Bigger has typically meant better when it comes to graphics cards. But as the success of products like AMD’s R9 Nano or Asus’ Nvidia GTX 970 Mini have shown, there’s a growing demand for powerful graphics cards that don’t require a oversized tower to house them. Until recently, the most powerful card in the smallest package was the Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Mini, which measures 211mm in length.
Gigabyte has gone one better with the release of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Mini ITX 8G, which measures just 169mm in length. That’s a perfect match for mini-ITX motherboards, which top out at around 170mm in width.
Many of the new breed of ITX cases, which includes the popular NFC S4 Mini, shrink the total size of the case to console-like dimensions by limiting the length of graphics cards to the length of the motherboard. While Zotac’s GTX 1080 Mini will technically fit in such cases with modification, the Gigabyte GTX 1080 Mini simply slots in place.
