Galaxy GeForce 9600 GT LP Review – Low Power, Low Profile

If you are like me, you may still not get the initial importance of such a card at first glance.  Or maybe even fourth glance.  But the market that Galaxy is attempting to fill with this product is quite big:

This is shelf of PCs at my local Best Buy – you’ll notice that two of the four cases seen here are “normal” sized while the two in the middle are much smaller.  What you are seeing is a low-profile design that PC manufacturers like HP, Dell, ASUS and others are including in their product line that prevents standard sized PCI Express card from being installed. 

Since most of these systems come with relatively low-end integrated graphics, users are very limited in how they can upgrade their systems.  Very few cards meet the “low profile” requirement and even fewer will also work well with a sub-300 watt power supply either.  Galaxy’s 9600 GT LP does just that.

This HP system was one of three I found at my store that would not take a regular PCI Express card because of size.  There were four others that didn’t have the necessary 6-pin PCIe power connection other 9600 GT cards would require.  That brought the total to seven systems out of 15 on the shelf that wouldn’t be able to use most of the graphics cards available on Best Buy’s own shelf!

I assume that many of you reading this are NOT in this scenario – you either built your PC yourself with standard equipment or bought one from a PC vendor that didn’t have such restrictions.  But I am betting you have been or will be approached by a friend or family member with this problem: how can they upgrade the gaming power of their PC?  Now you are educated enough to help them make a good buying decision.