Asus's new motherboard hides ports on the back for cable management

pcgamer.com:

Cable management is one of the banes of the PC building world. Anyone who has assembled their own machine has battled against the slew of mandatory cables to get their machine running. First, there's making sure everything can actually be plugged in, which isn't always easy depending on your setup. Then, there's hiding any evidence(opens in new tab) that this was ever done. 

Often this involves cramming all those loose bits of cable into a hidden pocket at the back of the case, but PC part makers don't exactly make this task an easy one, with all those ports on the front of the motherboard. It's enough to make many give up on cable management(opens in new tab) altogether. This might be set to change, with a new motherboard from Asus smartly sporting its connectors on the back. And gosh darn it all. it's so simple it just might work.

The back port revolution was spotted on Asus's new TUF Gaming B760M-BTF WIFI D4(opens in new tab) by prominent tech Twitter account momomo_us(opens in new tab).  It turns out the BTF in the mobo's name stands for «Back To (the) Future», referencing this new backport design. We might get to see more of this style of motherboard in the future, which could be a huge win for PC building.

That doesn't mean there won't be challenges, especially if it enters the mainstream. While hiding all those chunky power connectors, sata, and basically everything else around the back sounds great, most cases just aren't built for it, as Intel PR Mark Walton(opens in new tab) points out in his Tweet sharing a Club386(opens in new tab) article on the board. He also notes a bit of DIY work with a Dremel might be the solution to this problem.

Best CPU for gaming(opens in new tab): The top chips from Intel and AMDBe