Asus is really hoping its new cable-free design for future graphics cards catches on, as it’s bringing it to its next generation of B850 motherboards for AMD’s Ryzen 9000 CPUs. The new boards incorporate the GC-HPWR connector, allowing for the delivery of up to 600W to a compatible graphics card without any need for external cabling. That makes the design far more streamlined than traditional GPU power but also eliminates some of the concerns raised by recent instances of Nvidia graphics cards melting their power cables.
Asus’s Back to the Future (BTF) range was initially designed to push all motherboard connectors to the rear of the PCB. That makes installation and cable routing a little tricky, but it results in a super-clean-looking motherboard without any of the usual cable tangle and clutter. BTF-compatible graphics cards help eliminate those cables by replacing the usual 8-pin or 12VHPWR cables with a metallic plug at the end of the PCIe slot. Now Asus is bringing that connector to its more affordable B850 boards, potentially helping to standardize what is currently a super-niche way to power your GPU.
The first model in this new range sporting this connector is the TUF Gaming B850 BTF WiFi W motherboard. It’s designed for Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 CPUs, like the recent 9950X3D, and has all the features you’d expect from a midrange AMD board. There’s EXPO support, PCIe 5 on the x16 slot, and PCIe 4 everywhere else. Wi-Fi 7, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, USB4, all the good stuff.
The ASUS BTF 4090 is the most powerful BTF card available at the time of writing.
Credit: ASUS
But this is a BTF board, so it has no visible cable connectors on the front, and that includes GPU power. You can see the GC-HPWR connector at the end of the PCie x16 slot, just south of the RAM slots. You don’t have to use it, as this motherboard is fully compatible with any modern graphics card, whether it uses the new power option or more traditional cabling. But if you want to use the slot to keep your rig completely cable-free, then you’ll need to also use one of Asus’ BTF graphics cards, as per Videocardz.
Unfortunately, that restricts you to the RTX 40-series for now, as Asus doesn’t have any new 50-series BTF cards yet. If it’s adding this connector to midrange motherboards, you can bet it’s going to expand the BTF range in the future too, but no word on when that will be just yet. You probably want to wait for graphics card prices to come down before upgrading, anyhow.
Asus hasn’t revealed pricing or release date information for this new B850 board yet, but it’s a cool-looking design. I think I have a nascent plan for my next build.
Asus is also boosting AI performance on its boards. Make sure you’re running the latest BIOS to make the most of it.