MSI’s panoramic PC case severely underestimates how bad at cable tidying I am

rockpapershotgun.com:

As someone who believes in the ideal of the trim, tidy PC interior, I do applaud the intent behind MSI’s Project Zero X. Currently on show at CES 2025, it’s a prototype desktop build that uses clever geometry and an unconventional motherboard I/O layout to hide practically every single wire in the joint, for a clean design that's housed for your viewing pleasure within a four-sided glass chamber. It’s the closest PCs have come to the simple Victorian pleasures of a nice terrarium, and honestly, good on it.

The problem is that if Project Zero X’s components ever actually go on sale, there becomes a non-zero percent chance that I will come into possession of that see-through case. And there is a one hundred percent chance I will ruin it.

I can’t remember if I’ve ever confessed this before, but I absolutely fucking suck at cable management. Just, abysmal. I can’t get them straight. I can’t get them bending where I want them. I can’t figure out what to do with the slack except stuff it under the PSU shroud like a bundle of old Christmas lights that just barely fit back in their box. I almost considered begging Liam (RPS in peace) not to shoot that video of me bumbling through the process because I knew it would out me as some kind of hardware fraud, a Frank Abagnale with zipties. Remember, it’s not imposter syndrome if you’re genuinely an imposter.

Point being, it doesn’t matter what MSI have done with the Project Zero X case, even if they have gone to such ginnard-concealing lengths that it’s somehow got the GPU outputs pointing out of the side. If I try to build a PC with this, it will be full of stray cables, and its entire purpose will be undermined. I don’t know how. But I’ll find a way.

Still, for less deficient PC builders, this could make for quite the statement piece. Provided, anyway, that the still-traditional blend of glass and metal remains within the boundaries of Your Kinda Thing. Opinions on chassis designs can of course vary, even in the relatively tiny