ASUS adds, then removes, the ability to detect sagging in its latest ROG Astral GPUs

Anyone rocking a recent-gen high-end GPU like an RTX 4090 or 5090 knows that these behemoths of rendering power are heavy enough to knock out a would-be PC thief. As GPUs get larger and heavier, sagging has become a growing concern for PC builders and GPU manufacturers, and ASUS briefly let on just how aware of this issue the company is.

ASUS quietly added a function called “Equipment Installation Check” to its GPU Tweak III monitoring software back in January. Included in this toolset was a measurement named “VGA Horizontal Status” that precisely measured the angle at which the installed GPU was tilting down. Users could set a custom warning if the GPU tilted down beyond a degree threshold set by the user.

In mid-April, Taiwanese publication UNIKO’s Hardware published a teardown of the latest ROG Astral 50-series cards, which highlights what they suspect to be a Bosch Sensortec chip. Bosch describes it as “a general purpose, low-power IMU that combines precise acceleration and angular rate (gyroscopic) measurement with intelligent on-chip motion-triggered interrupt features.” The technicians at UNIKO’s Hardware believe this chip is what powers the tilting detection tool.

Curiously, the most recent mentions of this feature on ASUS forums point out that as of the latest release of the Tweak III software, dated April 11, the Equipment Installation Check button is no longer there. Users had begun reporting what they believed to be false positives, confident that their GPUs were level despite the software saying they were sagging. Engadget reached out to ASUS to understand if this feature is being deprecated or if it wasn’t reporting accurate readings but did not receive a response.

Whether the feature is gone for good or angling for a comeback, the risk of sagging GPUs is all too real for many PC gamers today. PCIe slots were not exactly designed with today’s six-plus GPUs in mind, which has led to gamers finding creative solutions to hold up their enormous graphics cards and prevent potential damage.