Gigabyte decided to poke fun at Asus over its PCIe Q-Release Slim mechanism for ejecting massive graphics cards from the PCIe x16 slot. Previously, Asus motherboard owners complained that the PCIe Q-Release Slim mechanism was damaging the PCIe x16 interface on graphics cards after being ejected multiple times. Asus promised to fix the issue and replace all damaged components. Since then, there has been no news from the manufacturer on this matter.
Image source: VideoCardz / Gigabyte JP
Gigabyte’s Japanese office posted a video on the X social network showing that after hundreds of installations and removals of the card from the PCIe x16 slot on its motherboards, no damage to the PCIe x16 interface of the card itself occurs.
Gigabyte boards also have a mechanism to make it easier to remove massive graphics cards from the slot. However, the difference between this and the PCIe Q-Release Slim mechanism on Asus boards is that Gigabyte boards use the old and proven button mechanism. It is located on the right side of the motherboard, next to the chipset heatsink. When pressed, the button pulls a cable that releases the PCIe x16 slot latch and releases the graphics card from the slot.
Asus boards, on the other hand, do not use a button — the tensioning mechanism is built directly into the PCIe x16 slot of the motherboard. The PCIe slot latch will not release the video card if you try to pull it out of the slot by the center or right part. However, the card can be easily removed if you pull it from the left side (from the side of the rear panel of the motherboard connectors), as shown in the image below.
Overall, the problem seems to be somewhat exaggerated. Who among ordinary users would install and remove a video card from a PCIe slot 50 or more times? Perhaps video card reviewers might encounter such a need. There is still no known case where the PCIe Q-Release Slim mechanism would render a video card inoperative. On the other hand, the existing possibility of damaging the interface of the same RTX 5090, which costs $2,000, is also not very inspiring. At the very least, this could cause a decrease in its resale value.