ASUS Shows Off Concept GeForce RTX 40 Graphics Card Without Power-Connectors, Uses Proprietary Slot (wccftech.com) 90
ASUS is extending its connector-less design to graphics cards and has showcased the first GPU, a GeForce RTX 40 design, which features now power plugs. From a report: Spotted during our tour at the ASUS HQ, the ROG team gave us a first look at an upcoming graphics card (currently still in the concept phase) which is part of its GeForce RTX 40 family. The graphics card itself was a GeForce RTX 4070 design but it doesn't fall under any existing VGA product lineup & comes in an interesting design.
So the graphics card itself is a 2.3 slot design that features a triple axial-tech cooling fan system and once again, it isn't part of any interesting GPU lineup from ASUS such as ROG STRIX, TUF Gaming, Dual, etc. The backside of the card features an extended backplate that extends beyond the PCB & there's a cut-out for the air to pass through. The card also comes with a dual-BIOS switch that lets you switch between the "Performance" & "Quiet" modes but while there's a "Megalodon" naming on the backplate, we were told that isn't the final branding for this card.
So the graphics card itself is a 2.3 slot design that features a triple axial-tech cooling fan system and once again, it isn't part of any interesting GPU lineup from ASUS such as ROG STRIX, TUF Gaming, Dual, etc. The backside of the card features an extended backplate that extends beyond the PCB & there's a cut-out for the air to pass through. The card also comes with a dual-BIOS switch that lets you switch between the "Performance" & "Quiet" modes but while there's a "Megalodon" naming on the backplate, we were told that isn't the final branding for this card.
do not need crap like this needs to be standard (Score:2)
do not need crap like this needs to be standard
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You need some basic grammar and a realisation that every standard at some point was a demo product.
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You need some basic grammar
So do Slashdot editors.
"features now power plugs"
instead of
"features no power plugs"
"Spotted during our tour at the ASUS HQ, the ROG team" ...but I'll stop here, because all those mistakes also exist in TFA. If only ChatGPT would proof text before pasting...
Good thing that team is easy to spot.
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That card needs power now, it needs power sooner rather than later.
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So... it will get power from every now and then connectors.
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Talk about grammar, TFS doesn't make any sense!
It says the graphic card is without power connector but it also says it has a "now" power plug.
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But at least it has capital letters and full stops.
It says the graphic card is without power connector but it also says it has a "now" power plug.
I instantly knew they were talking about no longer having a connector which you need to plug in. But you're absolutely right given TFA has this in its lead-in text: "ASUS Is Preparing GeForce RTX 40 Graphics Cards That Don't Have Any Power Plugs, Use Proprietary-Slot Instead"
But we all know Slashdot editors are incompetent.
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Asus has a history of proprietary slots that never become a standard like Asus Media Bus or MIO.
Proprietary Slot? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Indeed. to be fair, there are a lot of those.
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That said it'll probably show up in a few pre-builds (probably from Alienware). Bit of a pain because it means you might have to watch what you're buying on the secondary market in a few years.
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microChannel
'nuff said.
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Even if it did and history repeats itself, it would mean nVidia's proprietary slot is destined to be obsolete almost as soon as it's available.
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That said, I agree with other folks that I'm not comfortable with 200+ watts going through my mobo
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I think the main problem is that we've let CPU and GPU companies go up to completely crazy power requirements. I mean, look at the history of Pentium CPUs: P1 was ~8 to 16W, P2 was ~17 to 43W, P3 was ~16 to 43W and P4 was ~47 to 115W.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sure, compute-per-watt is now becoming a thing, but IMHO this needs to be scaled back to more sane levels and ARM sure seems to be the future.
Same thing for GPUs. Stop with the insanity already, a home computer shouldn't need more than 500W tota
The way it's going (Score:2)
Soon the VGA will become the de facto motherboard, beside the meme.
Think of a motherboard but with an embedded VGA on it, with all the heat sinks, fans, etc. Or a VGA with a motherboard embedded on it.
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I mean if were designing a motherboard today you could probably make a case for something more akin to a dual socket for the CPU and GPU (probably something with integrated VRAM since I have read it can't be socketed due to latency) which would allow bigass proper air coolers or AIO rather than the kindof shoehorned abominations we get not with add on cards, a layout designed in what, the 70's?
Look at like a 4090 4-slot which needs physical supports to keep it from pulling the slot right out of the board.
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It's like Highlander, but for graphics cards.
"Now" power plugs... (Score:2)
... they're so NOW!
Good idea ruined by greed (Score:2)
This is a cool idea, but since it is a proprietary standard there's a higher chance of it flopping. Will this connector work with 50xx and 60xx series cards? Who knows? Why would I buy a motherboard without some assurance that it'll stick around for at least a couple more generations of graphics cards? No thanx I will wait for the industry consensus version.
