Plenty of AC and 6 cards don't have heat spreaders. I'm not saying they are just there to make the card look faster but my ac router is stronk and it has a tiny 30W power brick. e: And a PCIE 1x slot is limited to 10W.

Plenty of AC and 6 cards don't have heat spreaders. I'm not saying they are just there to make the card look faster but my ac router is stronk and it has a tiny 30W power brick.