Hate those five-minute struggles to remove your graphics card? Painful GPU removal problems could be a thing of the past with new motherboards
Motherboard manufacturers seem to be picking up the pace in moving to new PCIe graphics card slot designs that replace the traditional locking mechanism with a button or, in Asus’ case, a completely seamless mechanism.
VideoCardz reports on the increasing availability of new motherboards for AMD and Intel’s new 800 series products that do not require GPU locking. These include boards from Asus and MSI that were just shown off at Gamescom, and more are likely to follow from ASRock, Biostar and Gigabyte (who showed off similar concepts at Computex not long ago).
At this point we need to rewind a little to have some background. First off, for those wondering what is meant by the “latch”, it is the clip on the back of the PCIe slot that ensures that your graphics card is held firmly in the interface. You need to pull back this latch to remove the card when it comes to an upgrade, for example (or you may need to remove the card for cleaning purposes).
The problem is that while this process is relatively straightforward, the locking mechanism can sometimes be a bit fiddly, especially if you have a PC where the inside of the case is crammed with hardware and there’s very little room to maneuver.
If you have a huge high-end graphics card and maybe a beefy CPU cooler too, you might not even be able to reach the latch with your fingers when removing the GPU. In this case, PC owners often resort to something like a chopstick to navigate through a small gap and push the latch, which is a tricky proposition indeed.
Some less clever people may even use a screwdriver and break the latch or accidentally hit the motherboard in a clumsy attempt to push the latch down, potentially damaging components.
That’s why we’ve recently seen a push-button release mechanism, as demonstrated by MSI on its Intel Z890 MPG Edge motherboard. All you have to do is press and hold the button – located in an easily accessible place on the side of the motherboard – to move the latch into the open position. These types of designs have been around for some time, but as mentioned, they’re becoming more and more common.
Asus has gone a step further with a new AMD X870 motherboard, as demonstrated by overclocking expert Der8auer at Gamescom, that features a system called PCIe Q-Release Slim (see YouTube clip below).
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It’s a completely seamless quick-release mechanism where you simply slide the graphics card in during installation, and to remove the card, simply pull on the front of the board and it comes out – like magic. (As Der8auer shows, the card stays firmly in place even if you pull anywhere other than the front.)
Analysis: Look, mom, no bar!
In fact, Asus has already used the PCIe Q-Release Slim invention in a previous motherboard (the ROG Maximus Z790 Hero BTF), or at least something very similar, but that completely escaped us – and it looks like the company now has broader plans to enforce the quick-release mechanism on 800-series motherboards.
Other motherboard manufacturers are also increasingly using the above buttons for unlocking, so is the lock officially dead? Well, it looks like it’s on the way out, but there are some concerns, at least with the seamless solution that Asus has introduced.
Okay, the latch isn’t great, but if it breaks, it won’t render your PCIe slot unusable (just more precarious). Some people worry that Asus’ seamless Q-release mechanism will develop a fault. Then you’ll end up with a graphics card that’s stuck firmly in the PCIe slot with no obvious way to pull it out. (At least not one that has a very high chance of your motherboard ending up breaking into multiple pieces.) And of course, it’s a more complex mechanism than just a latch, so failure is more likely.
Still, a stuck GPU scenario shouldn’t really happen and if Asus has designed the PCIe Q-Release Slim mechanism well (since, as mentioned, this is the second generation product), it seems to be a pretty convenient method for installing and removing a graphics card.
Whatever the case, it looks like we’ll definitely see more key removal mechanisms on AMD and Intel 800 series motherboards, and perhaps fancier concepts than Asus’s.
