Forget Plastic, ASUS RTX 5090 BTF Metal Connector Survives 1900W Torture Test

If you're reading this site, chances are high that you're familiar with the saga of melting power connectors on modern high-end NVIDIA GPUs. We've already written very extensively about this problem, but what if you could entirely avoid it along with the annoyance of having to plug in a power cable to your GPU? That's the promise of ASUS' GC-HPWR connector, which isn't some novel idea; it has already shipped on a few specific SKUs of motherboard and GPU.

We've actually reported on this before, too, but the news this time is that the general manager of ASUS China, a genial fellow known as "Ordinary Uncle" Tony Yu, just demonstrated the latest iteration of GC-HPWR as part of the "BTF 2.5" connection standard. You might assume that BTF means "back to front", as it's similar in concept to Maingear's MG-RC design that places all of the plugs on the back of the motherboard, so that the front of the system can be super clean. ASUS tells us that it in fact stands for Back To [the] Future, though. Never change, ASUS.


BTF 2.5 has a number of significant iterations on the BTF 2.0 design, but key among them is that the GC-HPWR connector will be recessed on BTF 2.5-compliant graphics cards. That means they won't be hanging down there to get in the way of system headers or M.2 slots or whatever is on your motherboard, and you'll use an included adapter card to connect to the motherboard. Graphics cards with BTF 2.5 will also come with a regular 12V-2X6 connector in case your motherboard doesn't have the requisite power connector.


The question becomes "why bother buying a BTF graphics card if you don't have a compatible motherboard?" Even though they will work together, it's actually an even bigger mistake than you might think because it turns out the GC-HPWR connector is much, much more durable than the 12V-2X6 connector. Sure, some might say that's a low bar, but we're really not kidding—using a test board, Uncle Tony was able to push over 1.9 kilowatts through the GC-HPWR connector, heating up the wires to over 70°C while the connector itself remained at just 41°C.


Now, you might say, "well that's just a test board with no components on it," and you're right. However, we challenge you to find a graphics card that will actually draw 1900 watts. Actually, we don't, and please don't go looking; we don't want to see you burn your house down. Tony says that the connector is designed to handle 1000 Watts, meaning it should be more than capable of powering any graphics card anyone produces for years to come. Best of all? No need to wrangle finicky cables around the front of your system.


Tony also demonstrated something that won't be possible with retail cards: connecting power via both GC-HPWR and 12V-2X6. Doing so he demonstrated the test card with its external load tester drawing over 2600 watts from two separate power supplies. An incredible feat, to be sure, but he's careful to clarify that this design is not coming to current products. However, it's possible that ASUS could use a similar design to accommodate future extreme overclocking designs.

While GC-HPWR is a creation of ASUS, it's slowly gaining adoption in the industry. Uncle Tony remarks that both Colorful and Sapphire are building BTF 2.5 products. Frankly, we hope the trend continues, because being able to skip the tedious process of plugging power cables into our graphics card will make benchmarking multiple GPUs that much easier. BTF products are already on the market in China, but may take a while to become available elsewhere.