, and you are trying to fix the other possibilities, this may be a sign your graphics card is failing. Note that crashes may also occur when your video card does not support the software that the game is running. In some cases, the screen crash will occur only while playing games or running programs that use your video card.

In worst cases, screen glitches happen even when the GPU is in standby mode. There can be game crashes caused by glitches in-game, or minor screen hiccups. When a GPU is malfunctioning, a PC can crash and encounter problems with restarting.

Sometimes, when a GPU is defective, you might have a situation where your PC reboots, freezes, or shuts down unexpectedly. You might not realize your GPU has died until the computer crashes in the middle of a game, or smoke starts coming from your computers chassis. If you are playing games with higher power levels than your GPU can handle, then you are going to quickly find that the GPU is dead.

The minute you try using your GPU for something that requires a little bit more power, it is simply going to crash at the desktop or reboot the machine entirely. Otherwise, your GPU will keep on ticking away at you, creating worthless game latency. If a strange hiccup keeps coming up with each different game, even after restarting your PC several times, then that is your graphics unit; it is going to die.

If your computer suddenly starts to stutter or slow down at things that were doing just fine before — particularly anything graphics-intensive, such as games, rendering, and so on — then it is possible your GPU is dying. If your PC is turning into a portable oven every time you try to do something graphics-intensive, chances are, your GPU is dying. If you are doing something graphics-intensive, such as playing games or watching movies, maybe the blue screen indicates your GPU is dying.

Graphics-intensive tasks could include playing games, running video editing software, watching high-quality movies, etc. If a blue screen appears while performing any of those processes, you might experience signs your video card is dying. Considering virtually everything that is graphically intensive is running on your bad GPUs shoulders, getting telltale signs of a near-failure is always absolutely devastating. Believe it or not, your GPU is smart enough to give you a few early signs of failure, such as crashes and unusual noises.

Obviously, graphics and display issues on your monitor are a sign, but there are plenty of other indicators pointing towards a pending GPU disaster. If your PC starts showing tiny dots, strange lines and patterns, or visual junk, then it is likely your GPU is on the verge of seeing its last days. A dying GPU is a frustrating GPU, because it may make your PC crash frequently when gaming.

A dying GPU is not the only thing that can cause programs to stuttered and slow down. A dying GPU will exhibit several signs over time, including flickering screens, out-of-color pixels, and occasional screen crashes. While GPU issues are easily solvable and fixable, you may not realize that your GPU is dying until something dramatic happens.

GPU crashes can occur anytime, and there are plenty of telltale signs that indicate that your GPU has failed, including smoking coming from the PCs chassis, or consistent crashes in games. If you are using your graphics processing unit, or GPU, with extreme care, it may be capable of lasting decades, but it could get damaged if any electrical or internal faults occur. A weak card, poorly-coded games, or driver issues could cause your screen to also stutter, and it is still worth checking that it is well-maintained, especially if you believe that you have installed a powerful graphics card.

You may have witnessed an overheating issue when playing a favourite game that uses the graphics processor (GPU), and want to test your graphics cards health. Remember, overheating your GPU is a major reason why your card is dying. If overheating happens only after rendering 3D graphics for some time, or if your GPUs fans are loud while rendering, you may want to check your graphics cards temperatures.

Now, we are going to look at whether GPU is having any problems with overheating or graphics when running games. If the graphics drivers are constantly failing, then excessive GPU overclocking and temperatures are the primary cause of the problem. Sometimes, while playing a video game, your GPU might not render graphics properly.

If you are playing games that are more demanding than the GPU can handle, then you are going to quickly find that your GPU is dying. A dying GPU is a frustrating GPU, because it may make your PC crash frequently when playing games. A dying GPU is not the only thing that can cause programs to stuttered and slow down.

The most common indication that your card is dying is that you often experience crashes while running graphics-intensive programs. In some cases, the crashing of the screen occurs only while playing games or running programs that use your video card. There may be game glitches causing a crash of a game, or slight on-screen errors.

Note that glitches may occur even if your video card does not support the software that the game is running on. If issues such as stuttering occur on different media, and you are trying to fix the other possibilities, this may be a sign your graphics card is failing. A failing graphics card will result in the screen freezing while playing games or videos, and can occasionally crash your computer.

