We’ve been listening to loads about an enormous shift in the best way customized PCs are comprised of the final two years of CES, one thing we at PCWorld have dubbed “the War on Cables.” But regardless of a number of promising merchandise hitting the market, this would-be revolution nonetheless appears very a lot within the incipient stage. Is this shift available in the market actually going to occur or will it’s a mega-sized flop? On the present ground at CES 2024, Adam is joined by KitGuru’s Senior Technical Writer and ATX Hater, Leo Waldock, to hash it out.

There are actually three technically competing, however broadly very comparable, implementations of this concept going without delay: MSI’s Project Zero, MainGear’s MGRC (MainGear Rear Connector), and Asus BTF (both “back to front” or “back to the future,” relying on who you ask). All three use very barely completely different cutouts to permit energy and knowledge cables to mount on the rear of the motherboard and case, although Asus has the distinctive choice to run the graphics card’s power through the motherboard PCB as properly.

Leo and Adam agree that it’s necessary to get each shoppers and system integrators (sellers of pre-built PCs like MainGear) onboard. Perhaps much more necessary for broad adoption are case makers like Cooler Master and Corsair. There are different thorny little points to type out — who owns the patents for all of those implementations? What do you do about smaller and extra fiddly connections like ARGB and PWM cables for followers, which will be positioned roughly wherever on a motherboard? What about vastly advanced builds with daisy-chained fan connections (like Corsair’s iQue Link) and customized liquid cooling loops?

Leo has a extra speedy and sensible concern for at-home system builders. “Any sane person building a PC puts the motherboard on the box, plugs everything in, fires it up. Well, what do you do if all the connectors are on the back?” While I’d contest his assertion that it’s important to be loopy to construct within the case — that’s numerous time to spend outdoors it and discover that your CPU energy rail isn’t lengthy sufficient, for instance — I do know tons of individuals do certainly use this technique, and that’s a reliable query.

We’ll have to attend and see how the trade treats this rising pattern and hope that sufficient massive gamers can agree on requirements to maintain the complications at bay. For extra deep dives into the way forward for PC constructing, remember to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube!