ASUS Shows Concept GeForce RTX 4070 Without Power Connector

[Tomorrow]

There hasnt been a single fire with the 12vhpwr,and every occasion that resulted in a a damaged connector was due to poor instalation of the actual cable.

No fire yet. We cant predict the future. Hopefully the changes made by Intel have made it more robust. Also you assume 8pin incidents are not caused by user error? I doubt that. If there was a major 8pin manufacturing defect or just bad design then we would be hearing about this all the time.

 

[Dristun]

Good luck finding buyers for this card when you want to upgrade your GPU.

That's why Asus launched their trade-in program in select markets. They are going to double down on trying to convince a bigger subset of DIY to just buy everything from them. I suppose others (except maybe Acer) are just not big enough to even try but hey - it's interesting, both this connector as a concept and the move in general as a strategy.

 

[AusWolf]

This should be standardised!

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Just call a national strike and massive protests, demanding that GPU architecture designers come up with ones that give the RTX 4090 performance, but only draw 75 watts, or less, total for the entire graphics card. That will make additional power cables useless.

 

[Metroid]

This is insane, if this becomes the standard then motherboards will have a 3 months warranty instead of the standard 3 years because of this , leave the 8 pin alone, it is good enough.

 

[dyonoctis]

I see that many people don't have any trust in the engineering skills of motherboard makers . Apple has been using that concept since 2019, and there's no report of mac pros self-immolating

 

[TechLurker]

It's like everyone forgot that this isn't new; Apple already did it in 2019 with their Cheese Grater Mac Pro, with a second pure-power PCIe connector, and ASUS has also been experimenting with similar back with their Utopia Prime concept that hoped to cut down on cable clutter by just embedding the power connections into the motherboard.

Sure, I wouldn't trust ASUS with power delivery consistency given their recent issues that GN pointed out, but the idea itself again is not new, and has been proven in at least one instance, even if it's a niche one (outside of regular servers, which I'm told does also use a similar power delivery setup but integrated into mezzanine riser/daughter boards).

If anything, it'd be a good idea for AIB GPU makers and board partners to add, removing the risk of fire at the pinouts (esp. with Nvidia's pointless connector). The issue then is more about dealing with sag, and preventing GPUs from damaging the slots.

 

[Guwapo77]

This most definitely needs to become the standard. This allows for better air flow and less need for cable management. I have three 8-pin connectors going into my GPU and no real way to hide them. This is one step in the right direction. This is long overdue.

I don't understand the problem all the hyper negativity towards this "concept" when there are no real negatives behind this tech.

 

[RegaeRevaeb]

First, for those comparing this to Apple's solution, recall that company is incredibly vertically integrated and maintains controls on its engineering, production, suppliers, etc. The x86 DIY market is more capitalistic and the Wild West in comparison for whatever that's worth better or worse.

Second... woah are the ITX builds?

 

[Blitzkuchen]

Why use a standard cable if u can sell ure garbage boards with unique connectors for u unique gpu.

ASUS suck, it isnt anymore premium quality like in 2010, now its just garbage (like tupperware on teleshopping)

 

[Yrd]

Super long cards and proprietary tech, no thanks. It might be too long for mini-itx mobo. I like the idea though.

I remember a time when we didn't even need power cables for GPUs. I would like to return to that time. The amount of space required for those extra pins is small. Just make a longer PCI slot and include power with it. Hopefully that's in the pipeline for PCI upgrades.

 

[kawice]

I'm waiting till this will backfire on Asus.

You can't really pump 600W by something like this. That is why we have two 8 pins connectors for CPUs and we had two 8 pin connectors for GPUs rated at 300W.
While I understand that no one wants four 8 pin connectors for GPUs, you can't really pump twice as much power over a single connector with low grade materials and smaller contact area. It's just against known laws of physics. The whole idea with 12VHPWR is just missed and broken at design level. They don't want to admit that cause they would need to refund all those people who bought ridiculously expensive 4090s.

My guess is they will silently reiterate on 12VHPWR connetor for next gen GPUs making ATX 3.1 standard or simply drop it all together with "better" solution and sell it as improvement for next gen cards like currently they try to convince us that graphic cards with 8GB VRAM are future proof because they have large cache.

 

[maxfly]

Let Asus have their fun. If it works, good on them for stepping outside of the box. If not, meh, who's going to notice? The beta testers they gift the boards and GPUs to (buried under legalese)? Option 2 for a new and improved interface is... Intel and Nvidia try again. Joy.

Who else has the cash, resources and clout to even attempt things like this? Who knows what may ultimately come of this venture. Maybe we luck out and it eliminates the 12VHPWR cable altogether.

 

[jonnyGURU]

If Asus didn't patent this (not saying they did), I'm fully behind this.

Who knows what may ultimately come of this venture. Maybe we luck out and it eliminates the 12VHPWR cable altogether.

This is what I'm counting on. The 12VHPWR connector made by 2021 a living hell.

I agree, 8pin should have more issues because of how long it's been in use, and it has. You can just Google and see numerous reddit post. A guys house totally burned down lol.

There hasnt been a single fire with the 12vhpwr,and every occasion that resulted in a a damaged connector was due to poor instalation of the actual cable.

Any fires that have occured due to a PC having an 8-pin vs. a 12VHPWR has nothing to do with the power connector. The 8-pin connector, like the 12VHPWR, is designed to melt. Not burn. Same is true with the insulation on the wires. That said, if there's something flammable inside the PC, that molten plastic can ignite it.

