ASUS delivers 250W of power through PCIe with “magic modification”

ASUS wants to make cable-free GPUs a reality, even for lower-end GPUs

ASUS China’s Tony Wu, via IT HOME, has unveiled ASUS’ plan to deliver 250W of power delivery to regular PCIe slots. This would allow GPUs like AMD’s Radeon RX 9060 XT or Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti to be powered without the need for any power cables.

In recent years, ASUS has explored cable-free GPU power through its BTF/GC-HPWR ecosystem. This solution is great for graphics cards that require a lot of power. However, this solution is overkill for lower-power systems. By using a “magic modification” to standard PCIe slots, ASUS can deliver up to 250W of power to graphics cards.

ASUS’ modification uses the unused gold pins at the front end of PCIe slots. By merging five 12V lines and replacing them with stronger, more conductive materials, ASUS can increase the power capacity of PCIe slots from 75W (which is set by the PCIe standard) to 250W. Additional power is given to the user’s motherboard using a standard PCIe 8-pin power connector.

Custom PCIe slots and motherboards

This “magic modification” from ASUS requires GPUs to be redesigned to take more power from these custom PCIe slots. Furthermore, it requires motherboards to be modified to deliver this extra power.

Since this new power delivery system uses unused aspects of the PCIe interface, these mods do not impact the compatibility of these custom PCIe slots with standard PCIe products. If ASUS explores this new power delivery system further, it could usher in an age of “cable-free” PCs. While ASUS’s BTF motherboards and GC-HPWR power connectors are great for high-end systems, it is overkill for mainstream PCs. Note that this new solution from ASUS is only good for powering GPUs with TDPs of up to 250W. This means that Nvidia’s RTX 5070 is the most powerful GPU that this custom PCIe slot can power.

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