Hands-on with the new Asus RTX 50-series graphics cards
It feels like there are a million variations of every graphics card on the market. There aren’t, but looking at the search results for “4070” on Amazon, you could be forgiven for thinking so. Speaking of which, Asus has five different flavors of the new Nvidia RTX 50-series cards and showed them off at CES 2025. PCWorld’s Adam got his hands on all of them for your perusing pleasure. (For the sake of disclosure, Asus sponsored the video below. Sending a team of live reporters and videographers to Las Vegas is expensive.) For the sake of expediency and for your convenience, let me break down the list of Asus RTX GPU branding options: Asus RTX Dual just means “dual fan” and it’s Asus’ entry-level card. No extra lights, no factory overclocking, no fancy cooler tech. Asus RTX Prime is one step up. Bigger and more expansive cooling (triple fan on the 50-series), but no lighting. Asus RTX TUF is Asus’ mid-range gaming brand, a little more “rugged” with minimal lighting. TUF devices are a little chunkier, but aren’t usually rated for any kind of impact or dust resistance, a la ruggedized phones or laptops. Despite the mid-range label, it’ll be available in up to the 5090 SKU. Asus RTX Strix was formerly Asus’ top of the line, but is now the enthusiast label. More lighting for all your desktop bling needs, with an upgraded power plug with LED status messages. Asus RTX Astral is the new tippy-top Asus card with four cooling fans (one on the rear), offered in 5080 and 5090 flavors. Even the heatsink fins are blacked out, with the LED lighting and power connector upgrades above. The connector can even give you a per-pin power readout, and the card has an internal software-accessible heatmap for the PCB. Asus also showed off the new Thor Strix Platinum power supply, which comes with LED lighting, a tiny black-and-white display, and a “sense pin” connection on the GPU rail. You can tune the transient power loads, and it should work with any GPU from any brand using that upgraded 12V-2×6 connection. We’re still processing all the stuff we saw at CES 2025. For more great looks at the latest PC hardware from the show floor and beyond, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube.
It feels like there are a million variations of every graphics card on the market. There aren’t, but looking at the search results for “4070” on Amazon, you could be forgiven for thinking so.
Speaking of which, Asus has five different flavors of the new Nvidia RTX 50-series cards and showed them off at CES 2025. PCWorld’s Adam got his hands on all of them for your perusing pleasure. (For the sake of disclosure, Asus sponsored the video below. Sending a team of live reporters and videographers to Las Vegas is expensive.)
For the sake of expediency and for your convenience, let me break down the list of Asus RTX GPU branding options:
- Asus RTX Dual just means “dual fan” and it’s Asus’ entry-level card. No extra lights, no factory overclocking, no fancy cooler tech.
- Asus RTX Prime is one step up. Bigger and more expansive cooling (triple fan on the 50-series), but no lighting.
- Asus RTX TUF is Asus’ mid-range gaming brand, a little more “rugged” with minimal lighting. TUF devices are a little chunkier, but aren’t usually rated for any kind of impact or dust resistance, a la ruggedized phones or laptops. Despite the mid-range label, it’ll be available in up to the 5090 SKU.
- Asus RTX Strix was formerly Asus’ top of the line, but is now the enthusiast label. More lighting for all your desktop bling needs, with an upgraded power plug with LED status messages.
- Asus RTX Astral is the new tippy-top Asus card with four cooling fans (one on the rear), offered in 5080 and 5090 flavors. Even the heatsink fins are blacked out, with the LED lighting and power connector upgrades above. The connector can even give you a per-pin power readout, and the card has an internal software-accessible heatmap for the PCB.
Asus also showed off the new Thor Strix Platinum power supply, which comes with LED lighting, a tiny black-and-white display, and a “sense pin” connection on the GPU rail. You can tune the transient power loads, and it should work with any GPU from any brand using that upgraded 12V-2×6 connection.
We’re still processing all the stuff we saw at CES 2025. For more great looks at the latest PC hardware from the show floor and beyond, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube.
