Following the release of Asus' "Back To Future" GPUs and motherboards in China, it seems Asus is finally ready to bring their cable-less PC tech stateside with a demo at CES 2024 and an official announcement post.
But, what is Asus' new BTF standard?. Basically, BTF is Asus' version of MSI's "Project Zero". Typically BTF will hide all of the general connections to one side of the motherboard. An "Advanced BTF" standard conceals an extra PCIe power connection for the ever growing list of power-hungry GPUs.
The first GPUs that we saw were an Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super BTF White Edition alongside what is most likely the ROG Maximus Z790 Hero BTF. The apparent presentation of no power cabling enabled by the Advanced BTF Standard presents a sleek, refined PC build for the show floor. However, the bulky nature of these BTF GPUs means that you will want a GPU bracket for long-term use, which we see at play here.
In theory, though, the BTF power connector should serve as a point of reinforcement within the BTF GPU. It should certainly be less prone to potentially melting, as we have seen with many RTX 4090s.
Breaking away from the all-white PC build, we also have two new, cable-less RTX 40 Series GPUs: the ROG Strix BTF 4070 Super and ROG Strix BTF 4090. There were no visible 8-Pin power connectors so the advanced BTF connector is clearly capable of supplying high power for these hungry cards.
The white 4070 Super BTF is estimated for a March release, while the 4090 BTF is scheduled for an end-of-Q1 2024 release. These are somewhat behind the late January launch of the rest of the new RTX 40 Super Series, but could prove a worthwhile wait if the evils of 12VHPWR have truly been defeated.
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