8-pin is simply better because of the larger terminal size (4.2mm pitch vs. 3mm), the fact that the connectors are less dense which helps spread the current over a larger surface area on the PCB and helps dissipate heat better than a more dense 12-pin (12 conductors using the same PCB surface area as your typical 8-pin) makes the 8-pin a much safer connector to use.

The only reason Nvidia went with this 12VHPWR connector is because they wanted to use less space on the GPU PCB for power connectors.

 

[Nostras]

Honestly this would've been awesome if ASUS also left the 12VHPWR on the card, so that one can choose.
Proprietary connector is just ripe for being borderline e-waste.

Really disliking the trend ASUS is setting lately where they introduce lots of new proprietary connectors.

 

[Dredi]

ASUS Shows Concept GeForce RTX 4070 Without Power Connector​

And in the picture there is LITERALLY a power connector next to the pci-e connector.

Great title, I give it a strong 0/1.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

Here is a "simpler" method to getting higher efficency.

Move to a higher voltage than 12 Volts. Going to 24 or 36 Volts as the high power rail now means in theory a single 8 Pin connector has the same power delivery specs as 12VHPWR

 

[GreiverBlade]

@TechLurker 18yrs too young your example

ah, it remind me of my PowerMac G4 ... the AGP card (iirc an ATI 7500) and the mobo had an extra bit like that ...

that's soooooo 2001 ... and restrictive ...


yep ... definitely the same thing

 

[Wirko]

Here is a "simpler" method to getting higher efficency.

Move to a higher voltage than 12 Volts. Going to 24 or 36 Volts as the high power rail now means in theory a single 8 Pin connector has the same power delivery specs as 12VHPWR

I'm with you here. 12 volts is becoming insufficient, and there's an alternative standard of 48-volt power delivery in servers and other stuff.

The strong trend in large electronic system-level power distribution crosses several sectors including telecom, data centers, industrial, aero, and lighting: 48 V is replacing 12 V as the preferred low-voltage power distribution standard for new designs. Google’s recent donation of a 48 V data center rack specification to the Open Compute Project affirms this trend, and speaks to the clear efficiency benefits that Google has achieved with 48 V.

https://www.powerelectronicsnews.com/48-v-the-new-standard-for-high-density-power-efficient-data-centers/

It should be noted that 48V servers were once promoted by Intel in the late 1990s, but at that time lost out to 12V server designs due to that era’s limited voltage regulator density and power conversion efficiency as well as higher component costs.

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000146132/keeping-pace-with-power-efficiency?lwp=rt

But now we are in the era of USB-PD, a standard that adapts the voltage to anything that the supply and the consumer can agree on. It's easy to imagine, and it wouldn't be prohibitively costly to implement, GPUs that can take 12V or 24V, or more, and PSUs that can deliver that. 12V would still be the default but with a lower power limit, and a higher voltage could carry more power.

 

[ixi]

I agree, 8pin should have more issues because of how long it's been in use, and it has. You can just Google and see numerous reddit post. A guys house totally burned down lol.

There hasnt been a single fire with the 12vhpwr,and every occasion that resulted in a a damaged connector was due to poor instalation of the actual cable.

6pin/8pin is not going anywhere. If gpu will be feeded from mobo that means that your 6/8pin input moved from gpu itself to mobo. Cable is still there.

There was another topic and mobo was shown as well. And those inputs where on other side of mobo. Which means lets buy case which have enough room on back (most likely asus case which will have plenty of space so that you can plug in da cables...)

 

[Kyan]

There was another topic and mobo was shown as well. And those inputs where on other side of mobo. Which means lets buy case which have enough room on back (most likely asus case which will have plenty of space so that you can plug in da cables...)

Gigabyte have made it too with "project stealth", but the power connector of the gpu was still on it but not on the exterior but the interior, on the motherboard side, so it was as hiden as this asus over enginering thing. The problem is that it require a gpu longer than the mb to plug it. I agree with other people here, update the goddamn pcie standard.

 

[kawice]

Wanna see something funny, the backsite of this prototype Asus mobo.

They hidden 12VHPWR on the back -> problem solved by Asus standards.

And btw the RTX 4070 is rated somewhere between 200 - 300 Watts.

 

[Guwapo77]

Wanna see something funny, the backsite of this prototype Asus mobo.

They hidden 12VHPWR on the back -> problem solved by Asus standards.

And btw the RTX 4070 is rated somewhere between 200 - 300 Watts.


View attachment 298358

MSI has a board much like it. I freaking love this! We are about to have some seriously clean looking cases.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

Wanna see something funny, the backsite of this prototype Asus mobo.

They hidden 12VHPWR on the back -> problem solved by Asus standards.

And btw the RTX 4070 is rated somewhere between 200 - 300 Watts.


View attachment 298358

Backmounted connectors, Yes!!!

Up to 1050 watts of additional power going through the mobo PCB make my wallet scream in fear from the amount the Mobo will cost due to the extra copper layers required to deal with this.

 

[ixi]

Backmounted connectors, Yes!!!

Up to 1050 watts of additional power going through the mobo PCB make my wallet scream in fear from the amount the Mobo will cost due to the extra copper layers required to deal with this.

I'll give you a hint. Don't buy it and yout inner me won't scream
.