Since PCIe's inception in the early 2000s, the high-speed connectivity standard has been limited to 75 watts of peak power from the physical slot. This is enough to power some entry-level graphics cards from the physical slot alone, but most graphics cards require auxiliary power to get enough juice. However, Asus wants to change that — IT Home reports that the GPU maker has teased a new concept design allowing the PCIe slot to deliver a whopping 250 watts of power output through modifications to the PCIe front finger.
The concept reportedly takes advantage of the unused part of the front PCIe finger to triple power output. The five 12V lines attached to the PCIe finger are "merged", with each line featuring enhanced width and thickness as well as more conductive materials to boost the slot's current-carrying capacity.
Top-down images of Asus' modifications show the changes; the five 12V pins at the front are significantly larger, to the point where they are visible to the naked eye. This is in contrast to a regular PCIe slot, where the pins are so small that they are virtually impossible to spot. To feed the modified PCIe slot, most of the additional power is allegedly fed by an extra 8-pin PCIe connector on the motherboard.
Asus's PCIe concept could finally make cableless graphics cards more mainstream, assuming adoption is high. PCIe's 75-watt limit has left all but the most power-efficient entry-level graphics cards as the only mainstream GPUs that can do away with auxiliary power cables.
Technically, Asus already has an internal proprietary GPU power connector for its cableless BTF products (the GC-HPWR). But Asus is likely building its aforementioned PCIe modification as a cheaper method to create cableless GPUs, particularly for the mainstream market. Modifying the PCIe slot on a motherboard or graphics card is cheaper than installing an extra internal finger for internal power delivery.
250 watts is not a lot of power in an era where most high-performance GPUs consume more than 350 watts. But 250 watts would be more than sufficient for all entry-level and lower-mid-range graphics cards. For example, AMD's Radeon RX 9060 XT and RX 9070 consume just 160 and 220 watts, respectively, making them prime candidates for Asus' PCIe modification.
Again, though, Asus' concept is just that, a concept. There's no knowing how widely adopted Asus' design will be if it ever gets finalized. Asus' concept is also a modification of the PCIe standard, which could make adoption even harder. Even if it is adopted, board makers and AIB makers would need to build new graphics cards and motherboard models specifically designed to take advantage of Asus' concept, which would increase costs and manufacturing complexity.
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