Graphics card and motherboard manufacturer, Colorful, has just unveiled an intriguing new AMD X870 motherboard with an easy-remove mechanism for its graphics card PCIe slot. While such additions aren’t new, this one stands out from the crowd thanks to it literally having an on/off button next to the slot to signify when the card is safe to remove.
With rival maker Asus, having just had a spot of controversy regarding its own quick release feature, Q-Release Slim – as featured on some of the best gaming motherboard options made by the company, such as the Asus ROG Strix X870E-E – the timing is potentially perfect for Colorful to swoop in and show how a quick release PCIe slot is actually done.
The new slot was shown on Chinese site Weibo as part of a reveal of a variety of new products from the manufacturer, including its take on the RTX 5080 – which looks quite distinct from the Nvidia Founders Edition we tested in our RTX 5080 review. The most interesting part of the reveal, though, was mention of a new CVN X870 motherboard and its “first-generation graphics card quick-release device.”
In a post that we’ve translated via Google Translate, the company goes on to say that “upgrading hardware is safer and more convenient, making it easy to create your gaming weapon” and that the new “quick-release design, one-click disassembly, [will] bid farewell to tedious operations.”
The company also posted an image of the new design that clearly shows the switch – which appears to be a rocker-style switch – sitting above the graphics card slot where it should be easy to access. A press of this and you should be able to remove your graphics card.
It’s unclear if the switch is a momentary design (only works when held down) or a latching switch (can stay in a fixed on or off position) or how the mechanism underneath works. However, rival systems tend to work by the switch being held down, which then slides out of the way a retaining clip at the back of the PCIe slot.
The reason such quick-release slots are needed is that standard graphics card slots have a clip at the back that flicks forward when a graphics card is pushed into the slot, which helps prevent the card coming loose. Once pressed forward, the clip needs to be pushed back to allow removal of the card. However, with graphics cards now being so big, safely reaching these clips is near-impossible. As such, motherboard manufacturers have come up with various ways to make it easier to release these clips.
Asus’ Q-Release Slim takes this notion a step further by having a mechanism that automatically releases this clip when the graphics card is pulled at a certain angle. However, one tester reported higher than usual wear of the card’s PCIe connector when using this system, although Asus was quick to respond saying “the new design performs similarly to traditional PCIe slots.”
Colorful doesn’t currently sell products in the US or Europe, which is a bit of a shame as it and its sub-brands have released some rather wild and whacky designs in recent years. Its Colorfire sub-brand, in particular, came up with the utterly charming Meow lineup of cat graphics cards and cat motherboards.
For more on why you might want an AMD X870 motherboard, check out our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review to find out why it’s the best starting point for a gaming PC right now.
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