No proprietary slots. Ok with power plug (Score:5, Insightful)
So I need to buy a motherboard with a special proprietary slot in order to save myself the effort of plugging in an industry standard power plug to the video card?
I have absolutely no problem with a video card power plug. Never even thought of it as an issue. I just plug it in and forget about it. Since when were power plugs a rarity in a PC system?
I do have a problem with proprietary slots. Doubly so when there's no benefit and that motherboard probably costs more, too.
To get what? A 4070 card?
Is there anyone on the planet that will benefit from this?
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Aren't you aware of the multiple cases recently posted? Apparently, graphic card power connector are really bad and are a tremendous fire hazard! /s
There were several articles right here on Slashdot about PC catching on fire because of graphic card power connector!
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Then change the power connector - that's the simplest and most effective solution. There are 36V 10A connectors we use at work that are smaller than Molex - more than enough for any graphics card (or the whole computer for that matter).
The vendor is trying to pull an Apple - muscle a proprietary technology through based on market share, and then "own the standard". Fuck the greedy pricks.
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You must have missed my /s tag and my signature. Cheers!
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Nope, I am saying making proper connectors shouldn't be rocket science and having power going through the slot is overblown...
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The issue wasn't the standard 8pin molex connectors, it was the proprietary adapter that failed
Will anyone benefit? Yes, Asus hopes they will. (Score:2)
They seem to be quickly trying to kill their business with bad ideas and quality control issues.
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I was wishing for something like this when all the 4090's were melting connectors. Those and even the old molex one's are only 'officially' rated to be plugged/unplugged like 30 times. Granted that should be plenty, but it's so low because it's simply a poor interface.
So I like this idea a lot since it's what I wound up thinking. Power needs to come from the slot. People have been saying this for ages though iirc.
I do NOT like who is offering this though. Fuck asus and their overpriced and now anti-competit
Re:No proprietary slots. Ok with power plug (Score:5, Insightful)
Power needs to come from the slot.
That's a really bad idea. Higher end cards can draw hundreds of watts and you don't necessarily want that much current going through your motherboard. And if something goes wrong, say a short, I'd really rather replace a power cable than the board when the graphics card fails.
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Doesn't need to be on the silicone. It can ride on top, be routed around, whatever. There's no reason it needs to be worse than it is now other than doom and gloom is high fashion currently.
Ha...
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Silicone? You have no idea how PCBs are constructed, do you? The cross-sectional area of the wires that were used to transfer all that power to graphics cards before now needs to be replaced by copper traces on the motherboard. Traces can only be so thick so to build out the required CSA they need to be really wide which makes it harder to route stuff around them.
All NVIDIA have achieved here is change the burning-up point from the shitty molex connectors on their graphics cards to the shitty molex connecto
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I meant PCB, totally yup. Also agree with what you are saying. Which is why I was hinting at something else. Like a small conduit that sits on the pcb and goes wherever it needs to. So, not just wire, but wire encased. How that interface works in line with the current socket is a job for some engineer. All gpulords would have to be on-board too though, so it's all moot since that will never happen. Not in this climate.
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like a copper trace, which is the fundamental property of a printed circuit board?
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Bad news then, some Intel CPUs already draw hundreds of watts under normal operation. The motherboard is already providing that power to the CPU socket.
In fact quite recently ASUS had an issue with their motherboards producing a slightly too high voltage, resulting in a burnt out CPU and damaged motherboard.
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Higher end cards can draw hundreds of watts and you don't necessarily want that much current going through your motherboard.
Disagree. Motherboards have the great benefit of providing power planes. That is a copper plane with current carrying capacity significantly larger than cables. They already need to do this. You think your hundreds of watts on the connector is scary? Watts aren't the limiting factor here, current is. Motherboards (and GPU boards) as it stands need to not only cope with the power from the connector, but then step it down to a really low voltage with ludicrous amperage to actually power the GPU / CPU, and the
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I don't see anything wrong, in principle, with using PCB edge connectors for considerably more power than desktop hardware historically has(they certainly work fine for things like hot-swappable server PSUs); but it's hard to get too excited when
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> Is there anyone on the planet that will benefit from this?
Asus and nVidia.
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I have absolutely no problem with a video card power plug. Never even thought of it as an issue.
Most people don't on their PCs. On the other hand the gaming PC world is a world of show. Rainbow LEDs, glass panels, and cable management are all a big BIG deal in the high end gaming PC world.
Since when were power plugs a rarity in a PC system?
