Compact DIY spin on RTX 4070 Ti shows Nvidia how to make graphics cards that don’t eat all your motherboard slots

Disassembled graphics card XFX GPU AMD fan screws screwdriver on a table

(Image credit: Wirestock Creators / Shutterstock)

An intrepid modder has shrunk down Nvidia’s RTX 4070 Ti so it’s a much more compact graphics card that’ll fit into smaller PC cases.

This impressive feat of PC component DIY was posted on Reddit by modder TechTaxi, as VideoCardz reports.

We should note upfront that the modded RTX 4070 Ti is still just a prototype, and TechTaxi concedes that there is “still more work to be done to make it more polished and fully functional” right now, and they can’t make any promises that the project will come to fruition. (There are previous projects that have been realized, mind).

At any rate, it looks very impressive, with the RTX 4070 Ti being shrunk down so it’s a single-fan, 2-slot graphics card (the original is a beefy triple-fan, triple-slot card, although we have seen 2.5-slot versions out there – we’ll come back to that point later). It’s only 173mm long and just under 42mm thick, so fits nicely into smaller form-factor (Mini-ITX) PC cases.

As you might imagine, this shrinking process does entail compromises, namely undervolting the card – reining in its performance – to ensure thermals remain at palatable levels. But even with the volume turned down, so to speak, the RTX 4070 Ti can still be a very potent performer for running all the best PC games.

Analysis: Shrinking ambitions

Wait a minute, you might be thinking – isn’t Nvidia abandoning the RTX 4070 Ti, now the RTX 4070 Ti Super is inbound to replace it? Well yes, in theory this is the case, and production of the RTX 4070 Ti is being halted. (That’s not officially confirmed by Nvidia, but it’s the word on the grapevine, and it fully makes sense – there’s not room for both cards, really, in the Lovelace range).

However, the modder believes the custom cooler and the setup seen here should work fine with the RTX 4070 Ti Super – assuming that this prototype is actually proven to work in its RTX 4070 Ti form.

Even then, you can’t buy this DIY graphics card, of course. Although TechTaxi does say that: “If it works out then I may make a couple for sale to those who are interested.”

We shall see, but the interesting bit here is that TechTaxi has made other trimmed down DIY graphics cards in the past, with takes on a dual-slot RTX 4080, and a twin fan dual-slot version of an MSI RTX 4070 Ti.

The latter could have even been the inspiration for MSI producing an official 2.5-slot MSI 4070 Ti Ventus 2X around four months after the DIY card appeared. Or at least TechTaxi’s innovation seems the likely source of inspiration – that and the interest in the project showing the level of enthusiasm from small form-factor PC builders.

So, maybe – just maybe – we might see an official version of a compact RTX 4070 Ti Super for small PC cases in the future. More broadly, exasperation over the likes of chunky RTX 4060 graphics cards may strike chords and perhaps see vendors make trimmer, lower-end boards (which really shouldn’t be beefy slot-eating monstrosities, let’s face it, but there are 2.5-slot incarnations of the 4060 out there).

TOPICS

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).