ASUS launched the Prime Series of GeForce RTX 40-series "Ada" graphics cards that meet NVIDIA's new SFF-Ready specification that sets 304 mm x 151 mm x 50 mm (length x height x thickness) as the maximum dimensions for a graphics card to qualify. What's interesting, is that NVIDIA intended for the SFF-Ready standard to apply to performance-segment and enthusiast-class GPUs (RTX 4070 SUPER and up), however, ASUS has designed the Prime series for the RTX 4060 Ti, RTX 4070, and RTX 4070 SUPER; there are no cards in the series based on the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER or the RTX 4080 SUPER, yet.

ASUS is using a common board design for its RTX 4070 SUPER, RTX 4070, and RTX 4060 Ti Prime series graphics cards, which measures 269 mm x 120 mm x 50 mm, while the heatsink and PCB underneath the cooler shroud may vary between the RTX 4070/SUPER and the RTX 4060 Ti cards. The cooler uses a trio of 70 mm fans to ventilate an aluminium fin-stack heatsink, much of the airflow from the third fan goes through the heatsink and back out from a large cutout in the backplate. The RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 Ti cards use single 8-pin PCIe power inputs, while the RTX 4070 SUPER uses a 16-pin 12VHPWR input. There are a total of six SKUs, two per GPU, one of which sticks to the NVIDIA reference clock speeds, and the other being an OC SKU with a minor factory overclock.

Palit sprung an unexpected surprise at the 2024 Computex. Normally, graphics card partners announce their new custom-design brands alongside new GPU generation launches. Palit took a different path, it rehashed its usual GameRock, JetStream, and Dual OC brands with the RTX 40-series "Ada," back in 2022, but showcased all new custom graphics card designs at Computex 2024, with an expected 5-6 months left for NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce "Blackwell" to hit the scene. The RTX 4090 Neptunus is a variation of the GameRock OC, except it is an air+liquid hybrid cooling solution. The card doesn't include a liquid cooling loop, and out of the box, the air-cooling performance of this card should resemble that of the GameRock, but it has a liquid cooling channel, you use your own G 1/4" fittings, and connect the card to a DIY loop for a transformative upgrade in cooling performance.

Next up, is the RTX 4080 SUPER Beyond Limits. This is Palit being flamboyant with its design, similar to the ASUS ROG Strix or the MSI Gaming X. The card features a very capable 3.5-slot air cooling design with high static-pressure fans, but the star attraction is a large acrylic RGB LED diffuser that runs along the length of the card, which has the Beyond Limits logo, and an infinite-reflection mirror. There is a variant of this card called the Beyond Limits Crystal, which has an "infinity reflection pyramid." The screaming "Beyond Limits" lettering makes way for some abstract shapes.

ASUS today announced the innovative concepts and upcoming designs that it will be demonstrating at its Computex 2024 booths, including AI PCs, prototype AMD and Intel motherboards, as well as fresh CPU coolers.

AI PC-ready hardware
With all the groundbreaking AI-powered apps and features available today, and many more on the horizon, PC enthusiasts the world over are searching for hardware that will let them run AI tools on their own AI PC in addition to using cloud-based subscriptions. At Computex 2024, ASUS is showing off the PC hardware that builders can leverage to explore the future of this revolution. An AI PC is an entire platform ready to unlock advanced AI features—in turn, revolutionizing the way that people build, customize, and use such a device.

At NVIDIA's Computex 2024 booth, we got a quick look at the enthusiast-segment GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards and third-party PC cases that qualify for the company's new SFF-Ready market, which aims to incentivize building smaller enthusiast-segment graphics cards for the SFF crowd, and to try and arrest the runaway growth in the sizes of custom-design graphics cards. To qualify, a graphics card must be no larger than 304 mm x 151 mm x 50 mm (length x height x thickness), and for an SFF case to support such a card. Most of these cards and cases are already launched, and we're sure the standard will have some influence on the graphics card partners and case designers as NVIDIA heads towards its future GeForce RTX "Blackwell" generation.

NVIDIA has taken note of the upward-and-outward trend for enthusiast-segment GeForce RTX gaming graphics cards to be huge, and out of sight for small form-factor gaming PC builds. This can be a problem, as SFF gaming PC builds are confined to exotic liquid cooling solutions that drive up costs, or to make do with mid-performance graphics cards, or simply give up the idea in favor of a next generation console, such as the upcoming ones from Xbox and PlayStation. To confront this trend, NVIDIA developed the new GeForce RTX SFF-Ready Enthusiast Graphics Card Guideline.

Put simply, the guideline calls for SFF-Ready advertised enthusiast segment graphics cards to be no larger than the specified dimensions. These are a maximum of 30.4 cm in length, a maximum of 15.1 cm in height, and a maximum of 5 cm or 2.5 slots in card thickness. Only cards at or smaller than these dimensions (304 mm x 151 mm x 50 mm) quality for the SFF-ready marker. It's also important to note that board partners cannot work their way around this by using AIO liquid cooling solutions where there's more to the card than its main component (i.e. tubing and a radiator). The total physical dimensions of the card cannot exceed the ones specified above. In addition to this, NVIDIA is now going to maintain a continuously updating list of graphics cards and cases that meet the SFF-Ready dimensions.