An unverified 2,001-watt XOC BIOS for the China-exclusive ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090D has surfaced on the TechPowerUp GPU BIOS DB, instantly tripling the card's stock 575 W limit. And just like last week's China-only GALAX HOF leak, it's opening kilowatt-class overclocking to enthusiasts who are willing to experiment with their ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 boards. For an extreme overclocking attempt, the card requires multiple fused 12V-2×6 cables or custom power delivery to bypass the connector's 600 W ceiling, necessitates custom water or LN2 cooling to prevent the GPU from overheating, and automatically voids the warranty the moment it's installed. However, just like the previous XOC BIOS for GALAS HOF, it also allows the card to dial down its max TDP to 80% of the original, which is just 400 W for undervolting experiments. We don't recommend using this BIOS unless you are confident in your technical expertise and aware of the risks associated with using non-factory power profiles.

ASUS over the weekend released its China-exclusive special edition of the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card that's co-branded with the Anime character Hatsune Miku. This isn't just a sticker job, but a complete re-skin, with the various metal accents on the cooler shroud and backplate being color-matched with the scheme, including two of the four Axial-Tech fans coming in turquoise-blue. Like what you see? Get ready to foot an over 100% premium over the NVIDIA MSRP for the RTX 5080, with ASUS pricing the card at an eye-watering RMB ¥16,999 (USD $2,369), which is double not just over the NVIDIA MSRP, but also the lowest street prices for the GPU. The card still falls short of the street pricing of the GeForce RTX 5090D, which can be found well above ¥18,000.

At Bilibili World 2025, ASUS introduced one-of-a-kind ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Real Gold Edition, a GPU with literal real-world gold. Weighing in at 7.24 kg the card incorporates 5 kg of 24‑karat gold across its frame, backplate, and outer shell, giving its raw materials alone a value exceeding half a million US Dollars. ASUS China general manager Tony Yu, known online as "Uncle Tony," revealed the piece alongside content‑creator partner "Talented Cai Qian." According to ITHome, the sand‑mold casting process produced an uneven, almost molten texture on the calligraphy and cooling fins, clearly distinguishing this one‑off prototype from any mass‑produced design.

This solid‑gold edition follows the earlier Dhahab OC line, which featured only a thin layer of precious metal, and it now stands as a monument to luxury. At current bullion prices, the value of the gold alone surpasses that of a fully loaded AI server. ASUS has not confirmed the card's next destination, though it may be auctioned like previous limited editions signed by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, with proceeds benefiting children's hospitals. With gamers usually focusing on performance per watt, they will look elsewhere, as this is certainly not a value buy. The underlying RTX 5090D silicon remains unchanged, and the gilded cooler is too large for most standard chassis, meaning that only collectors will prize the GPU for its one-of-a-kind build.

ASUS has expanded its BTF GPU ecosystem with the launch of the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB GDDR7 BTF OC Edition, marking the first Astral model to adopt the detachable Graphics Card High-Power (GC-HPWR) connector. Building on improvements showcased in version 2.5, this new variant is engineered to supply over 1,000 watts through the high-power slot alongside the traditional 12V-2x6 connection located behind the PCIe connector. The ROG Astral RTX 5090 BTF Edition inherits the core specifications of its non-BTF sibling, which we reviewed here, but distinguishes itself with enhanced power delivery and compatibility. ASUS's removable GC-HPWR adapter allows integration with both standard motherboards and upcoming BTF-ready boards, promising greater flexibility for system builders and the aesthetic experience of no cables connected to the GPU.

This model employs the same four-fan configuration, vapor chamber, and optimized fin spacing, while a phase-change GPU thermal pad ensures maximum contact with the GPU die. According to ASUS, the quad-fan layout can boost airflow and pressure by up to 20%. Additional features include real-time monitoring of temperatures and power draw on the 12V-2x6 connector, accessible via GPU Tweak III, which also provides fine-tuning controls such as voltage and frequency adjustments, as well as thermal mapping. Although pricing has yet to be confirmed, ASUS will reflect the card's feature set with a price increase. Availability is expected in the third quarter, alongside other BTF products, such as the white-edged TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 XT and various ROG motherboards.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 Dhahab CORE OC Edition graphics card, built to take style and performance to new frontiers. With the latest NVIDIA GPU architecture, cutting-edge thermal design and a premium aesthetic, the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 Dhahab CORE OC is built for gamers who want a PC that plays well and looks incredible doing it.

