We declared the War on Cables the hottest PC trend of 2023 after Computex final summer season and at CES 2024, the idea bought actual. Asus was busy displaying off its imaginative and prescient for desktop PC with out seen inner cabling – dubbed “BTF” for “Back to the Future” – and sizzling rattling is it slick. Better but, this wire-free initiative is kicking off in mere months, with many of the main PC case distributors pledged to help it.

The Asus BTF idea strikes all the foremost cable and energy connections in your parts to the again of the motherboard (get the BTF title now?) for a pristine design aesthetic in the principle a part of your case. MSI and Maingear are selling an analogous idea dubbed “Project Zero,” however a key distinction between that and Asus BTF is the way in which they deal with graphics card cabling.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Project Zero nonetheless has you routing these massive, beefy GPU cables on to the usual place in your graphics card, considerably blemishing the no-wires aesthetic. Asus BTF, however, provides a proprietary, smaller 600 watt PCIe slot to each appropriate graphics playing cards in addition to appropriate motherboards, eliminating even GPU wires. It’s deliciously smooth whereas additionally serving to fight GPU sag. (BTF motherboards can even work simply positive with normal GPUs in the event you want.)

Brad Chacos/IDG

Brad Chacos/IDG

BTF motherboards shall be worth a little bit greater than their conventional counterparts – they want extra, thicker shrouds on the entrance to account for additional soldering factors necessitated by transferring the ability connectors to the again – but it surely shouldn’t be too unhealthy. Asus representatives advised me the corporate is focusing on roughly a $30 worth premium for a BTF mobo. The firm can be releasing new circumstances which might be appropriate with BTF builds in addition to conventional ATX motherboards.

Asus plans to roll BTF out to the lots through kits at first, so unsuspecting consumers don’t unintentionally buy graphics playing cards and motherboards that may’t be used with conventional parts. First up is an all-white Asus TUF-branded package with the specialised TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super BTF White Edition, focusing on a roughly $1,500-$2,000 whole system worth when it rolls out someday round February.

Brad Chacos/IDG

For the ballers amongst us, Asus can be planning on releasing a high-end, black-and-RGB’d out ROG Strix package near the top of the quarter, powered by the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 BTF Edition with that particular 600W connector. Both kits can have motherboards and circumstances matching their respective GPU’s aesthetic, which you’ll be able to learn all about on Asus’ Edge Up blog.

But wait! That’s not all.

While these preliminary gross sales will give attention to pre-bundled kits, Asus hopes the BTF initiative will spur a brand new revolution in customized PC constructing. To that impact, it’s already teamed up with many of the main PC case distributors to create the BTF Alliance. “Through this partnership, you’ll have your choice from a wide range of PC cases that are fully compatible with our BTF motherboards,” Asus says.

Aerocool, be quiet!, Cooler Master, Corsair, Inwin, Lian Li, Phanteks, Silverstone, and Thermaltake all have BTF circumstances within the works, with the primary fashions anticipated to be introduced later within the first quarter.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Brad Chacos/IDG

That’s a formidable signal of help for the thrilling, but fledgling BTF idea. Will Asus additionally be capable of rally different motherboard and graphics card makers to their facet or will rivals be extra inclined to toss their lot in with MSI’s Project Zero marketing campaign? Or will different PC makers and customers even care in any respect?

One factor’s for sure: It’s thrilling to see innovation coming to the normal PC desktop expertise and the War on Cables is simply getting began in earnest.

Stayed tuned to PCWorld for all the most recent and best PC gear from the CES 2024 flooring, all week lengthy!