It is also worth noting that if you do not have a graphics card and are using a graphics integrated into the motherboard, the problems may be a signal of a motherboard malfunction, rather than a graphics issue. You tried doing a quick switch between dedicated graphics cards to integrated graphics cards while trying to fix the black screens. If you are getting Blue screens while performing visual demanding tasks, then it is possible that your GPU is ready for replacement.

If users are getting a blue screen error, particularly while performing graphics-intensive tasks, it is possible that your GPU could be having problems. If you are doing certain graphics-intensive tasks, such as playing games or watching movies, maybe a blue screen indicates your GPU is dying. Graphics-intensive tasks could include playing games, running video editing software, watching high-quality movies, etc. If a blue screen appears while performing any of those processes, you might experience signs your video card is dying.

When you are enjoying a favourite game (a graphics-intensive task) and the screen goes black, your graphics card is about to die. There is no telling how many times the blue screen of death may occur before the graphics card completely dies. A dying GPU will exhibit several signs over time, including flickering screens, out-of-color pixels, and occasional crashes on screen.

Especially if the dying GPU is just failing when playing heavier games, or even lighter games, there is a good chance the graphics card is defective. GPU crashes can occur anytime, and there are plenty of telltale signs that indicate that your GPU has failed, including smoking coming from the PCs chassis, or consistent crashes when playing games. Believe it or not, your GPU is smart enough to give you a few early signs of failure, such as crashes and unusual noises.

You may not know that your GPU has died until your PC crashes in the middle of a game, or smoke starts coming from the PCs chassis. Most often, you will know that your card has died when you cannot restart the system. You will begin to notice signs of your video card dying, like stuttering, forced restarts, and so on.

When GPU is defective, PC may freeze up and has problems with restarting. When a GPU dies, your monitor remains in idle when your PC is turned on, and on other occasions, you may hear beeps or warning codes coming from your motherboard.

Obviously, graphics and display issues on the monitor are a sign, but there are plenty of other indicators pointing to a pending GPU disaster. Considering virtually everything that is graphics-intensive is running on your bad GPUs shoulders, getting a telltale sign that it is about to fail is always absolutely devastating.

If your PC suddenly starts to stutter or slow down at things that were perfectly fine before–especially anything graphics-intensive, such as games, rendering, and so on–your GPU may be dying. If you are still suffering slowdowns on graphics-intensive tasks after all of this, then you could argue it is probably a hardware problem stemming from your GPU. You might not realize your CPU or RAM are bad until you need to push them through heavy workloads, such as rendering the graphics from #d in a high-resolution game.

While a graphics card is going to run the best it can unless and until it shows some severe issues, such as overheating and unsustainable performance, thankfully, there are plenty of ways you can diagnose and fix graphics card flaws. If your GPU shows different severe bugs such as overheating with unstable performance, you can return the graphics card either to the company or Mediator for overhauling. A weak card, poorly-coded games, or driver issues may cause your screen to stutter too, and is still worth checking for a healthy state, especially if you believe that you have got a high-powered graphics card installed.

These problems may be caused by other hardware or software issues as well, so users should perform troubleshooting to make sure it is the GPU, and not another component, that is the fault. Excessive GPU overclocking, heat, or even accumulation of dust particles may result in artifacts on the screen. You might even notice that the graphics in your games are blurred, particularly if the occasional artifact appears in an uncharacteristic location on the monitor.

You can update your laptops video card with the boring process of upgrading your GPU, which is also how you update your laptops graphics cards. Unfortunately, in order to really update your laptops cards, you need an upgrade in your GPU, which is also attached to your motherboard.

If you are looking to upgrade the graphics cards, and you do have a GPU on your laptop, then you are going to only see improvements to the displays if you are upgrading your CPU, and if that upgrade includes a GPU improvement. If your Laptop has dedicated GPU, or dedicated graphics card slot, which has compatibility for MXM 3.0, then you may be able to improve your graphics.

Only a few very selected laptops allow for direct upgrades of graphics chips. There is only a very select selection of gaming laptops that allow you to upgrade your graphics card.

