ASUS adds the premium ROG Astral to its line of graphics cards, its first four-fan design

Note: This feature was first published on 9 January 2025.

With NVIDIA's unveiling of its next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series of GPUs, ASUS has announced a slate of new graphics cards with NVIDIA's latest and greatest. Alongside new additions to ROG Strix, TUF Gaming and Prime graphics cards, however, ASUS is also debuting its newest line of graphics cards. Yes, the rumours were true, as ASUS introduces the quad-fan ROG Astral line.

ROG Astral focuses on enthusiasts, adds a fourth fan 

The ROG Astral is ASUS's first line of quad-fan graphics cards, but as of right now, only encompasses NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. Although the inclusion of the fourth fan is the most visually apparent design change and brings with it various cooling improvements, other design changes have also taken place internally, with the aim of improving cooling.

ASUS says the fourth fan itself brings 20% more airflow and pressure than its previous three-fan designs. Apart from that, instead of the traditional thermal paste between the heatsink and the GPU, ASUS has chosen to use a phase-change thermal pad. The 'phase-change' in this case refers to the material of the thermal pad being able to liquefy based on the temperature, in this case depending on the temperature being transferred from the GPU to the heatsink. ASUS also claims that, as the material liquefies, it increases its surface contact between the GPU and the heatsink, allowing for better heat dissipation. 

Although phase-change materials are not a new innovation, having been used in other industries, as well as a cooling solution in more enthusiast consumer tech products, it's appearance in more product categories could suggest greater adoption by manufacturers for more high-end, demanding products. Other features include an ASUS-patented vapour chamber design with milled pathways, and a Dual BIOS switch.

And it bears mentioning that ASUS intends for the ROG Astral to be aimed mainly at enthuasiasts and overclockers. The graphics cards have 80-amp MOSFETs to allow for more overcloking headroom (up to 35%, ASUS says), and including a protective coating on the PCB to protect it against short circuits casued by moisture or dust. The ROG Astral cards also support advanced features in ASUS's GPU Tweak III software, including Thermal Map, Power Detector+ which monitors the connection between the graphics card and the power supply, and a mileage tracker to keep track of power usage. 

Alongside the air-cooled cards, ASUS is also appealing to those interested in water cooling with the ROG Astral LC RTX 5090. Taking cues from its ROG Matrix line of water-cooled graphics cards, the ROG Astral LC RTX 5090 has an AIO water cooler with a 360mm radiator.

Speaking of size, these cards are not small, with the air-cooled cards taking up 3.8 slots, while the water-cooled ROG Astral LC takes up 2.5 slots. The dimensions certainly don't do any favours; the air-cooled graphics cards measure 35.7cm long, 14.9cm wide and 7.6cm thick (the ROG Astral LC's graphics card measures slightly smaller than this). With their GPU options spanning only the GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, they're still power-hungry, with a recommended PSU wattage of 850W and 1000W, respectively.

These are the new ROG Astral cards:

• ROG Astral LC GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB GDDR7)
• ROG Astral LC GeForce RTX 5090 OC Edition (32GB GDDR7)
• ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB GDDR7)
• ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 OC Edition (32GB GDDR7)
• ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 (16GB GDDR7)
• ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5080 OC Edition (16GB GDDR7)

ROG Strix, TUF Gaming and Prime graphics cards

As the new ROG Astral graphics cards are targeted at a higher-end market, ASUS has also announced new graphics cards under their already existing ROG Strix, TUF Gaming and Prime lines. If you're not looking for an RTX 5090 or RTX 5080, the ROG Strix line covers the RTX 5070 with these four new cards:

• ROG Strix GeFroce RTX 5070 Ti (16GB GDDR7)
• ROG Strix GeForce RTX 5070 Ti OC Edition (16GB GDDR7)
• ROG Strix GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 OC Edition (unreleased, coming soon)

The TUF Gaming lineup also spans the RTX 5090 to RTX 5070 lineup, and includes some durability-focused features, including a protective PCB coating similar to that on the ROG Astral, 5K black metallic capacitors which gives 52% wider temperature tolerance and 2.5 times the lifespan of normal capacitors, and 'military-grade' TUF chokes and MOSFETs. These are the new TUF Gaming graphics cards:

• TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5090 OC Edition (32GB GDDR7)
• TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5080 OC edition (16GB GDDR7)
• TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 Ti OC Edition (16GB GDDR7)
• TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 OC edition (12GB GDDR7)

Finally, the Prime line is also seeing new RTX 50 series additions. The new Prime graphics cards encompass the RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070, along with their OC counterparts, but of note is that all Prime GPU designs are 2.5 slot, meaning that unlike the higher-end graphics cards above, they're a bit more palatable in terms of size. All the GPUs listed above also use phase-change thermal pads.

Local pricing and availability of these cards are not available, but we'll take note of when they are. But if they're anything close to the Founders Edition pricing of these cards, they're going to cost a pretty penny. 

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