The gold standard of GeForce RTX 5080 performance
The ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 Dhahab CORE OC Edition graphics card stands ready to let users reap the benefits of the new Blackwell architecture at the heart of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series. This delivers fourth-generation ray tracing cores for incredible performance. Users also get NVIDIA DLSS 4 Super Resolution, Multi-Frame Generation and Ray Reconstruction, which help games run smoothly with graphics cranked up.

Our diverse lineup of GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards is getting even larger with the arrival of new White Editions. With these high-performance, cutting-edge cards, you'll be able to keep your frost-hued battlestation color coordinated. Check out the snazzy new White Edition offerings from ROG, TUF Gaming, and Prime.

Max out your snow-white rig with peak power from ROG Astral
If you want the most power possible in a ravishing white graphics card, consider the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 White Edition 32 GB and ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 White Edition 16 GB. These VRAM-loaded cards comprise the top of the power stack. They both feature a quad-fan design for more airflow than last-gen's flagship cards, our patented vapor chamber tech, and eight heatpipes for incredible heat dissipation. These cards also swap out thermal paste for a premium phase-change thermal pad, enhancing the longevity of the graphics card's thermal interface material.

Earlier this month, the global ASUS website was updated with a slew of new graphics card product pages. The most striking examples—TUF Gaming and PRIME White Editions—appeared online with little PR fanfare. Fast-forward to the start of this week; with the ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) France social media account teasing already revealed models, alongside a surprise pale spin-off of a hot topic flagship. The manufacturer's air-cooled Astral GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 models were debuted during CES 2025. Since then, various special edition variants have attracted additional press and community attention—most notably, a spectacularly expensive Gold-plated MENA region-exclusive.

The French ASUS office's (May 12) message implied that company leadership had paid close attention to PC hardware community feedback. As a result of these requests, a new marketing campaign—bearing a "Stay Frosty, Play Flawlessly" slogan—is pushing alternate designs. As interpreted by the usual media outlets, the brand seems to be teasing an imminent launch: "you asked for it. We delivered. ASUS GeForce RTX 50 Series White Edition graphics cards are coming soon." Given the current lay of the land, next week's Computex trade event will serve as an ideal platform for White Edition showcasing—as hinted by an appropriate hashtag. ASUS is expected to unveil its (already leaked) portfolio of custom Radeon RX 9060 XT cards, but any in advance hype would break signed NDAs.

Not long after the launch of its "standard" Astral GeForce RTX 5090 (air-cooled) flagship card, ASUS ROG unveiled a gaudy golden alternative. According to a past weekend VideoCardz news report, the brand's extremely special "Astral RTX 5090 Dhahab OC Edition" has finally settled on retail shelves in the Middle East. During preview events, ASUS did not let slip any pre-release pricing details—industry watchdogs theorized numbers well above the regular "OC" version's (then) $3000+ tag. A Jensen Huang-signed specimen was auctioned off—for charity—during NVIDIA's GTC 2025 conference week. The latest investigations have unearthed varying costs of ownership; VideoCardz found listings across MENA (Middle-East and North Africa) territories.

The cheapest example was priced at $6700, while a "jaw-dropping" entry was discovered going for ~$10,600. The online publication's detective work concluded that price variations were dependent on differing conditions within each country. An ASUS-authored "Certificate of Authenticity" demonstrates the use of a key premium material; 6.5 grams of "999 Gold Fineness." Official grading indicates the very best purity of this precious metal—largely reserved (and prized) by prime Middle Eastern markets. ASUS is reportedly working on a (presumably) less expensive GeForce RTX 5080 variant—enabled via the selection of lesser silicon, rather than a downgraded level of decoration. Special edition ASUS ROG Astral enthusiasts—outside of MENA—could be eyeing up a DOOM prequel-themed option.

ASUS earlier this year introduced the limited edition ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab graphics card. The card sports a gilded appearance, with sapphire blue metallic accents, and ASUS ROG branding resembling calligraphy. The card was debuted in the UAE and was expected to be available in limited quantities in the region. It looks like the company wants to extend this niche brand to even the GeForce RTX 5080, and is working on the ROG Astral RTX 5080 Dhahab Core. This card is based on the air-cooled ROG Astral RTX 5080 OC, but with the same aesthetic treatment as the RTX 5090 Dhahab.

The aluminium fins in the cooler have golden appearance (not actually gold-plated); as do the alloy cooler shroud, the fan impeller hubcaps, and the copper heat pipes. In place of chrome accents, it has contrasting sapphire blue metallic tones. There are other cultural icons, such as gold calligraphy set against black. At this point we're not sure what ASUS is referring to with the "Core" branding. Perhaps Core could denote the entry level into the Dhahab brand itself, with the RTX 5080 serving as a nice entry point.

