ASUS has expanded its BTF GPU ecosystem with the launch of the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB GDDR7 BTF OC Edition, marking the first Astral model to adopt the detachable Graphics Card High-Power (GC-HPWR) connector. Building on improvements showcased in version 2.5, this new variant is engineered to supply over 1,000 watts through the high-power slot alongside the traditional 12V-2x6 connection located behind the PCIe connector. The ROG Astral RTX 5090 BTF Edition inherits the core specifications of its non-BTF sibling, which we reviewed here, but distinguishes itself with enhanced power delivery and compatibility. ASUS's removable GC-HPWR adapter allows integration with both standard motherboards and upcoming BTF-ready boards, promising greater flexibility for system builders and the aesthetic experience of no cables connected to the GPU.

This model employs the same four-fan configuration, vapor chamber, and optimized fin spacing, while a phase-change GPU thermal pad ensures maximum contact with the GPU die. According to ASUS, the quad-fan layout can boost airflow and pressure by up to 20%. Additional features include real-time monitoring of temperatures and power draw on the 12V-2x6 connector, accessible via GPU Tweak III, which also provides fine-tuning controls such as voltage and frequency adjustments, as well as thermal mapping. Although pricing has yet to be confirmed, ASUS will reflect the card's feature set with a price increase. Availability is expected in the third quarter, alongside other BTF products, such as the white-edged TUF Gaming Radeon RX 9070 XT and various ROG motherboards.

Alphacool International GmbH, based in Braunschweig, has been a pioneer in PC water cooling technology for over 20 years. With one of the most comprehensive product portfolios in the industry and long-standing industry expertise, Alphacool is now expanding its portfolio with more Core water coolers for the GeForce RTX 5080/5090 graphics cards.

The GPU water coolers have been completely redesigned. Precise adjustments to the spacing between the cooler and the PCB, water flow simulations, and extensive practical testing have led to significant improvements to both the cooler base and the jetplate. These optimizations ensure maximum cooling performance for the latest generation of NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards. The GPU water coolers feature a precisely machined copper base with high-quality chrome plating for exceptional durability and a smooth surface. The design is further complemented by robust brass fittings with a nylon cover, ensuring maximum safety and reliability.

NVIDIA's DLSS Transformer officially graduates from beta today and is rolling out in its full, stable form across supported games. Following its debut as part of the DLSS 4 update, which features multi-frame generation and significant improvements in image quality, the technology has proven its worth. By replacing traditional convolutional neural networks with Transformer models, NVIDIA has doubled the model's parameters, boosted compute throughput fourfold, and delivered a 30-50% uplift in ray-traced effects quality, according to internal benchmarks. Even more impressive, each AI-enhanced frame now processes in just 1 ms on an RTX 5090, compared with the 3.25 ms required by DLSS 3.

Under the hood, DLSS 4 can tap into Blackwell-exclusive hardware, from FP8 tensor cores to fused CUDA kernels, and leans on vertical layer fusion and memory optimizations to keep overhead in check even with models twice the size of their CNN predecessors. To fine-tune performance and eliminate glitches such as ghosting, flicker, or blurring, NVIDIA has quietly run this network through a dedicated supercomputer for the past six years, continuously iterating on its findings. The result is a real-time AI upscaling solution that pairs a higher-performance AI architecture with rigorously validated quality.

ASUS has confirmed that its GeForce RTX 5090 BTF Edition can draw nearly 1,900 W without any signs of overheating, thanks to a robust metal power connector that holds up under pressure. In a series of controlled stress tests led by Tony Yu, General Manager of ASUS China, the BTF v2.5 proprietary GC-HPWR connector remained well within safe temperature limits, outperforming the conventional plastic 16-pin 12VHPWR/12V-2x6 alternative. The latest Back-to-the-Future update introduces a detachable GC-HPWR adapter, giving users the flexibility to switch between ASUS's metal connector and the standard 16-pin plug. ASUS supplies a small extraction tool that makes it easy to swap connectors, overcoming the original design's limitation of a permanently attached GC-HPWR adapter and ensuring wider compatibility with existing motherboards, as well as non-BTF-supported boards.

