I think HD3450 is be the best low profile AGP card, but not 9x compatible.

I've been looking for something a low profile for my vectra vl420 sff P4 2800 but I haven't been able to find anything I'd consider "good". So far I'm sticking with a Chaintech SL5700LT2 (FX 5700LE 128MB 64-bit). Not horrible, it scores ~8000 pts in 3dmark 2001. The alternative was a 128bit radeon 9250 witch has better memory bandwidth but lower core performance, or a 64 bit low profile 6200LE AGP witch performs about the same as the 5700 but has compatibility issues with some games due to forcing me to use a much newer driver.

Btw the card must have win98 drivers else it's useless to me.

Right now I'm seriously considering a flexible AGP riser and a GF4 Ti4200 or fx5900xt

There were few models of low profile radeon 9550 and 9600se, not exactly stellar and weaker than 6200A (in pixel shader heavy games at least) but still win98 compatible.

chiveicrook wrote on 2022-05-12, 13:53:

There were few models of low profile radeon 9550 and 9600se, not exactly stellar and weaker than 6200A (in pixel shader heavy games at least) but still win98 compatible.

I've been looking for a 9550 low profile for a while but they're as rare as hen's teeth. The 9600se on the other hand is a mess... it's quite a bit slower then my FX 5700LE witch was really disappointing. My 5700LE is clocked lower then the full-fat 5700XT, but it still runs at 275Mhz core clock and can easily do 330Mhz stable. The 9600SE Low Profile (64bit) on the other hand is a dumpster fire... my card runs at 250Mhz (out of the 325Mhz it's supposed to run at) and can barely d0 290... It scores a grand 6000 pts in 3dmark 01 and is a stuttery mess in some games.

Rikintosh wrote on 2022-05-11, 19:26:

I have a compact barebone, and currently it has a GF4 ti 4200, however it is a normal sized board, and its height hinders the air circulation inside the case a little.

Not really a reason to get a new card, IMHO. Usually can be helped somehow, if really necessary.

Rikintosh wrote on 2022-05-11, 19:26:

I was thinking of switching to a low profile GF6200, and doing that pipe mod and some overclocking, but before facing the fateful search for an NV43

The GF6200, is that particularly rare? Strikes me as a rather boring budget card, should be to be found for around $20?

If not that, consider a gf7600, if that's to be fund LP. There's the edition of G73-B1 in a smaller, 80 nm semiconductor, with lower power consumption.

If trouble finding any, consider researching certain OEM cards from Dell, HP, etc. They often used budget chips in LP, just not always to be found with correct listings.

What's that "pipe mod"? Unlocking a crippled budget card to a more powerful chip?

NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 AGP ? Low profile card, passive cooled, cheap, w98 supported. Maybe a bit slower than GF4 Ti 4200 and needs that DMS-59 adapter.

EDIT: ok maybe the NVS 280 isn't that good: Quadro NVS 280 for directX7 games, alternative to the FX5200 128bit when mx 440 is faster

I've been looking for a 9550 low profile for a while but they're as rare as hen's teeth.

Not sure if it will help but it seems that HIS models are somewhat more common and not valued much, unfortunately I think they are 128mb 64bit only despite not being marked "SE".
128bit LP versions are unobtanium.

As long as you have room in your case to mount a bigger gpu, agp riser cable might be a better option but these are also getting rare though.