Compact builds are becoming increasingly popular each year. Small form factor (SFF) cases can lead to a smaller desk footprint or a rig that can sit snugly underneath a TV. The big concern, at least when trying to assemble an SFF build that is powerful enough to play the latest PC games, is whether or not the hardware will fit.
Noticing the trend, NVIDIA announced, as part of its Computex 2024 announcements, a new 'SFF Ready' label that denotes which GeForce RTX 4070 through to GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER GPUs can fit in smaller SFF cases. It all boils down to GPUs and SFF cases meeting specific dimension criteria (NVIDIA told us that pretty much all GeForce RTX 4060s are SFF Ready), and you can see all of the GeForce RTX cards (and compatible cases) here.
With that, ASUS is introducing a new line of budget-friendly GeForce RTX GPUs that are SFF Ready and called ASUS Prime. So far, the company has announced three models: the Prime GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, Prime GeForce RTX 4070, and Prime GeForce RTX 4060 Ti.
One thing to note is that the Prime GPUs sport a triple-fan cooling system in a thin profile. ASUS notes that every millimeter of the physical design ensures it lives up to the thermal performance (and expectations) we've come to expect from ASUS's GeForce RTX line-up. It's an interesting choice, especially when you factor in the company's dual-fan Dual series (which we love) GPUs are already SFF Ready. In fact, the minimal look of the new Prime series reminds us more of the ProArt GPUs than anything gaming.
ASUS is launching a range of Prime gear, including an ASUS Prime motherboard (Prime X670E-Pro Wi-Fi), an ASUS Prime AP201 chassis, and a Prime AIO liquid CPU cooler. The image above shows all of ASUS's Prime gear in a complete build, so it'll be interesting to see how ASUS's budget and mainstream-friendly Prime gear fares compared to the competition.