We’ve been listening to rather a lot about an enormous shift in the way in which customized PCs are produced from the final two years of CES, one thing we at PCWorld have dubbed “the Warfare on Cables.” However regardless of a couple of promising merchandise hitting the market, this would-be revolution nonetheless appears very a lot within the incipient stage. Is that this shift out there 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 Author and ATX Hater, Leo Waldock, to hash it out.
There are actually three technically competing, however broadly very comparable, implementations of this concept going directly: MSI’s Challenge Zero, MainGear’s MGRC (MainGear Rear Connector), and Asus BTF (both “again to entrance” or “again to the long run,” relying on who you ask). All three use very barely totally 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 energy by means of the motherboard PCB as properly.
Leo and Adam agree that it’s essential to get each shoppers and system integrators (sellers of pre-built PCs like MainGear) onboard. Maybe much more essential for broad adoption are case makers like Cooler Grasp and Corsair. There are different thorny little points to kind 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 might be positioned kind of wherever on a motherboard? What about massively advanced builds with daisy-chained fan connections (like Corsair’s iQue Hyperlink) and customized liquid cooling loops?
Leo has a extra instant and sensible concern for at-home system builders. “Any sane individual constructing a PC places the motherboard on the field, plugs every little thing in, fires it up. Effectively, what do you do if all of the connectors are on the again?” Whereas I might contest his assertion that you need to be loopy to construct within the case — that’s numerous time to spend exterior it and discover that your CPU energy rail isn’t lengthy sufficient, for instance — I do know tons of individuals do certainly use this methodology, and that’s a official query.
We’ll have to attend and see how the business treats this rising pattern and hope that sufficient huge gamers can agree on requirements to maintain the complications at bay. For extra deep dives into the way forward for PC constructing, make sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube!