In the first trial, the card drew approximately 670 W, roughly matching the RTX 5090's typical maximum, and the GC-HPWR connector stabilized between 30°C and 35°C over ten minutes. ASUS engineers rated the metal connector for up to 1,000 W continuous operation, and the results confirmed a comfortable safety margin for maximum load. Tony Yu even increased the draw to 1,300 W, yielding a peak connector temperature of 38°C. In a final extreme test, the load was set to 150 A, driving total consumption above 1,900 W. Even under these conditions, the metal connector held at about 41°C, while the power cables reached roughly 70°C, demonstrating the adapter's superior thermal performance. Yu's experiments also showed that the GC-HPWR and 16-pin connectors can share the power load. At a 200 A setting, each connector supplied around 1,200 W to 1,400 W from separate power lines. Although ASUS plans to ship retail RTX 5090 cards with a single connector, this test suggests a possible path for future ultra-high-power GPUs designed for extreme overclockers.

The GeForce RTX 5090 flagship graphics card may be a hot commodity in Asia due its dual-use in AI acceleration farms, and in the US it may be saddled with crippling import tariffs, besides unethical retail practices, but gamers in Europe have it good. ComputerBase.de reports that their price-tracker has detected RTX 5090 cards briefly available at prices lower than MSRP—a first for the RTX 5090 anywhere in the world.

The MSI RTX 5090 Ventus 3X OC was launched as an MSRP-priced card listed at USD $1,999. German retailer Mindfactory.de had the card listed at €1,999 including VAT, which would make this lower than the MSRP and street prices of RTX 5090 in the US and Asia. Hours later, the retailer corrected the price to €2,600. The general trend with graphics card pricing seems to be that EEA (European Economic Area) countries currently have the best pricing on graphics cards, due to their lower import tariffs than the US, relatively rare scalper gray-marketing, and lower demand cards like RTX 5090 for use-cases other than gaming or professional graphics.

ASUS has recently held a charity auction with special edition ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition graphics card signed by NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Huang. ASUS managed to raise $24,200, which will go to the TZU CHI USA Foundation, a volunteer-based non-governmental organization providing charitable assistance, medical aid, disaster relief, and educational services, and environmental protection programs to those in need.

The auction period lasted from June 4 to June 13, and showing how tight the race was, the three highest bidders were just $10 apart. As the ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab OC Edition is quite a rare graphics card and sold exclusively in the Middle East, the one signed by Jensen Huang is quite a catch. Hopefully, it won't end up on eBay.

The US Navy Exchange (NEX) store has become a surprising platform for acquiring NVIDIA's RTX 50-series graphics cards at their manufacturer's suggested retail prices. A Reddit user, known as Accomplished-Feed123, shared that by combining various store promotions and credit card rewards, they managed to purchase a GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition for just $1,900, which is significantly below the typical retail price. Savvy shoppers have long discovered open‑box electronics and gaming hardware bargains there. On this occasion, the Reddit user noticed several "largeish brown boxes" hidden behind a locked display that usually houses Apple products.

Those boxes contained multiple RTX 5070 and RTX 5080 cards, along with a single RTX 5090, all priced at their suggested MSRPs of $550, $999, and $1,999, respectively. A quick online search of the part numbers confirmed that the top‑end card was indeed the Founders Edition model. After applying applicable discounts and card rewards, Accomplished‑Feed123 walked away, paying only $1,900 out of pocket. Access to NEX is restricted to active and retired military members and their families, operating under the motto "You Serve, You Save." However, many consumers may know someone eligible for these benefits. Other branches of the US armed forces maintain similar exchange stores, though GPU availability and pricing may differ by location.

More than 700 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation's adoption continues at rapid pace, and is the fastest-adopted NVIDIA gaming technology in our history.

This week, we can reveal another 8 games equipped with the frame rate multiplying technology, including Dragonkin: The Banished, Dune: Awakening, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Mecha BREAK, MindsEye, REMATCH, and Stellar Blade. And Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants DLC is launching September 4th, featuring full ray tracing and DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation and DLSS Ray Reconstruction. Each title also features DLSS Frame Generation, boosting frame rates for GeForce RTX 40 Series gamers, and DLSS Super Resolution, accelerating performance on every GeForce RTX GPU.

Gigabyte has low-key introduced an ultra-premium AI TOP 500 TRX50 Desktop; advertised as being: "purpose-built for local AI development, multimodal fine-tuning, and high-performance gaming, delivering workstation-grade performance and advanced AI capabilities in a streamlined, plug-and-play format." A firm price point and release date were not mentioned in last week's press material. This system easily outmuscles a flagship Intel "Arrow Lake-S" Core Ultra-powered sibling; the AI TOP 100 Z890. A 24-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7965WX sits at the heart of the AI TOP 500 TRX50—an AORUS 360 AIO Liquid Cooler tempers this beast. Given that Team Red will be launching its next-gen Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9000 "Zen 5/Shimada Peak" processor family next month, Gigabyte's selection of older "Zen 4/Storm Peak" tech seems to be ill-timed. Fortunately, their TRX50 AI TOP motherboard can support the next wave of CPUs. VideoCardz believes that another variant—sporting a 32-core Threadripper PRO 7975WX CPU—will emerge at some point in the near future.