ASUS has quietly added a useful new feature called "Equipment Installation Check" to its ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 series graphics cards, and many users only noticed it after a recent GPU Tweak III update. This tool watches for any unwanted tilt or sag in the GPU and sends an alert if it spots more movement than ASUS thinks is safe. The secret sauce here is a tiny Bosch Sensortec BMI323 inertial measurement unit, or IMU. It's essentially an accelerometer and gyroscope in one, and it costs just a couple of US Dollars. Tracking the card's angle lets GPU Tweak III know when you might need to give your graphics card a little extra support. That's especially handy for models like the air-cooled ROG ASTRAL RTX 5090, which can weigh about 3 kg and put real stress on your motherboard's PCIe slot over time. Equipment Installation Check joins two other hardware monitoring tools ASUS already offers.

Additionally, some features like Power Detector+ monitors each of the 16-pin 12 V rails for any odd current spikes. Thermal Map shows temperatures from sensors scattered around the PCB so you can spot hotspots at a glance. Together, these features give you power, heat, and tilt monitoring all in one place. Most PC builders use third-party GPU brackets or reinforced PCIe slots to hold up heavy cards. Some of those supports might be optional because the software will remind you if it senses a problem or if a support bracket slips or loosens. That's a big deal if you only move your desktop once in a blue moon and don't notice slow shifts in component alignment. GPUs keep getting bigger and more demanding mechanically, so it's easy to forget that they're also a mechanical load on your system, especially when moving the PC for cleaning or part upgrades.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced its partnership with Bethesda and id Software on the highly anticipated title DOOM: The Dark Ages. The collaboration is part of ongoing celebrations for the 30-year anniversary of ASUS graphics cards, and honors DOOM, an iconic franchise with a long-standing and legendary tenure in PC gaming.

The collaboration is headlined by a limited-edition ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card based on the DOOM Slayer character. It will be sold exclusively on the Bethesda Gear Store, bundled with an exclusive T-shirt, mouse mat, yellow key card, ROG-exclusive DOOM Slayer Legionary in-game skin, and optionally, the Premium Edition of the game.

TechPowerUp's W1zzard did not honor the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5080 OC Edition graphics card model with any awards—as disclosed in his late January evaluation, a major negative point was highlighted: "no additional power limit increases allowed." The premium-tier ASUS offering managed to top TPU's "Maximum Overclock Comparison" GeForce RTX 5080-class table; comfortably leading the pack with an out-of-the-box (default) 400 W power setting. Reviewers and well-heeled owners—of this $1500+ special quad-fan package—have lamented the apparent lack of extra headroom. Sitting in fifth place was GIGABYTE's RTX 5080 GAMING OC SKU; a card that can support up to 450 W. As reported by VideoCardz earlier today, ASUS has taken onboard aforementioned feedback.

Resultant under-the-hood tinkerings were implemented mid-way through last month. The "ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 16 GB GDDR7 OC Edition" support page has welcomed a new downloadable file—authored on March 14—this BIOS update is advertised as being capable of: "increasing the (model's) maximum TGP to 450 W." Additional bragging rights will be granted with this patch; owners can boast about their expensive bits of kit being further enhanced—NVIDIA's reference specification TGP/TDP is 360 W. Thumbs up go to Team ASUS once again—mid-February Astral series updates tweaked noise profiles; not too long after an absorption of launch day criticism.

NVIDIA's stellar quality control with the $2,000 GeForce RTX 5090 saw quite a few customers end up with cards that had fewer ROPs than they should—168 as opposed to its original spec of 176. The 8 fewer ROPs results in a roughly 5% drop in performance. When you're ponying up over two grand, this is the last thing you want. But what if we told you there are cards out there were more ROPs than they should have? We have with us an ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 LC graphics card that we detected 192 ROPs on. That's right, the card has all the 192 ROPs active that are present in the "GB202" silicon, or two ROP partitions (16 ROPs) more than it should have. We received our ROG Astral RTX 5090 LC sample just a few weeks ago, and haven't had time to thoroughly test it yet, because we're in the middle of a full retest with new games and new drivers.

The ASUS ROG Astral LC is a factory overclocked card, with ASUS giving the card a generous OC to benefit from the liquid cooling solution (2580 MHz boost vs. 2407 MHz reference or +7.1%). To account for that, we tried our best to clock the card back down to reference specs, which is presented as the orange bar. This still isn't the same card as the RTX 5090 Founders Edition, because the superior cooling solution and power limits mean that the GPU enjoys better boost frequency residency, but this is as close as we can get to simulating reference spec. We ran the card through a battery of game tests, which show an average of 8% performance gains over the RTX 5090 Founders Edition.

