ASUS is extending its connectorless design to graphics cards and introduced its first GPU, the GeForce RTX 40 design, which now features power sockets.
ASUS makes GeForce RTX 40 graphics cards that don’t have any power jacks, use a proprietary slot instead
Spotted during our tour of ASUS HQ, the ROG team gave us our first look at an upcoming graphics card (currently still in the concept stage) that’s part of the GeForce RTX 40 family. The graphics card itself was a GeForce RTX 4070 design but it doesn’t fall under any group. VGA products exist and come with an interesting design.
ASUS Concept GeForce RTX 4070 GPU without power sockets
So the graphics card itself is a 2.3-slot design that features a 3-axis cooling fan system and again, it’s not part of any interesting GPU suite from ASUS like ROG STRIX, TUF Gaming, Dual, etc. The card features an extended backplate that extends beyond the PCB and there is an air pass hole. The card also comes with a dual BIOS switch that lets you switch between “Performance” and “Quiet” modes but while there is a “Megalodon” designation on the back panel, we’re told that’s not the final branding for this card.
The most interesting aspect of this graphics card is that in addition to the standard PCIe Gen 4.0 x16 slot, it also has a special slot attached to the PCB where the power is fed through. There are no actual connectors on the PCB and we’ll explain where the card gets its power from in a bit. ASUS told us the slot is proprietary though we’ve seen a similar implementation of the slot on AMD’s Radeon Pro offerings for Apple Pro systems.
The connector is rated to deliver up to 600 watts of power and will use a proprietary connector available on select motherboards.
ASUS Z790 TUF Gaming ATX motherboard with rear connector design
For demo purposes, ASUS also showed off a Z790 TUF Gaming motherboard that has no power connectors on the front. All connectors are on the back. The Z790 TUF Gaming’s connectorless design hosts three 8-Pin connectors and one 12VHPWR connector. These connectors feed power to the graphics card directly through the special slot.
The motherboard itself is an ultra-standard Z790 TUF gaming design in an ATX form factor that features an LGA 1700 socket, 16 + 1 phase VRM connectivity with 60A MOSFETs, all of the latest I/O connectivity, two PCIe 4.0 x16, two PCIe 4.0 x1 slots and one PCIe slot. 4.0 x4 single. Only the higher PCIe 4.0 x16 slot contains the proprietary connector. It also comes with a PCIe-Slot Q-Release slot. All M.2 slots are covered by heatsinks and feature the M.2 Q-Latch.
The connector itself is called “GC_HPWR”. ASUS will have an official name soon to be launched.
According to ASUS, both motherboards are scheduled to hit retail later this year, and unlike non-BTF-connector motherboard offerings that were limited to China, these two lines are expected to be available globally.
In terms of pricing, while it’s still early to say how much these GPUs and boards will cost, ASUS has said that they will be priced slightly higher than regular SKUs due to the additional manufacturing costs associated with moving and realigning the connectors on the PCB. If you go for the motherboard you can use almost any graphics card fine but if you buy the new GPU that doesn’t have a connector then you need to buy the motherboard as well since no other design supports such a slot.
You can also see pictures of the motherboard without the ASUS connector and the GPU installed in the chassis from the front and back. Note that the housing will also need to be designed accordingly to have support for new rear connector designs on upcoming devices. Obviously, this will be a limited production run in the beginning because companies still need to know whether or not there is a demand for such products in the market.
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