The AI TOP 500 and 100 pre-builds have something in common: both are specced with own-brand GeForce RTX 5090 WINDFORCE graphics cards. The Taiwanese firm's signature AI TOP Utility is described as: "a unified software suite that streamlines the entire AI development process. Users can explore models via RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), build and manage custom datasets, fine-tune LLMs and LMMs up to 405B parameters, and monitor system performance through a real-time dashboard. It also supports multi-node clustering via Thunderbolt 5 and Dual 10G LAN, allowing users to scale computing resources as needed." The AI TOP 500 TRX50 can be equipped with up to a total of 768 GB (8 x 96 GB) DDR5 R-DIMM memory—"enabling smooth execution of complex AI tasks and large-scale datasets. Storage is managed by AI-ready SSDs, including a 1 TB AI TOP 100E cache drive with up to 150x TBW (total bytes written) compared to standard consumer SSDs—ensuring high durability under frequent read/write workloads." An ultra-fast AORUS Gen 4 7300 SSD 2 TB is also included in this package. Appropriately, an AI TOP-branded Ultra Durable 1600 W 80 Plus Platinum PSU (ATX 3.1) provides necessary juice.

Samsung-branded 24 Gbit (3 GB) GDDR7 memory chips are being loosely sold in the Chinese retail market. The chips are being sold in OEM packaging meant for PCB pick-and-place machines, although the seller offers to sell these chips on a per-unit basis, priced at RMB ¥72.50, or approximately USD $10 per chip. This opens the door for graphics card memory modders to, in theory, give the GeForce RTX 5090 a 50% memory boost with $160 worth of memory chips. An RTX 5090 with 48 GB of memory would accelerate AI models with larger parameter counts than a stock card.

Given that off-brand RTX 5090 cards are being sold in China in board designs meant for commercial AI acceleration farms, this sale opens the door for off-brand RTX 5090 cards with 48 GB memory. Much of the RTX 5090 gray-market in China runs in complete disregard of U.S. export controls that prevent NVIDIA from selling the RTX 5090 in the Chinese domestic market, instead selling the RTX 5090D, a card with nearly identical gaming performance to RTX 5090, but with reduced AI acceleration and blockchain performance.

Around mid-April, an unusual custom GeForce RTX 5090D design received international news coverage. Under normal circumstances, NVIDIA's board partners have not equipped modern gaming graphics cards with blower-style cooling solutions—typically, this type of treatment is reserved for workstation-grade products (operating at lower TDPs). Team Green's GB202 "Blackwell" GPU is in high demand, due to its AI-crunching prowess—even in slightly nerfed form. Smaller Chinese AI firms and well-heeled hobbyists seemed to be snapping up sanction-adjusted flagship gaming GPUs that are/were coupled with very unofficial blower-type coolers. A month and a half later, Olrak29 has placed a spotlight on a curious batch of bootleg-esque "RTX 5090 32G D7 Turbo" models. As implied by this identifier, these offerings seem to leverage the unpasteurized GeForce RTX 5090 (non-D) GPU.

Photo evidence was scraped from Goofish; a second-hand trading platform owned and operated by Alibaba. As of last month, industry whispers suggested another downgrade of the Chinese market-exclusive GeForce RTX 5090D design—following the complete cutoff of GB202 die shipments into the region. Given current global tensions and export restrictions, NVIDIA and Leadtek's Blackwell PRO W card series faces an uncertain future in China. The Goofish photo uploads indicate an impressive volume of unbranded "RTX 5090 32G D7 Turbo" stock. Stacks of boxes in the background are labelled with "NVIDIA RTX 4090 24G AIB BLOWER" or "NVIDIA RTX 4070 12G AIB BLOWER" stickers—perhaps as diversion tactics. According to VideoCardz and Tom's Hardware, Team Green is not expected to play detective—the North American corporation will probably not provide in-depth comments about elaborate "GPU smuggling" channels.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today launched the AORUS GeForce RTX 5090 STEALTH ICE 32G graphics card, designed exclusively for the GIGABYTE Project STEALTH series. This new graphics card inherits the minimalist philosophy of Project STEALTH by adopting a hidden power connector design, allowing seamless cable routing and a cleaner build layout. Tailored for enthusiasts who prioritize aesthetic refinement and efficient assembly, the card offers both cutting-edge performance and a streamlined look that elevates any gaming setup.