While we are used to gamers buying GPUs over their MSRPs just to get the latest and greatest, it appears that there are some limits to that. According to a Redditor, who pictured a Microcenter hardware store in Dallas, Texas, there are full shelves of ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 GPUs with AIO liquid cooling. Instead of the usual sold-out reaction, gamers are drawing a line at these $3,719 GPUs, leaving shelves full of GPUs retailing for almost two times their MSRP. Despite being a flagship model with great performance (we tested an air-cooled ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 version), all its bells and whistles aren't convincing enough for gamers to justify spending almost $4,000 on a single GPU. It could be the unusual 360 mm radiator that is difficult to accommodate in most cases or the case where gamers have started waiting for more realistically priced GPUs.

Interestingly, the regular air-cooled variants like the ASUS TUF version or the air-cooled Astral OC are nowhere to be found, as these models are priced much lower, with the TUF version carrying a $2,450 and Astral OC air-cooled version carrying a $2,800 MSRP. Of course, while these cards are not being sold at MSRP, they are likely being sold for much less than the Astral LC version, which nears the $4,000 price point. It appears that gamers are stopping the trend of paying astronomical prices over MSRP and are waiting for the supply to improve so prices can come down. In the past period, one tracker of RTX 5090 listings on eBay, averaging data for 30 days, noted that the flagship RTX 5090 tops the chart with a staggering $4,222 on secondary markets compared to its $2,000 MSRP, an increase of roughly 111%. We hope the supply situation improves and that MSRP prices with slight premiums for high-end designs make a return.

"Second wave" ASUS price hikes were documented online over the past weekend; affecting air-cooled premium ROG Astral and mid-tier TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 models. Looking at the company's North American webshop, visitors noticed a freshly adjusted price for the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB OC Edition—going from a previous level of $3079.99 up to $3359.99. Curiously, the asking price of a liquid-cooled sibling was not adjusted—remaining at a "first wave" point of $3409.99. The "cheapest" model—TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 (non-OC)—experienced a $460 (representing 20%) price hike, bringing total cost of ownership up to $2759.99. As a reminder, NVIDIA's baseline MSRP guideline was $1999—as announced at CES 2025—but ROG Astral and TUF Gaming designs demand a premium or two for fancier feature sets. VideoCardz has fervently explored worrying market trends in the recent past; several of NVIDIA's big board partner players have jacked up asking prices for GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards. Availability of stock is still a major sore point for potential buyers, who were not able to secure launch day wares. Despite a driving up of costs, the ASUS US webstore has absolutely zero stock of GeForce RTX 5090 SKUs—at the time of writing.

In addition, VideoCardz and other PC hardware media outlets noted price hikes affecting the manufacturer's stable of recently launched AMD Radeon RX 9070 Series TUF Gaming and PRIME models. In the absence of AMD-built (MBA) reference card designs, board partners were tasked with the providing of baseline "MSRP" conformant custom cards. The ASUS PRIME Radeon RX 9070 XT OC and RX 9070 OC Editions were readied as $599 and $549 options (respectively). Weekend sleuthing work put the spotlight on newly adjusted price points of $719.99 and $659.99 (respectively)—representing further cases of plain 20% elevations over baseline. AMD's debut batch of RDNA 4 cards was met with unprecedented demand earlier on in March, but secondary/tertiary stock shipments face unclear market conditions—Team Red GPU enthusiasts have (similarly) voiced their collective displeasure about elevated prices at retail. Mid-way through last week, the PC hardware community heard about ASUS leadership considering a new pricing strategy. The company is reportedly accelerating its manufacturing exodus from China.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) announced today that the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 OC Edition graphics card has broken four world records and two global first place records in 3DMark Port Royal, 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme, 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, UNIGINE Superposition 1080p Xtreme, UNIGINE Superposition 8K Optimized, and GPUPI v3.3 32B.

ROG Astral is the flagship ASUS graphics cards family, and this OC Edition achieves a stunning boost clock speed of 2580 MHz right out of the box. A cutting-edge thermal solution keeps the heavyweight GeForce RTX 5090 GPU cool: a bold quad-fan design and phase-change GPU thermal pad ensure healthy temperatures that boost hardware longevity. Plus, a vapor chamber helps prevent heat buildup - offering one more layer of protection to keep performance at its peak. This card also packs premium power delivery to make sure the GPU gets stable, reliable power.