GPUs without power cable: Asus mainboards to provide 250 watts via PCIe

Asus already offers motherboards in its BTF (Back to the Future) series that can power compatible graphics cards with up to 600 watts, which means that an additional power cable is not necessary. This works via an extra connector next to the PCIe slot, and the GPU power cable plugs directly into the motherboard. However, this approach has the disadvantage of limited compatibility to just a few Asus products.

Consequently, the manufacturer has now developed a concept motherboard that can transfer up to 250 watts of power directly via PCIe 5.0 x16, instead of the usual 75 watts of this standard. The motherboard requires an additional 8-pin connector for power, so this concept doesn't completely eliminate the power cable, but instead moves it to a less obvious location instead. For reference, 250 watts should be enough to power an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, which currently retails for $369 on Amazon.

This new design is backward compatible, so Asus's prototype GPUs can also be used on older motherboards, although it would require traditional 8-pin power cables in that case. So far, this motherboard is only a concept, and it’s entirely unclear if or when a product with this revised PCIe connector will actually hit the market. However, this concept illustrates that a corresponding solution would be possible without making extensive changes to the PCIe connector.