Hide the Cables, Power in Stealth
Project STEALTH redefines the PC building experience by relocating all connectors to the rear of the components. This thoughtful design streamlines cable management, enabling quicker installation and a cleaner, more organized build.

As many will recall, Zotac's GeForce RTX 5090 Solid graphics card series has had a storied career since launching earlier this year. One example served as the progenitor of "ROPGate"—as rooted out by original TechPowerUp investigations. Despite a ban of non-D variants in the region, Zotac GeForce RTX 5090 Solid OC retail units were reportedly available to purchase—via online auctions—in China. Late last week, a disgruntled Alameda County-based customer highlighted their purchase of a very disappointing package.

Taking to the official Micro Center subreddit, member "JamesFerg650" outlined a so-called "backpack scam," and directed frustrations at the long-running computer retail store. A more measured update was shared online later on: "yesterday after work I went to the new Micro Center in Santa Clara for the soft opening. Almost four hours after clock out time, I was home with my brand new Zotac 5090. I was so happy leaving Micro Center, I went out the door without a second thought and drove home smiling and singing along to my (favorite) music. All that build up became the biggest letdown when I opened my box to find three cross-body backpacks inside rather than my 5090."

A fair few partner-produced items—exhibited at last week's Computex 2025 trade event—were blessed with Jensen Huang's signature. Not long after concluding his keynote presentation, the ever intrepid NVIDIA boss spent time on the showroom floor. The TechPowerUp crew stumbled upon an autographed example at the Palit booth: Pandora NXNano mini AI PC. Due to mitigating circumstances, we did not capture any shots of a nearby special prototype flagship graphics card. The Taiwanese manufacturer proudly showcased a "GeForce RTX 5090 Tornado" dual-fan/dual-slot design; its all-metal housing aesthetic recalls an older vintage of Team Green's Founder Edition line.

Several media outlets have examined this compelling prospect; at least from a safe distance. Palit did not allow any hands-on experiences. A first party-developed "double flow-through cooling solution" serves as a main inspiration for the Tornado engineering team. The GeForce board partner's implementation of an angled 12v-2x6 power connector is another borrowed element. According to VideoCardz's expert opinion, NVIDIA has supplied a reference PCB. Palit is best known for making budget-friendly (mostly plastic) options, so their Tornado card concept represents a compelling breakaway from normal patterns. Despite gaining an important official endorsement; several rival products were similarly decorated with Huang's autograph.

Inno3D unveiled its new iChill GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 Frostbite Pro graphics cards targeting PC enthusiasts with DIY liquid cooling loops. These cards come with factory-fitted full-coverage water blocks. Perhaps their most interesting feature is that the blocks make the card single-slot. The blocks are supplied by Alphacool, and come with tail-ended ports for liquid cooling fittings. The blocks come with chrome-finish nickel-plated copper as their primary material, with POM acetal tops that have a carbon-fiber print vinyl decal. These are what set the new Frostbite Pro series apart from the older RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 Frostbite series that Inno3D launched at CES earlier this year, which come with water blocks that have top-oriented fitting ports, and clear acrylic tops.

Given that most air-cooled RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 cards come with PCBs that are barely two-thirds the length of the cards themselves to make room for the air cooling solution to have a flow-through region, the Inno3D iChill RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 Frostbite Pro cards are very compact, with under 20 cm of lengths, but with some length being added from the tail-ended fittings and tubing. These cards would have been suitable for 3U rackmount builds if not for the positioning of the power connector. The 12V2x6 connector points upward along the top, as they are in most air-cooled gaming graphics cards, and not toward the tail-end. Both cards are expected to offer factory overclocked speeds that are at least as high as the iChill Frostbite series.

What if NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 GPU had access to not one but four 16-pin power connectors? Not only would it draw much less power per connector, thus avoiding overheating of the connector in some cases, but the power coming into the GB202 could theoretically scale to 2,400 Watts. This is precisely what NVIDIA tested with its latest leaked GeForce RTX 5090 GPU engineering sample. Pictured below is a PCB that was destroyed after testing. Around the edges of the card, you can spot several USB headers, pin test points, and diagnostic connectors. These features are standard on development samples but are removed from retail models. On the I/O bracket, there are five display outputs, which are more than what you usually find on a gaming card. This suggests NVIDIA was testing output strength and signal quality under different loads. Since we can't see the back side of the board, it's unclear if the chip itself is from the GeForce RTX 5090 series or the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell variant. However, it is most likely a super early sample of RTX 5090 before volume production began.

