ASUS Has Created an RTX 40 Series GPU That Uses a Proprietary PCB Connector Instead of Standard Power Connectors

Peter_Brosdahl

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ASUS has created a new graphics card design that uses a proprietary PCB connector for power delivery instead of connecting to a power supply. The folks over at Wccftech spotted the new design while taking a tour at the ASUS HQ. The demo concept card is an RTX 4070 which is said to be 2.3 slots wide and does not have any of the traditional ASUS branding such as Strix, TUF, etc. ASUS ROG recently teased an upcoming graphics card unveiling over the weekend and that card, while bearing no resemblance to this one, was also missing any branding besides the ASUS logo.

ASUS has moved all power connectors, including 3x 8-pin and a 12VHPWR, to the backside of this demo Z790 TUF Gaming ATX motherboard. This means that cases would also have to be designed in order to provide access to them. There are obviously pros and cons to such a design. On one hand, the front of the motherboard will primarily only have components such as CPU, memory, GPU, and NVMe drives making a clean build fairly easy. On the other, builders will need to plan for having all their cables behind the motherboard.

See full article...
 
Burticus said:
But..... why?
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It's not a bad idea, but it does lock you completely into the Asus ecosystem. The end result would look clean and sharp, and moves all those cables out of the way and out of the path of air flow.

Asus is big, but I don't know if they are big enough to drive this by themselves. It might gain some traction if it were paired with ATX12VO from Intel (which I also think is a good idea, although I realize that isn't a universal opinion around here) - if you are the one making the motherboard and PSU, after all...
 
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Brian_B said:
It's not a bad idea, but it does lock you completely into the Asus ecosystem. The end result would look clean and sharp, and moves all those cables out of the way and out of the path of air flow.

Asus is big, but I don't know if they are big enough to drive this by themselves. It might gain some traction if it were paired with ATX12VO from Intel (which I also think is a good idea, although I realize that isn't a universal opinion around here) - if you are the one making the motherboard and PSU, after all...
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While the GPU slot is new, putting everything on the back of the miotherboard is not, MSI and Gigabyte have both already done it, not sure if it is a succes but seeing more companies are doing it, there must be a market for it.
 
MadMummy76 said:
Not catching fire?
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Sure, but now they are piping an extra 400+ watts through the motherboard? All they did was move the power connectors to the back of the motherboard.... so melty cables still gonna melt right?
 
Stoly said:
So AMD and olders cards can play too.
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Those would plug in the card as they do now, no need for back connectors for those, it's probably so you can keep your current PSU
 
Burticus said:
Sure, but now they are piping an extra 400+ watts through the motherboard?
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If it is isolated with enough clearance from low power circuits that should not be a problem.
Burticus said:
All they did was move the power connectors to the back of the motherboard.... so melty cables still gonna melt right?
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Depends in the implementation, how well the cable is retained by the connector. The problem I see is people trying to jam it into cases not designed for it, bending or breaking cables. At least it's a $500 MB that melts and not a $2000 GPU, right? 😂
 
Brian_B said:
Doesn't the card have to plug into the proprietary motherboard socket though? So would it matter if it's AMD or nVidia then?
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In case your PSU doesn't have a HP connector, just regular PCIE ones.
 
Niner51 said:
Doubtful since not many really are melting. They keep trying to bring this back to be a real problem.
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"Oh, only a handful of Pintos explode when being rear ended, therefore it is not a real problem"
 
Burticus said:
so melty cables still gonna melt right?
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I was thinking about this too. Out of sight, out of mind is great but then the back of the case often has less space than the front and we all know that the 12VHPWR needs clearance before the bend. If someone makes a nice, short, stout, cable with a right angle that could be a great solution but otherwise I'd be worried about the bend. Basically, the cure-all for this design is that it has to come with its own right-angle 12VHPWR cables so the user doesn't have to source them.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
I was thinking about this too. Out of sight, out of mind is great but then the back of the case often has less space than the front and we all know that the 12VHPWR needs clearance before the bend. If someone makes a nice, short, stout, cable with a right angle that could be a great solution but otherwise I'd be worried about the bend. Basically, the cure-all for this design is that it has to come with its own right-angle 12VHPWR cables so the user doesn't have to source them.
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In related news, Silverstone has a 90 degree cable coming to market soon - will be about $20-25...
 
MadMummy76 said:
"Oh, only a handful of Pintos explode when being rear ended, therefore it is not a real problem"
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LOL, now we're back to comparing things with cars again? The tech world just loves beating a dead horse into submission these days. Just like the Asus (and others) issue with AM5 cpu's. They have nothing else to talk about so they just keep harping on the same thing and bringing things back to talk about it again and again. This "hobby" is getting tiring to be involved in anymore.
 
David_Schroth said:
In related news, Silverstone has a 90 degree cable coming to market soon - will be about $20-25...
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cablemods already has a series of adapters out , one already melted also, and it was seated all the way in, took the repair guy several minutes to get them apart.
 
Niner51 said:
LOL, now we're back to comparing things with cars again? The tech world just loves beating a dead horse into submission these days. Just like the Asus (and others) issue with AM5 cpu's. They have nothing else to talk about so they just keep harping on the same thing and bringing things back to talk about it again and again. This "hobby" is getting tiring to be involved in anymore.
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If it were crashing to desktop or something like that ok I get it.

If we're talking about potential fire hazard taking out a home... that's a different issue entirely.

When heat is enough to melt parts of the connectors and STILL not shut down the system for safety there is a bigger problem here. One that needs to be addressed.

I'm not an expert on what is going on here, but I wonder if the inserted connector is folding the thin metallic sleeve in these and causing it to deform against the plastic and create a avenue for current that is causing the high resistance/heat issue.

That at least might explain some why some people get this and some don't.

Someone needs to talk to the engineers at Zotac because we gave them so much **** for the 30 insertions for the connectors claim that they made... I think they saw the writing on the wall and understood the problem before anyone else admitted it.
 
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