Hands-on with Asus Q-Release Slim PCIe slots

Getting a big honkin’ graphics card out of a PCIe slot isn’t easy these days. Asus has tried a few methods to alleviate this issue, but its latest Q-Release Slim slot design is causing some new problems on its own. Adam and Will decided to go in-depth in the lab to see what all the fuss is about.

The fuss, in case you haven’t heard, is that this slot design might scratch your graphics card’s connection area. There’s a little retention clamp inside the slot, which replaced simpler button-redirect mechanisms that just moved the tab to make it easier to hit. The clamp only releases if you pull on the card in a very specific way, from the part of the card closest to the rear of the PC case.

The mechanism itself is a little awkward, requiring a two degree tilt in an area of the case that’s already very tight. But as Adam points out, the bigger issue might be that in the absence of easy access to the release tab, the Q-Release Slim design asks the user to just yank on the card, in a way that’s not immediately obvious. It’s also deeply unnatural for anyone who’s been using PCIe slots for the last couple of decades.

That said, it’s not so awkward that it’s impossible to get used to. And as has been noted before, most people aren’t frequently installing and removing graphics cards in the same machine — it’s a condition that might be exclusive to people who are constantly reviewing and benchmarking PC components. So I wouldn’t call it a deal-breaker for a motherboard that has this Q-Release Slim system in place.

But if it is, there are plenty of alternatives, even in Asus’ own product line. For more on the latest yankable PC hardware, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube. And join us every Tuesday for The Full Nerd podcast.