You've just stumbled upon the core problem. They aren't a rarity, and people do want them to be. A large portion of PC cases already go to great lengths to hide every possible cable. RA connectors in motherboards mean the visible cables connected into many of them appear only about 1" long. The only standout that can
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You're right. I'm definitely not the target demographic. I buy cases without side windows. Memory without lights. Video cards based on fps or fps/$. And so on. I don't give a shit what the inside of my case looks like. I do buy modular power supplies because an excess of cables can be physically difficult to fit in some cases but not for the cleaner look.
I'm sure there is some trivial number of people willing to pay more to pay more to get a proprietary slot to hide 1-2 cables so they can put some pi
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Is there anyone on the planet that will benefit from this?
I could see a segment for this. For small form factors/ITX builds and/or an aesthetic builds. Cables ruin aesthetics.
But it being non-standard is not a good thing.
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Most people who make ITX and SFF builds tend to avoid components that require multiple hundreds of watts per component. Sure there are a few, but those people would be better served by micro-ATX builds.
What a fabulous point of failure! (Score:3)
Great, so now if something goes wrong and it melts down... there goes the whole motherboard. And ASUS will not cross ship when their products crap out, so you can wait for it too.
Homebrew builders will love reseating the CPU and heatsink and then recasing the whole thing. Maybe other things on motherboard power get a power surge and fry too. This all sounds very exciting. No thanks.
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But don't you want the liability of an extra 300-800W flowing through your motherboard? Think of all the magic smoke that could be released that you'd be denying.
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roughly a cm
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Great, so now if something goes wrong and it melts down... there goes the whole motherboard.
Why would it? Motherboard are already designed to deliver hundreds of watts and even hundreds of amps to components on the board. Overcurrent protection is a thing. There's no reason to think your motherboard will blow up just because something goes wrong in the GPU.
Re: What a fabulous point of failure! (Score:2)
Not on Asus boards they overvolt the piss out of your cpu no matter what it's set to and let it over current until the frigging silicon melts and causes a mild explosion taking out both the chip and the board
These ass hats can't manage basic voltage regulation and current protection on a 700$ motor now you trust them with powering a gpu?
"features now power plugs" (Score:2)
That should definitely be "features no power plugs."
Just plug connector into motherboard? (Score:2)
Great! (Score:2)
Vendor pushes proprietary crap, calls it "better" (Score:2)
Obviously anybody with a minimal clue will stay far away from this.
Nearly useless if nonstandard (Score:3)
Even if the accompanying motherboards are attractive on their own merits and not priced like they are being sold to locked-in buyers of expensive GPUs you are still rolling the dice on future availability of motherboards that will work; and are essentially certain to be disappointed if you ever(either for your own use; or by reselling the card when you upgrade) want to shuffle this GPU off to more cost-sensitive duty elsewhere once it's no longer shiny and new.
It's an extra hard sell given that the alternative is just putting whatever inputs you are adding to the motherboard to let it source that much +12v from the proprietary slot on the card instead; 12VHPWR is certainly the least lovable PCIe power connector yet; but (unless there some sort of Nvidia licensing fuckery involved) there's nothing stopping you from just using 6 or 8 pin PCIe instead.
Given the tendency, especially of x16 cards, to be fairly high power(not just GPUs, though those are the major offenders in desktops, more serious NICs and CXL devices are also pretty toasty) it seems like there's a solid case to be made for a standardized mechanism to provide more than 75w without extra cabling; but that's not an argument in favor of being stuck with the pre-standard version.
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I would definitely be happy to get away from mini-fit jr. connectors. I would prefer a power cable with a better connector on it to a different bus, but perhaps we could have a board design with a high power connector next to (in line with) the bus connector? The problem there is, I'm not sure I actually want that much power going through my motherboard. No, in fact, I'm sure I don't.
Mini-fit jr. is fine for reasonably low-current applications, but it just doesn't make sense to use it for this. Molex even h
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I'm not sure I actually want that much power going through my motherboard. No, in fact, I'm sure I don't.
I do. A powerplane in a motherboard can carry a metric fuckton more power than a cable/connector combination. 12V with several hundred watt is nothing for a motherboard which already has a task of stepping down 12V to Vcore voltages at hundreds of amps for a CPU.
Give me a big sheet of copper (motherboard) over a crappy little cable and connector any day of the week.
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A powerplane in a motherboard can carry a metric fuckton more power than a cable/connector combination.
First of all, there is always going to be a connector involved, so get this powerplane/no connector vs cable/connector idea out of your head immediately. We are talking about a new slot, not about integrating the GPU. Putting the GPU on the same board as the CPU is a reasonable idea, and it works for consoles, but it's not what we're talking about here.*
Second, the motherboard is already carrying a metric fuckton of power. I do not want to add a second fuckton to it, with its attendant heat. The board is al
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The entire motherboard is non-standard. With connectors on the back it won't fit in a standard ATX case.
