Asus has simply unveiled a brand new graphics card connector that does away with the facility cables and sockets of typical playing cards, and as a substitute depends on a motherboard slot to ship energy, in a position to ship as much as 1,000W. The brand new Asus graphics card connector is an extension of the corporate’s back-to-the-future (BTF) connection system it unveiled a few years in the past, however this time the corporate has considered the right way to make the system extra highly effective and extra suitable.
Asus unveiled BTF on the tail finish of 2023, with the system designed to dispose of cables within the entrance of a PC, and as a substitute have the perfect graphics playing cards of the world draw their energy from a connection on the motherboard. The issue with the primary iteration of the design, although, was that BTF graphics playing cards couldn’t slot in non-BTF motherboards, making it a really restricted system.
The brand new BTF normal, although, introduces a brand new connector, known as GC-HPWR, that not solely delivers much more energy than earlier than, but in addition has a retractable design that permits graphics playing cards outfitted with the connector to plug into typical motherboards. This in concept permits patrons to improve to a BTF graphics card earlier than switching to a BTF motherboard. Or, it permits a purchaser to maintain their GPU, in the event that they determine to change away from the BTF system at a later date.
BTF doesn’t simply magically present further energy via your motherboard, however as a substitute depends on the additional cables you usually plug into the highest of a graphics card being related to the again of the motherboard. The facility from these rear plugs is then routed to the GC-HPWR slot for a cable-free have a look at the entrance of your construct.
The unique model of the BTF graphics card connection may solely ship 450W, whereas a revised model boosted this to 600W – sufficient to energy an RTX 5090, in concept – however the brand new normal takes it far additional with a 1,000W ranking. Not solely does that imply it could actually energy no matter over-engineered, overclocked video card that Asus would possibly need to provide you with, but it surely ought to guarantee the chance of fires brought on by high-power GPU cables is lowered, assuming the cables at the back of the motherboard are fitted appropriately.
Asus highlights the steel design of the connector “to make sure mechanical reliability” together with “heavy copper utilization” to cut back resistance and safely ship all that energy.
As one would count on, to ensure that this retractable new cable to be an non-obligatory energy supply system, Asus additionally specifies in its BTF specs that playing cards can have typical top-mounted energy cable sockets too. Whether or not Asus will engineer its card to have an non-obligatory cowl for these sockets stays to be seen, as going to all the trouble of hiding your cables solely to have an ugly, unoccupied energy socket staring out of your case would appear to defeat the aim of the BTF system.
Asus isn’t the one producer wanting into cable-free connection programs, with MSI Undertaking Zero and Gigabyte Undertaking Stealth offering different takes on the concept.
In case you’re seeking to construct a very clean-looking gaming PC, these cableless connector concepts are very interesting, although they inevitably come at the next value – with new circumstances, such because the Corsair 2500X that’s out there right here, usually required in addition to new motherboards and graphics playing cards. So, in case you’re on the lookout for a extra inexpensive setup, take a look at our greatest gaming motherboard and finest PC case guides, which spotlight a spread of typical choices.