If your laptop has one of the above GPUs, you will likely be able to get a compatible upgrade from the manufacturer. To answer the question, if you are looking to do a GPU upgrade on a laptop rather than getting a new laptop, then yes, but only under certain circumstances. The option of upgrading your laptops graphics card is a nice one to have, but rather than spending more than a thousand dollars just to upgrade a relatively outdated systems GPU, you could simply get a new laptop with the current specs.

With a modification kit, like those offered by Eurocom, you can install a new graphics card into the laptop and benefit from the many additional graphics horsepower. If you have a compatible laptop, there are various options that you can take to gain additional graphics power to use with gaming and for other tasks. Before you get too excited, these options do not mean that you can just pop in the card and instantly have a bump in the graphics power of your laptop.

Plugging really just gives you extra graphics out, so you can power external displays in addition to the built-in laptop screens. The easiest way to make a go of it with GPU options is to purchase an external graphics processor unit (GPU) and attach it to your gaming laptop.

You will want to have a compatible port, as an external GPU needs to be able to push graphics information quickly enough into your laptop. Your laptop needs to have the Thunderbolt 3 port in order to be connected to the gaming rig, which is compatible with both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards. Your laptop must have a compatible port and a gaming box to house your video card, since they are powered via ThunderBolt 3.

If this is you, then keep in mind that some device manufacturers offer their own external GPU housings which you can attach to your laptop through the ExpressCard slot. If your laptop has either a built-in graphics card, or a discrete GPU soldered onto your motherboard, and you want to upgrade your GPU, you will have to get yourself an external GPU enclosure.

If you are upgrading from an integrated graphics, then your laptop will have a lot more graphics power with an external GPU enclosure than it does without one–do not expect desktop-like performance. If you are feeling the same, but you hate not being able to play every latest title, there is a way to gain a little more graphics performance out of your laptop, and that is to use an external GPU enclosure kit which can accommodate a desktop graphics card. If you have a Thunderbolt 3-capable compatible laptop, you can purchase a desktop graphics card and external GPU enclosure kit, and attach them to start taking advantage of higher-speed graphics.

With an eGPU equipped, your laptop can issue requests for graphics that the laptop needs to render to be pulled from an external dock instead of from your devices internal graphics card. The eGPU is a separate piece of hardware you can use to boost the graphics on your laptop, so that it can run games more demanding than what it is capable of at present. Using a laptops graphics processor, you can play games or encode/decode videos while still having the convenience of throwing it into a backpack.

External GPUs (eGPUs) let you attach an external hardware bridge to a laptop, which increases its graphics capabilities. An external GPU, known as an eGPU, allows your laptop to enjoy graphics similar to those of a desktop. An eGPU can easily outperform the internal graphics capabilities of a laptop, allowing more demanding software and more advanced games.

Since laptops are basically computers that you can take anywhere, most current laptops come equipped with a really nice graphics capabilities. An important point to note here is that nearly every laptop CPU has integrated graphics, whether from Intel or AMD.

Some higher-end or gaming laptops also have optional discrete graphics. The point is that most laptops come with dedicated GPUs — NVIDIA and AMD are the most common.

Even the ones that do can take a bit of complicated configuration, including finding an eGPU enclosure made by the same maker as the laptop. Remember, not every laptop is compatible with an eGPU, and some might even require the eGPU to be made by the same manufacturer as your laptop. If you are not sure about GPUs and suitable cases for your laptop, there are useful websites to guide you on assembling a suitable EGPU.

Even if there is a discrete graphics card for laptops, unfortunately, you cannot change that, since GPUs are soldered onto the motherboard before they even leave the factory and make their way into your hands.

Since an actual integrated graphics card is embedded into your laptops motherboard, the only way you could update would be by swapping motherboards, or having a professional install another integrated graphics card. The vast majority of laptops feature integrated graphics, meaning that the GPU (graphics processing unit) is permanently attached to the motherboard, rather than being removable like it is on desktop PCs. Laptops may utilize external video cards to get optimal gaming performance, since upgrading the graphics card is difficult.