HardwareGreat Scott! Asus' Back to the Future cable-hiding system is no gimmick, it’s the future of gaming and enthusiast PCsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
HardwareGreat Scott! Asus' Back to the Future cable-hiding system is no gimmick, it’s the future of gaming and enthusiast PCsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Future)
If you’ve ever built a gaming PC or just looked inside one, you won’t have missed the fact that everywhere you look there are cables. Wires to supply power, data, or both; wires to switch things on and off; wires to change the colour of lights; wires to attach chassis ports to the motherboard. At the very least, they’re fiddly to fit and route, but if you’re serious about your PC’s looks, then they’re a major pain to manage. Enter stage leftAsusand itsBTF (‘Back to the Future’) rangeof motherboards, graphics cards, and cases where cables are very muchnotthe centre attraction.
A few weeks ago, our hardware overlord Dave asked me if I fancied building a PC and then reporting back on what the whole experience was like. At first, I was a bit bemused, given that we all do this kind of thing on a regular basis in the office. Then he mentioned that it was a couple of things from Asus, all hallmarked with three letters: B, T, and F.
Specifically, it was aTUF Gaming Z790-BTFmotherboard andTUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER BTF White OC Editiongraphics card, with the latter clearly targeting the world record for the number of letters one can use in a product’s name. The principle behind the BTF platform is simple—hide as many cables as possible from the main area inside a typical, glass-panelled gaming PC.
In the case of the motherboard, that means shifting all bar one of the cable sockets to thebackof the circuit board. They’re all in the usual locations, just on the other side.
But for the graphics card, Asus had a much harder task—how exactly does one hide the power cables? Every GPU needs at least one and it’s not like there’s one side of a graphics card that’s both hidden but still accessible. The solution comes in the form of a proprietary connector, looking very similar to the PCI Express one all cards have.
Where that connector supplies data, instructions, and up to 75 W of power, this new one is equivalent to themuch-maligned 12VHPWR socket—up to 600 W of power, via 12 wires, and status information through another four. At the moment, Asus' system can’t be used alongside a traditional power socket, so BTF graphics cards willonlywork on a BTF motherboard. You can use any GPU with the latter, but the former is very restricted.
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Anyway, to get the whole build done, Thermaltake kindly set us one of itsCeres 330 TG ARGBcases, one of the few models out there that officially supports Asus BTF motherboards. It doesn’t technically have anything special for this, it’s simply a matter of the chassis having enough space in the right places. Asus also sent us aROG Strix LC III 360 ARGB White EditionAIO liquid cooler and I had a rummage through my drawers for everything else.
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Then I tried the graphics card release mechanism and this alone is worthy of all the praise you could muster. Why so many vendors think we all have digits the size and strength of nanofibres is beyond me and I hate having to swap cards around on boards that bury the latch mechanism underneath the card itself.
Not so here, as a simple prod of the lever pops the card right out. If Asus adds this to all of its motherboards, then it’ll be a blessed relief to countless system builders and testers.
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So far, so good. Or at the very least, nothing bad. Out next came the RTX 4070 Ti Super BTF graphics card and apart from looking very nice and impressively imposing, it’s just like any other chonkingly large GPU. The BTF power connector is quite discrete but oh boy does it look odd not seeing a 12VHPWR or other socket along the edge of the circuit board.
And finally, the Thermaltake Ceres 330 TG. It’s quite understated in terms of looks but it’s pretty roomy inside. As with all my builds, I stripped the case down to a relatively bare chassis, to give me plenty of working space, and then set about thinking about how to put this all together.
I tried the graphics card release mechanism and this alone is worthy of all the praise you could muster.
I tried the graphics card release mechanism and this alone is worthy of all the praise you could muster.
For the BTF power connector, you can either choose the 12VHPWR socket or attach up to three 8-pin PCIe power cables. For the sake of simplicity and ease of cable management, I went with the former.
(Image credit: Future)
That proved to be rather awkward, thanks to the stiff cables protruding from the I/O ports and power switch on the top of the case. There also wasn’t room at the bottom of the case to have the water lines running downwards, but at least the top of the radiator could be mounted higher than the pump head.
But with a fair amount of gentle persuasion, I managed to get the radiator in, the pump unit on the CPU, and the cables hooked up. I could have used the sole front-mounted CPU fan header, but I opted to have everything rear set, to go for the cleanest-of-clean looks.
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It was genuinely very easy, ridiculously so to be honest.
It was genuinely very easy, ridiculously so to be honest.
It actually looks cleaner and more spacious than the images suggest. In terms of airflow along, it’s like a multilane freeway from the front to the rear. I’ve gone off RGB stuff of late, preferring a minimal amount of lighting in my own systems, but without trying to sound hyperbolic, this Asus BTF build was one of the prettiest I’ve done in a very long time. Sure, the white version of the Ceres 330 TG would be a better match, as would a white rear case fan, but these are minor things.
The ROG Strix LC III cooler did a great job of managing the 13600K’s thermals, even accounting for that that Asus insists on defaulting to using ‘BIOS optimised’ power settings or in plain English, PL1/PL2 values of 4,075 W. No, that’s not a typo.
I honestly don’t know how well the Asus BTF platform will catch on or whether other vendors will follow a similar route. MSI has, of course, but itsProject Zero systemisn’t entirely cable-hidden as you still need to use a normal power cable for the graphics card. Asus' is the first one to shove it all out of view. And I think it’s absolutely brilliant.
Except for one thing—cable management around the back is now worse than ever.
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It’s mostly down to the fact thateverythingis now back there, from the weedy cables for the fans and cooler, through the stiff and awkward power lines running from the PSU. Add in all of the I/O stuff and switches for the case and it’s a veritable bird’s nest of wires. Compounding the issue was the fact that while Thermaltake’s Ceres 330 TG is compatible with BTF, it doesn’t have much depth behind the motherboard tray.
Mindful of the fact that little of the hardware used was mine, I had to be as gentle as possible with all the cable routing and even then, it was a tight fit to get most of it locked down. As you can see, I didn’t do a particularly good job, but as all of this will have to be taken apart and shipped off again I didn’t want to make things especially difficult for myself when it comes time to disassemble it all.
Cable management around the back is now worse than ever.
Cable management around the back is now worse than ever.
Cable management aside, I genuinely believe that the Asus BTF platform is a step in the right direction, and the future of gaming and enthusiast PCs will undoubtedly go down this route. And it’s not just about how clean the interior all looks—that extra power connector on the graphics card adds a decent amount of support and the card’s rock solid in the board. It should also go some way to alleviate concerns overmelting power sockets and wires, although how well it copes with the full 600 W is another matter entirely. The RTX 4070 Ti Super uses less than half that figure so the system isn’t being remotely stressed.
But sticking all of the power sockets and USB/audio/case headers onto the rear of the motherboard does make it much easier to put it all together. I have to say that some of the connections do feel very flimsy, especially the ARGB ones—it’s probably more a case that Asus needs to develop better connectors on its coolers rather than having stiffer pins on the board, though having them would certainly help.
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Right now, the whole BTF platform is rather niche, or at least it is with regard to the graphics card. The motherboard is a somewhat average Z790 model and although I’ve not gone into any depth testing it (which I may do, time depending), if you were looking for something to really make a new build visually stand out, you could do an awful lot worse. Of course, Z790 is a dead-end as far as longevity is concerned, asIntel’s next round of desktop CPUs will all be using a completely new socket.
But even so, if you were looking to do a new Z790 build right now and wanted the cleanest-looking PC possible, then this BTF is certainly worth considering.
On the other hand, while the RTX 4070 Ti Super BTF is impressively powerful and very quiet, I couldn’t recommend it. Not until there are far more BTF options out there, anyway. Because if you buy one right now, it could have almost no second-hand value, as it’s entirely useless to the millions of PC gamers out there who don’t have a BTF motherboard.
If you buy one right now, it could have almost no second hand value.
If you buy one right now, it could have almost no second hand value.
Buy one now and you’re pretty much stuck with it, possibly forever if Asus' tech doesn’t catch on. You can’t vertically mount the card, either. Asus may produce a system to permit this in the future but I suspect that will depend heavily on how well BTF sells.
And speaking of sales, that’s another sticking point—the cost of it all. Unique products are always going to be more expensive than standard ones but the BTF stuff isn’t remotely cheap. The Z790 motherboard is listed at£214 on Asus' eShopand UK retailer AWD-IT lists theBTF RTX 4070 Ti Super at £930, though both are out of stock. Trying to find any BTF stuff available for purchase is quite a challenge.
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