Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “I had NO Faith in this..”.
When I first saw a motherboard with the cables on the back, I loved it. I mean the approach obviously looks better, but it’s also easier, especially for novice buildings, which is something I’m always going to support, but between the patent challenges, not to mention the ego challenges involved in bringing it to the mass Market. I just didn’t see a path forward, yet here we are less than 2 years later and it’s starting to gain some momentum. This video is going to have a bit of a different vibe.
We showed up in corsair’s Booth, where they showing cases that support both of the competing standards right now and instead of talking about how they did it and why we thought. Why? Don’T we Show You by tearing down and rebuilding one of their demo, PCS nearly from scratch? I just need to throw in a quick word from our sponsor. Headphone juice is not something you should be proud of.
These are your typical headphones that accumulate heat. While you game e wikied cushions, add a cooling gel to their cushions to keep your ears sweat free, you can easily rep place them on your headset check out, wikied cushions and the link below and movie Magic. I am now holding msi’s z790 project stealth. An Intel 14th gen motherboard, whose main claim to fame is of course, that nothing plugs into the front everything plugs into the back.
12Volt CPU power, 24 pin motherboard power even front panel connectors like USB, and the power button are all on the rear of the motherboard which all of these Solutions have in common except the gigabytes. 24 pin comes kind out. The side like this, which highlights an important problem, even if we can all agree that this is fundamentally a really good idea in an industry where the major players still can’t all agree on a pin out for the front power button. I’M talking. This has been 20 years, a problem, there’s still a lot that can go wrong here.
Take this m.2 SSD slot, for example, it’s on the front of the motherboard, but Asus specifies an optional cutout location for a rear mounted SSD as well. Now, right now, Corsair is only concerned about that for smaller matx motherboards that lack space on the front. But here’s the thing Samsung just announced that their 990 Evo SSD is going to take a new approach to pcie Lane allocation operating with either four Gen 4 Lanes or just two gen five lanes, and this is really smart, because four gen five Lanes would have been Ludicrous overkill for a consumer drive and if we can cut that lane count in half, we could actually double the number of ssds that we can install on a motherboard without resorting to PCI switches or PCI mxes that complicate the motherboard layout, which adds cost. So I could easily see a future where we go back to supporting eight drives or more on a mainstream motherboard using single pcie gen. Six Lane drives but figuring out where to put them all, it’s going to be a challenge. Do we wallpaper the front of the board kind of like what we’ve been doing today or do we create a little? You know SSD City, all over the back, so it’s still early days I mean even the name. Isn’T final MSI is calling it project zero. Asus is calling it BTF. The name that Corsair has adopted gigabyte was actually the first to commercialize.
This concept, dubbing IT project stealth, but then their connector layout is quite different from the others, and they haven’t really publicly committed to bringing it to Market. Outside. Of that weird bundle that they did with their own motherboard in case that never made it to North America due to patent issues. We’Re going to talk about that later, oh and right.
Asus also has BTF Advanced, which we will also talk about later. It’S clear, then, that the only valid solution is for an independent third party to make the call. Fortunately, it’s CES and a wild Roman appeared, which is the best name for it. I didn’t prep him that is such a difficult question.
Um. I, like the project, zero or project stealth, really the BTF. You know it sounds like ATX btx something I sounds like a really good band.
Do you know any like K-pop dance moves? Oh be so perfect. Thank you so much. I guess we can kick that down.
The road for now, let’s meet the 6500 X Corsair, is one of a short list of vendors. That’S attempting to thread the needle here working to support these n standards standards, while also balancing the fact that they directly compete against the companies who control them, who also compete directly against each other, because this isn’t coming top down from an industry Consortium or from someone Like Intel, that means nailing the spacing, and the sizing of all of these cutouts was a big challenge for them. Now, Asus and MSI mostly overlap on their location for the main connectors CPU, your motherboard and all the front panel IO. It was mostly a matter of you know, expanding this one, a few millimeters that way and that one there in order to accommodate the various keep out zones that ended up turning the motherboard tray into something more closely resembling swiss cheese than a computer, and between my Experience modifying a case previously to fit one of these boards, and the pictures I saw gave me some serious reservations about rigidity, but I mean realistically, this is something Corsair has ample experience with they weren’t the first to punch one of these big holes for a CPU Cooler back plate, but they changed the game back in the day, with all the cable management holes that they made in the obsidian 800d and in person.
It’S not that bad. They try to counter the effect with these stamped ridges, as well as strategic folds, that okay yeah, it does flex more than a solid piece of Steel, but once you put the board not to mention the rest of the components in here, I think it’s safe to Say that this is a non issue now, one drawback of all of this is if you want to install a smaller matx motherboard in a larger ATX case, you’re, going to end up with some gaping holes at the bottom, it’s going to look like a flood motherboard, Which is kind of the opposite of the point of all this I told Corsair hey. You could probably solve that if you included a little magnetic plastic cover for those holes, but their ears didn’t really perk up until David suggested that they make it RGB and then tie it into the Corsair link. Rgb wiring ecosystem uh.
