Asus has unveiled an innovation that should make gaming systems better looking and easier to maintain. The brand is experimenting with a new power-delivery solution that upgrades the original PCIe slot to support more power, thus removing the need for additional power cables on low and mid-range GPUs. These upgraded slots are expected to handle up to 250W while retaining compatibility with older GPUs.
Presented by Asus’ China General Manager Yu Yuanlin, aka Uncle Tony, the prototype motherboard and graphics card feature modified PCIe fingers/pads that have been widened and thickened to support higher power transmission. The brand expects to feed up to 250W via the PCIe slot alone, removing the need for auxiliary 8-pin cables on many mid-range cards.
While this new approach requires higher-conductivity materials and a larger terminal cross-section to handle the increased current capacity, it remains compatible with existing cards. In other words, compatible cards will be able to take up to 250W from such a motherboard, while incompatible cards will work like before, requiring a 6 or 8-pin cable.
Understandably, power has to come from somewhere; in this case, the 8-pin cable that was previously connected to the GPU will now be hooked to the motherboard. If this innovation is ever released, it would make for the cleanest builds when paired with back-side power motherboards.
Note however that Asus mentions support for 250W via this concept’s PCIe, despite including only a single 8-pin connector for auxiliary power. For those unfamiliar, the 8-pin is rated for 150W, while the PCIe can provide 75W – 66W of which are 12V. Thus, we are 25W short of what Asus advertises. That said, both the 8-pin and PCIe can handle more than their official ratings, so maybe Asus is taking advantage of that, or finding extra power somewhere else.
In any case, delivering anything near 200W should open the way for many cards to be fully powered from the PCIe, removing the need for bulky and unappealing cables. Cards like the 180W RTX 5060 Ti and the 220W RX 9070 should feel right at home. This should also simplify installation and maintenance, especially for novice users who may be worried about mixing 8-pin and CPU EPS cables.
As for higher-tier GPUs, Asus has another innovation called GC-HPWR, which was demonstrated delivering 1,000W. Combining both should ensure enough power even for the most demanding hardware, perhaps for multiple generations to come.
Either way, Asus seems fixated on eliminating all cables from view, be it on low-, mid-, or high-end products. All that is left is to finalise this promising design, hopefully making it open to other brands for implementation to drive adoption.
