Are backside motherboard connections really the future?

We’ve been hearing a lot about a huge shift in the way custom PCs are made from the last two years of CES, something we at PCWorld have dubbed “the War on Cables.” But despite a few promising products hitting the market, this would-be revolution still seems very much in the incipient stage. Is this shift in the market really going to happen or will it be a mega-sized flop? On the show floor at CES 2024, Adam is joined by KitGuru’s Senior Technical Writer and ATX Hater, Leo Waldock, to hash it out.

There are now three technically competing, but broadly very similar, implementations of this idea going at once: MSI’s Project Zero, MainGear’s MGRC (MainGear Rear Connector), and Asus BTF (either “back to front” or “back to the future,” depending on who you ask). All three use very slightly different cutouts to allow power and data cables to mount on the rear of the motherboard and case, though Asus has the unique option to run the graphics card’s power through the motherboard PCB as well.

Leo and Adam agree that it’s important to get both consumers and system integrators (sellers of pre-built PCs like MainGear) onboard. Perhaps even more important for broad adoption are case makers like Cooler Master and Corsair. There are other thorny little issues to sort out — who owns the patents for all of these implementations? What do you do about smaller and more fiddly connections like ARGB and PWM cables for fans, which can be placed more or less anywhere on a motherboard? What about hugely complex builds with daisy-chained fan connections (like Corsair’s iQue Link) and custom liquid cooling loops?

Leo has a more immediate and practical 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 would contest his assertion that you have to be crazy to build in the case — that’s a lot of time to spend outside it and find that your CPU power rail isn’t long enough, for example — I know tons of people do indeed use this method, and that’s a legitimate question.

We’ll have to wait and see how the industry treats this emerging trend and hope that enough big players can agree on standards to keep the headaches at bay. For more deep dives into the future of PC building, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube!