Major trade shows like Computex are always exciting for brand-new computing hardware, but companies also take this opportunity to showcase their creative design prowess. At its booth, Asus showed off three new graphics cards ranging from the technologically interesting ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 BTF Edition to the devilishly decorative ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 Doom Edition. Here’s a closer look at each custom RTX 50-series graphics card and everything we know so far. As a heads up, Asus has not issued pricing or release date information for any of these products—this is purely a sneak preview.
Asus’ New ROG BTF Card Has One Neat Trick
Asus debuted its Back To the Future (BTF) hardware a few trade shows ago, with more supported components debuting over time. The underlying concept for Asus’s BTF hardware is to supply all the power a graphics card needs directly from the motherboard, reducing the number of cables cluttering up your PC case. As such, this has required customized graphics cards and motherboards to support it.
(Credit: John Burek)
The newest card Asus has created to support this design is the Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 BTF Edition, which slots into an Asus ROG Maximus Z890 Hero BTF motherboard. One improved aspect of these new designs is that the edge power connector on the graphics card is removable, turning it into a standard graphics card.
(Credit: John Burek)
Turning into a regular card conflicts with the purpose of the BTF design. However, doing so enables you to connect the graphics card to standard PCIe-equipped motherboards for testing purposes or to sell the GPU off after a later upgrade.
(Credit: John Burek)
ROG Goes Full Slayer Mode for Doom
Driving hype for the newest entry in the FPS game series, Asus also showed off its Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 Doom Edition graphics card. This product is a fairly typical RTX 5080 video card in most ways, but its thermal solution is lavishly decorated with artwork inspired by Doom: The Dark Ages.
(Credit: John Burek)
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This makes the graphics card look a lot cooler and more interesting. It’s a callback to the early 2000s, when graphics cards frequently shipped with decorative thermal solutions. Sadly, this isn’t something we typically see anymore. Most graphics cards today tend to be plainer, and colors are often limited to just black, white, and shades of gray.
(Credit: John Burek)
Noctua Brings Its Signature Beige to GeForce RTX
The final new card that Asus showed us was a more plain-looking product with prominent brown overtones. This color profile is thanks to Asus’ collaboration with Noctua. Featuring that unique Noctua look, this graphics card is named the Asus GeForce RTX 5080 Noctua Edition.
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(Credit: John Burek)
The Noctua thermal solution includes three 120mm NF-A12x25 G2 fans that are said to be exceedingly quiet. The card also has a thermal pad for interfacing with the GPU die, which changes phase from a solid to a liquid to support optimal heat exchange as temperatures increase.
When to Expect These New Custom RTX 50-Series Cards
All of these new graphics cards that Asus showed off have unique features that some will certainly want, but unfortunately, it’s unclear when or if any of these will go up for sale. Some other BTF hardware has made it to retailers, and we will likely see the new BTF hardware do so, too.
The Doom and Noctua graphics cards seem likely to be limited editions. They may go up for sale soon, and if you want one, you should not hesitate to order it. They will likely sell out quickly and never return.
About Michael Justin Allen Sexton
Senior Analyst