We’Ve talked about that before by the way, it’s not new for the show here, but it’s legitimately really cool and we’re using it right now to install this radiator and their new Daisy chainable RGB fans which are cheaper than their old Daisy chainable fans, which is good Still pretty pricey, though, on the subject of nice to have features that enhance these of use. I mentioned that BTF is easier to build, but I should probably clarify that the reality is an experienced Builder can put a basic system together and anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, and we’re not going to be improving on that much if at all, where we’re going To get a benefit is for the novice Builders. You know managing this 24 pin python, no problem if you forgot to plug in your EPS connectors, but you already installed your cooler, no problem front IO connections after you put in a GPU no problem. So this isn’t for the folks who already have an LTT, screwdriver LTT store.com and can build a PC in their sleep.
It’S kind of like corsair’s rmx shift power supplies that have the connectors on the side. It’S to cut down on the frustration and the wasted time. Not to mention the skinned Knuckles that happen if you bung up your order of operations – and you you know forget to plug in one of your modular cables before you screw in your power supply, and you end up like digging around on the bottom trying to get It in there I think the the biggest one for me, though, is you know forgetting a front panel, audio connector or something after you put in the GPU. That is such a pain in the butt, but here well, it’s a mild pain in the butt.
If you’ve already got the power supply in, but it’s totally doable for me, these bottom IO connectors are the biggest one. You know you get the GPU in there and then you’re struggling trying to get these things plugged in it does create some new problems. Like you got a bulky connector like the USBC front panel, connector huh you’re not going to be able to have a case, that’s as Slim as we used to have. If you want to maintain enough clearance for large Tower air coolers on the other side. But I think it’s a worthwhile price to pay. Speaking of the GPU BTF kind of a non-factor for now, you’re still going to need to run your octopus of pcie cables or your stiff 12vt high power connector.
So, oh that’s! A big strike actually against msi’s proposed zero cables, name, one not zero. The last time I check, but Asus actually has a proposed solution to this, with their BTF Advanced concept, they’re, showing both a motherboard and a GPU that borrow Apple’s kind of extended pcie slots that we first saw on the Mac Pro that can handle both data and Copious amounts of power through the motherboard. That concept has some unique challenges, even beyond what we’ve talked about so far, I mean they’d essentially have to get Nvidia and AMD on on board with a standard that would either completely break backwards, compatibility for every existing system or add extra cost for them to implement Both a connector up here and a connector down on the board side, which uh not going to happen, but even if it’s just a Seuss and it’s just a handful of SKS Corsair, is here for it, with this cutout being set aside for the pcie power connectors.
That will go into the back of the board and Supply that longer slot, as it is, though, with the one cable, you got your obvious benefits to the consumer, no real downside for the manufacturer. So why did this take so long? Well, remember: the patent thing I mentioned before main gear. A US system: integrator has been pushing for this concept for over 10 years.
Why well everything we already talked about? Also it looks better, but also because they patented this concept back in 2011. And what can I say, companies Al like getting royalty money for their patents? So if you were wondering before hey, why are those diy8 boards that you guys checked out China only there’s your answer now, from my understanding, MSI at least has resolved this issue with main gear, meaning there’s a solid chance that we’re going to see their boards in North America, which is very cool news as for Corsair well, they aren’t building motherboards and the patent doesn’t apply to products that accompany the motherboards just the boards themselves. So, given the alignment with their making PC Building easier ethos, they immediately went well.
It’S not our idea and it’s honestly not fully fleshed out, but we want to be there for the market. So, while in a way, this is kind of like building a draft standard, Wi-Fi router and then just kind of hoping that the industry standardizes around your best guesses in the long term, the benefit of this jump in approach is that you get to enjoy the advantages. Today, however, small the ecosystem might be – and in this case pun intended corser – isn’t giving up anything other than a little bit of motherboard tray rigidity.
You will still be able to use this case to upgrade your build in the future using a conventional motherboard. If the board selection never really grows beyond the couple that exist today, now there could be some messiness in the future, where you know one Corsair BTF case and another one are slightly different as the standards evolve, but they are hoping that they have aired enough on The side of more holes bigger holes that it’s not going to be a major issue. Speaking of this case, the 6500 X – you guys just saw me building it and it’s got some cool features outside of the whole BTF thing ample fan support, and I really like this. The exterior steel panels can be subbed out for aluminum or wood and they’ve also got another microatx BTF case the 2500x.
That now supports a 360 mm rad in the top, rather than just 280. Ms, like the older 280 Crystal, and both of these are launching February 27th, with the only thing left being to launch into this Segway to our sponsor. Are your headphones cushions H, like a tiny steam room? Stop steaming your ears, like your broccoli, W cushions, offer all sort out cushion replacement for your headphones, and it’s not just your regular cushions with added dual layer: cooling gel. They ensure you keep a cool head. Even your team is feeding looking for a crack. Wikied cushion give you a crack free comfort, the used topnotch materials like breathable sport, Fabric and memory form, with over 25,000 reviews and the 365 days to fall in love. Warranty, don’t listen to me! Listen to your ears, this time check out wikied cushions and the link below. If you guys enjoyed this video hey, why don’t you check out our project? Zero video for our fresh reactions to this concept back when it was brand new .