motherboard manufacturers are trying to solve possibly the most annoying thing
about building a PC Cable Management three of the largest
companies that crank out motherboards ASUS MSI and Gigabyte all now offer
boards that place most internal connectors on the back of the PCB with
the idea being to let you build a PC with few to no cables showing but hold
on a sec why exactly did it take so long for these companies to bring this to
Market I mean the first American p was filed back in 2011 the answer is not
only that there wasn't yet broad support from Hardware manufacturers but also
that the priorities of the PCI DIY Community weren't quite the same as they
are now let's start by talking about those priorities it really wasn't all
that long ago that building or just buying a PC was primarily a means to an
end you wanted to accomplish something specific on a PC play a game make a
video call rederive calculus whatever so
you built something in an opaque beige box that could accomplish that task and
there was a good chance you didn't care too much about how it looked but as the
years went on laptops tablets and smartphones became able to handle more
and more functions that used to be the sole domain of desktop PCS meaning that
a larger proportion of the remaining desktop PC Community was made up of
enthusiasts who cared more than the average person about not just how their
PC performed but how it looked during
that time PC Aesthetics evolved gradually cases with Windows didn't
start becoming common until the early to mid 2000s we didn't see Cable Management
grommets until around 2010 and RGB
didn't hit it big until the mid 2010s and of course modern social media
platforms that allow Hardware manufacturers to easily get the pulse of
the community haven't been around for very long but since they took off it's
been clear from social media feedback that Aesthetics have only increased in
importance for p PC enthusiasts we haven't proved that RGB makes things
faster yet but we'll get there and there's an additional benefit aside from
Aesthetics connectors on the rear mean that you won't have to worry about
negotiating your way into tight spaces created by other components once you're
ready to connect your cables the 8 Pin EPS connector is notoriously tricky
manufacturers are hoping that not only will rear connectors look better but
they'll also serve as a more builder friendly option to those folks who are
interested in pcdiy but intimidated about taking the plunge and there are
more of those people out there than you might think so that brings us to
actually getting this idea to Market how did we get there although main gear
filed a patent for the rear connector Concept in 2011 which other companies
now license it wasn't until 2019 that
ASUS showed us a rear motherboard connector on their concept Prime Utopia
board Gigabyte then became the first major motherboard brand to bring a rear
connector motherboard to Market in 2022 with project stealth followed by MSI's
project zero in 2023 and ASUS's BTF in
2024 and since the primary concern here is Aesthetics some boards also include
shrouds that hide the unsightly solder marks that are now on the front of the
board but hold everything how the heck
does this work considering that most cases don't have the correct holes in
the motherboard tray to plug in cables at the back well we'll tell you right
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you're going to need a new compatible case for these new motherboards to work
Gigabyte collaborated with main gear to make a case for its project stealth
products while MSI and ASUS both make their own cases now and also collaborate
with outside case manufacturers in order to ensure you can actually hide all your
cables without having to take a Dremel to your existing case unless you want to
then that that I mean it's fun and in case you were wondering why these
manufacturers can't just design the motherboard so the rear connectors poke
out of the existing cutouts for CPU coolers there are just too many
electronics already in that area for such a solution to be practical although
the current lack of an open standard for rear connectors means you'll have to
ensure that the case you want is specifically compatible with the
particular motherboard brand you want this may not end up mattering too much
in the long term lots of niceties that we're used to such as right angled SATA
connectors top mounted radio radiators and the various RGB ecosystems don't
have official standards defining them but they enjoy widespread support and
interoperability so if rear connectors end up being in high demand from
consumers you can bet that there will be plenty of compatible boards and cases to
choose from but a possible wrinkle is how to handle the pesky fact that most
graphics cards require extra power cables that connect to the top of the
card oh no for now limited solution ions
exist Gigabyte sells special cards that feature a connector on the bottom closer
to the PCI Express contacts while ASUS sells cards with an extra smaller set of
contacts for power that work with compatible ASUS motherboards while this
limits which graphics cards you can use to get that totally clean look inside
your case the hope is that more cards will adopt Solutions such as these as
time goes on and the fact that ASUS Gigabyte and MSI also all manufactur
graphics cards and cases means they also have the ability to push these rear
connector ecosystems forward even if a particular outside company isn't
interested but is any of this really a good idea well other than a small amount
of increased cost to begin with due to these companies having to tweak their
manufacturing slightly there aren't really any major drawbacks to rear
mounting connectors but even with these benefits only time will tell if this new
connector Paradigm will emerge as a widespread alternative to traditional
cable routing and I know how much some of you like seeing that sweet RGB
spaghetti every time you fire up your rig so we'll have to see and you know
what I like to see is you coming to the end of this video how how'd you get here
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