Bitspower at the 2025 Computex shows off its latest DIY liquid cooling solutions. The water block expert began its showcase with full-coverage water blocks for the latest generation of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" and AMD Radeon RX 9000 RDNA 4 graphics cards. The Bitspower Nebula BPM-VG5090FE is designed for the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition. There are additional custom-design vendor-specific full-coverage blocks under the Nebula series for other RTX 50-series GPUs.

For example, the Nebula BPM-VG5090ASA is designed for the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090. The BPM-VG5090ASF is for the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 5090. The VG5080MT is designed for the MSI RTX 5080 Gaming Trio. The company also introduced water blocks for AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT custom-design graphics cards, such as the 2025 VGM-X9070XT for Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics cards designed close to the AMD reference design PCB; and the VGM-X9070X16 is designed for the XFX RX 9070 XT Mercury OC.

We stopped by ZOTAC at the Computex 2025 show as the company previously hinted the return of the ArcticStorm Series, in the form of the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 ArcticStorm AIO. In addition to this flagship liquid cooled GeForce RTX 5090, ZOTAC is also working on a low-profile GeForce RTX 5060, which could be quite popular for small form-factor builds.

The star of the show is definitely the Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 ArcticStorm AIO graphics card, as this will be positioned as the flagship graphics card in ZOTAC's lineup, featuring an all-in-one liquid cooling with 360 mm radiator with three 120 mm RGB fans and SPECTRA 2.0 ARGB lighting, Infinity Mirror design, dual BIOS, and metal backplate. It is a 2.2-slot design and while the specifications are still not finalized, we expect a decent factory-overclock. ZOTAC is also showing off a low-profile GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card, meant for SFF systems and should be compatible with most, if not all PC cases. It is a part of ZOTAC's SOLID Series lineup, takes up two slots, needs a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, has two DisplayPort and one HDMI output, and features a three-fan design. Bear in mind that ZOTAC also has full-height single-fan ITX-ready GeForce RTX 5060, but low-profile graphics cards are not that common these days.

EK, a leader in high-performance liquid cooling solutions, proudly presents the EK-Quantum Vector³ Suprim RTX 5090 - Plexi. This meticulously engineered water block is tailored for MSI's flagship Suprim RTX 5090 graphics card, delivering unparalleled thermal performance and a striking visual appeal.

Next-Generation Cooling for the RTX 5090
At the heart of the Vector³ Suprim RTX 5090 lies an advanced cooling engine, featuring an expanded fin array and optimized coolant flow paths. This design ensures efficient heat dissipation from critical components, including the GPU core, VRAM, and power stages. Complementing this is a custom CNC-machined backplate that not only reinforces the structural integrity of the card but also passively cools PCB hotspots, maintaining optimal performance under load.

PNY has made its Computex 2025 shine with its new GPU SKUs that feature chrome-plated cooler shrouds. Now only carrying a unique aesthetic, these cards feature what appears to be a printed signature of none other than NVIDIA CEO Jensen H. Huang. Available in GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 editions, these chrome-polished SKUs feature ARGB lighting control to match any PC aesthetics. PNY has developed an equally interesting RTX PRO 6000 GPU alongside gamer-focused models, with a chrome-plated blower cooler. While this doesn't have any RGB lights, it is supposed to go into workstation builds, where aesthetics aren't exactly the most important factor.

More than 700 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, our GeForce RTX 50 Series performance multiplier, is now available in over 125 games and apps. Today, at Computex 2025, we revealed that another 10 games are launching with day-one support, 7 of which will be released this month. In each, DLSS Frame Generation and DLSS Super Resolution are also available, ensuring every GeForce RTX gamer can accelerate frame rates and receive the best possible experience.

Additionally, we're announcing that the critically acclaimed DOOM: The Dark Ages is adding immersive path-traced effects and DLSS Ray Reconstruction in June, further enhancing image quality for PC gamers. And NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, one of the top 10 most played Steam games each and every week, is doing the same on May 22nd. So keep on reading to learn about the DLSS and RTX technologies coming to DOOM: The Dark Ages, F1 25, FBC: Firebreak, inZOI, LIGHT OF MOTIRAM, MindsEye, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, Portal with RTX, RoadCraft, Splitgate 2, WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers, and creator apps Chaos Enscape and Autodesk VRED.

MSI at the 2025 Computex brought several new innovations to its graphics card product stack. To begin with, the company unveiled its Retro line of graphics cards that bring back to life board designs from at least 10-15 years ago. A case in point is the new GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Twin Frozr 2025 OC, which features a cooler that visually resembles the Twin Frozr II cooler from around 2012. There's also the RTX 5060 Cyclone, a card with an aluminium fin bagel cooling solution, a cooler design MSI used in the mid-late 2000s—almost 20 years ago!

Next up, is the GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 SUPRIM TITANIUM. This card is possibly MSI's answer to the ASUS ROG Astral Dhahab Edition, but with higher market availability. It features a-two-tone gold+titanium cooler shroud all around. The topside around the fans in particular has a very decadently textured matte finish that feels like a piece of jewellery in person. Lastly, the company showed us its RTX 5080 Expert graphics card. This card targets creators as much as it does gamers, and features a cooler design similar to NVIDIA's FE Double Axial Flow-through. Unlike the RTX 40-series Expert graphics cards, MSI claims to have worked extensively to improve the cooling performance and noise levels of its RTX 50-series Expert cards.More pictures follow.

GIGABYTE at the 2025 Computex showed off the AORUS RTX 5090 AI Box, which it claims to be the world's fastest external GPU (eGPU). This is an external GPU box with an ATX 3.1 power supply, and a Thunderbolt 5 interface that also leverages asymmetric bandwidth boost—where the host to GPU transmit (Tx) stream runs at 120 Gbps, while the host to GPU receive (Rx) stream runs at 40 Gbps. GPUs tend to be Tx-heavy devices. The box encapsulates a desktop GeForce RTX 5090 GPU that's cooled by an AIO liquid cooling solution. The box also puts out several docking station I/O features, such as Thunderbolt 5 downstream for daisy-chaining, Thunderbolt DisplayPort passthrough, a trio of standard DP, HDMI, 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2, and 2.5 GbE wired Ethernet. The USB ports put out by this box have USB-PD 3.0 quick charge capabilities.

Galax tops off its custom-design GeForce RTX graphics card lines with Hall of Fame (HOF) SKUs, which tend to have not just the highest factory overclocks, but also elaborate VRM and cooling designs meant for professional overclockers to chase down benchmark and OC world records. A striking feature of HOF series cards has been their white color scheme, not just for the cooling solution and backplate, but also the PCB solder-mask underneath. The company is about to take a detour on this, with the new black themed RTX 50-series HOF series. It just teased the first picture of such a card on its Twitter feed. At this point, it's not clear which GPU models Galax will create HOF Black SKUs out of, but it's likely these will be the RTX 5090, and possibly even the RTX 5080. The teaser showcases a 2-tone black cooler shroud, black fan impellers, possibly black anodized aluminium fins on the heatsink, and definitely a black PCB.

In advance of and coinciding with today's launch of ID Software's DOOM: The Dark Ages, an impressive number of partner companies have revealed licensed hardware and accessories. Surprisingly, NVIDIA has joined in on the fun—with a fan favorite franchise-themed flagship Founders Edition (FE) card. This lone contribution is only available through an online competition; as outlined by the firm's GeForce social media account. This afternoon's announcement stated: "Stand and Fight for a chance to win. We're giving away a DOOM: The Dark Ages custom wrapped NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 (FE) to celebrate its official release with native ray tracing, NVIDIA DLSS 4 + Reflex." Hopeful entrants are tasked with contributing "thumbs ups," and writing in with comments.

Team Green's ($1999 MSRP) extremely special DOOM-themed card is decorated with highly expensive custom livery. According to official estimates, this level of custom wrapping adds about $600 to the flagship "Blackwell" card's base price. Despite this giveaway being open to worldwide participants, (small print) terms and conditions seem to excluded. As reported by Wccftech, these territories include: "Australia, the Province of Quebec, and a few more. The Middle East region and some Asian countries are also" shut out. Paying customers can consider alternative "step down" options from ASUS and (maybe Asia-only) COLORFUL. The Republic of Gamers (ROG) Astral RTX 5080 DOOM OC Edition is limited to a devilishly low number of units: 666. The Bethesda webshop is running short with available stock, but they offer all manner of extra bundled-in digital and physical tchotchkes (on top of a $1999.99 baseline).