Asus unveils Noctua triple-fan RTX 5080, new external GPU dock, and more at Computex

Asus GeForce RTX 5080 Noctua
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Computex 2025 is currently in full swing, and Asus is eager to show off its latest gaming innovations at the expo. Tom’s Hardware is on the ground, and our team looked through the company’s latest developments.

This includes some new peripherals, such as the ROG Falcata split keyboard and ROG Harpe II Ace mouse, and new GPU innovations, like the RTX 5080 Noctua, which features Noctua’s legendary cooling solutions, new BTF graphics cards that are now also compatible with non-BTF motherboards, and a Thunderbolt 5 GPU dock.

The ROG Falcata is a mechanical split-keyboard, allowing players to place the two halves of the keyboard in the most optimal position. This would make gaming for several hours much more comfortable, as your keyboard will now follow the natural angle of your wrists.

Asus ROG Harpe II Ace gaming mice

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

We’ve also tried the ROG Harpe II Ace mouse, which generally felt light and good, similar to other gaming mice from other top-tier manufacturers like Logitech. Hopefully, we can get our hands on these units in our testing lab to see how they stack up against our best gaming keyboards and best gaming mice.

Asus has several interesting new GPU-related innovations on show in Taiwan. It released an RTX 5080 version of its Noctua Edition GPU, which features three Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 120mm fans. This massive cooling solution allows the graphics card to run quieter, but it also makes it one massive GPU. The Asus GeForce RTX 5080 Noctua Edition is about four slots thick and over 360 mm long.

Asus GeForce RTX 5080 Noctua

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

The company also released the next generation of its BTF GPUs, which now come with an adapter. The first version of these BTF GPUs had extra gold connectors for power that made it impossible to plug into a non-BTF motherboard.

But this time, Asus recessed those extra connectors, allowing you to plug them into a non-BTF motherboard and then use the usual 12V 2x6 power connector. And when you finally upgrade to a BTF mobo, you can just attach the included adapter, allowing the GPU to get power straight from the motherboard instead of the connector.

BTF power adapter for Asus BTG GPUs

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Aside from looking much cleaner, it also has the potential to solve the melting issues that many high-powered GPUs have with the 12VHPWR and its successor connector. Hopefully, this implementation is far more robust (especially as the adapter is made from metal), but only time will tell if it runs into issues.

Asus also showed off the ROG XG Station 3 — a Thunderbolt 5 external GPU dock that delivers up to 80Gbps of performance and is compatible with the latest GPUs from AMD and Nvidia.

Asus ROG XG Station 3

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

It also works with BTF GPUs and comes with extra USB ports for better connectivity. This should be good enough for newer GPUs like the RTX 5080, although we’re hoping that Asus can offer one that delivers up to 120 Gbps, allowing us to maximize higher-powered graphics cards like the RTX 5090.

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Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

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