This GPU and mobo are a showpiece for a highly custom build, nothing more. It's not a general purpose product aimed at you (normally I'd say you, or I, but I have a gaming PC with a glass case, custom cabling, etc, etc, so it actually is targeted at me even if I'm not interested)
I want vendor lock-in, shut-up and take my money! (Score:1)
Reminds me of MCA all over again.
Maybe ASUS will have their own OS and lockdown CPUs to their motherboards too?
Yikes. (Score:1)
Thanks, but (Score:2)
We don't need another proprietary slot.
That being said, I am okay with this kind of experimentation. If there is a market, other manufacturers will come up with their own ideas, and soon we might actually have a standard. Worst case, those who bought this will be stuck in the past.
ASUS making this open is very unlikely though. They don't even use thunderboit for external GPUs, but their own "XG" port. (Same one on the new ASUS handheld "ROG Ally"). And that had no viable generic adapters so far.
Anyway, good
Back to AGP and eGPUs? (Score:2)
With GPUs needing this much power, it makes me wonder if we need a port just dedicated to the video card, like AGP. Or, have Thunderbolt and have the video card in its own dedicated box, where it can suck up as much power as needed. eGPUs are definitely not new (IBM had an eGPU for AIX, the GXT-1000 in the early/mid 1990s), but the advantage they do offer is that regardless of the PC case or form factor, if the PC has a Thunderbolt port that can support the graphics in and out, the GPU case can be anythin
Thunderbolt bandwidth sucks for that and needs? ba (Score:2)
Thunderbolt bandwidth sucks for that and needs? base system video.
Thunderbolt right now is at most pci-e x4 that is way to low for video card use even more so if it needs to pass video data over that bus as well.
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Just give us VESA Local Bus, but swap-out the 16-bit ISA portion for an IBM EISA slot.
In all seriousness now, this seems like a solution looking for a problem, and that it would make a lot more sense to introduce a new rail on a power supply and associated harness than to go with a proprietary slot on a motherboard. Changing a power supply is usually very straightforward and we've already seen augmentations in the past.
what bullshit (Score:2)
this is maximum wank.
No power plugs (Score:2)
Does it come with a spot for a ZPM ?
Ah ha (Score:2)
I've actually been wondering for a while why boards don't have a special GPU slot, since GPUs seem to have higher and higher power and throughput requirements every year.
I've seen separate boxes for some GPUs but it seems like this (or something like it) will become the next standard.
Connector-less, with obvious connectors (Score:2)
Hmmm... That sure looks like a connection for power at the end of the board, with a connector on the motherboard for it to fit into. Maybe if the said plug-less, I could believe them. A PCI slot is a connector. Something with 16 plated fingers on it that sure looks ready to mate with the edge connector on the card ought to be called a connector.
What's with this desire to call it connector-less?
Useless even if standardized (Score:2)
Proprietary? (Score:2)
I have the orders product name:
the Asus GTFO
Very, very VERY bad idea (Score:3)
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No one is driving anything with tracks on a PCB. Power is provided through the PCB using power planes. By the way what do you think your GPU is made of? Magic pixie dust? Those 500W (and higher) are already going through a PCB.
It's hard for me to describe how stupid this idea is.
It's hard for anyone to describe how stupid the idea is because it falls in a weird gap. Those people who don't know what they are talking about can't figure out why it's stupid. Those people who are actually electrical engineers know it's not stupid.
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Bring back Voodoo Volts! (jk) (Score:2)
Although maybe not, if in fact it could be made a superior way to power extremely demanding video cards. Literally plugging your card into a wall/UPS/surge protector socket at least sounds a bit appealing anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Voodoo 5 6000
The Voodoo 5 6000 is the unreleased high-end product in the Voodoo5 line. It was to use four 166 MHz VSA-100 processors, each with its own 32 MB of 166 MHz SDRAM, resulting in the first 128 MB graphics card (consisting of sixteen 8 MB chips). Approximate
What could go wrong? (Score:3)
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400W is trivial to pump through a PCB. Not only is that already very much a thing which happens for high end CPUs, but your GPU is also ... wait for it, this will blow your mind... a circuit board with 400W going through it.
Powerplanes have an incredibly high current carrying capability. The 400W being delivered at 12V is utterly trivial compared to the current power power conversion that needs to be delivered to the actual GPU / CPU silicon. That's where the engineering challenge lies, and even that isn't
...uses a proprietary slot. (Score:1)
DO NOT WANT!
They need to stop (Score:2)
This is a crock of shit (Score:1)
Uh, No Thanks. (Score:1)