Building A BTF PC That Tucks Cables Out Of Sight (Part 1)

It’s time to say goodbye to wires stretched across the interior of your chassis. Get ready to give a not-so-fond farewell to the power cable dangling off the side of your graphics card. To all the USB header cables, wires for power and reset buttons, and beefy 24-pin motherboard power cables: it’s been real, but we’re tired of looking at you. The future of PC building is clean, tidy, and simple. Our friends from ASUS offers a comprehensive BTF ecosystem of PC DIY components making it possible to build a PC that tucks unsightly cables out of sight, and these parts are available today.

BTF stands for Back-to-the-Future, and it’s built on paradigm shift for constructing PCs. With BTF motherboards, components attach to the front, while cables plug into the back. This arrangement allows you to route your cables completely out of sight, leaving you with a fantastically clean-looking build.

Only one question remains: which BTF components are best for your next PC? Here, we’ll introduce you to our full lineup of options and help you find the ones that best fit your needs and budget. And if you act fast, you can even win a package of products from the BTF ecosystem by participating in their “The Ultimate Simplicity” giveaway campaign, running from May 27th, 2024 to June 30th, 2024.

BTF vs. Advanced BTF: What’s the difference?

ASUS’ ecosystem of BTF components gives you plenty of options as you’re planning a hidden-connector build. With the combination of a BTF chassis and a BTF motherboard, you can tuck away nearly all the cables that connect directly to the motherboard, including the cables that supply power to your motherboard, connect 2.5-inch SATA drives, hook up your case fans, and connect your front-panel buttons and I/O.

Yet that’s not quite all the cables in a modern PC build equipped with a powerful graphics card. GPUs often require more power than the PCIe x16 slot can supply, so they require you to connect a PCIe power cable. For users that would prefer to hide that wire as well, ASUS offers the Advanced BTF approach. Advanced BTF motherboards include a graphics card high-power slot ready to supply all the power that a BTF graphics card needs. You’ll need a graphics card with a graphics card high-power (GC-HPWR) gold finger in order to build an Advanced BTF PC.

Motherboard options for your BTF PC

The BTF ecosystem of PC components ranges from affordable options well within the reach of most builders to cutting-edge components designed for PC enthusiasts ready to push all boundaries. ASUS’ most budget-friendly BTF motherboards are the TUF Gaming B760M-BTF WiFi and TUF Gaming B760M-BTF WiFi D4, available in select countries. These boards have clean lines, inky black color scheme, and understated style that easily fits with a wide range of components.

These B-series motherboards deliver incredible value for any builder who desires the effortless performance of a 14th Gen Intel Core CPU but doesn’t intend to take advantage of CPU overclocking. While they don’t go toe-to-toe with high-end Z790 options, these microATX motherboards might surprise you with their rich feature set. They offer a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot that’s ready for the best graphics cards of today and tomorrow. A trio of onboard PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots make it easy to build a spacious and speedy storage array, and you’ll get fast networking with WiFi 6 and a 2.5Gb Ethernet port.

Advanced BTF courtesy of TUF Gaming and ROG

TUF Gaming also gives you the components you need to construct an Advanced BTF build that goes the extra step to hide the PCIe power cables for your graphics card. It starts with a motherboard equipped with the necessary graphics card high-power slot: the TUF Gaming Z790-BTF WiFi.

This fully loaded board leans into a classy white aesthetic that’s a natural fit with the visual themes of BTF. With an enhanced power solution with 16+1+1 power stages, a six-layer PCB, ProCool sockets, alloy chokes, and durable capacitors for stable power delivery, it’s more than ready for your 14th Gen Intel Core CPU. And that’s on top of WiFi 7 support, a 2.5Gb Ethernet port, an onboard USB 20Gbps Type-C port, and a total of four PCIe M.2 slots.

The first BTF motherboard from ROG is none other than the ROG Maximus Z790 Hero BTF. This cutting-edge board is the perfect partner for a high-end 14th Gen Intel Core CPU thanks to its beefy VRM featuring 20+1+2 power stages. Thick VRM heatsinks keep this vital circuitry cool under pressure. Across its impressive spec sheet, you’ll find an impeccable set of features: DDR5 support, a PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, a whopping 5 onboard M.2 slots, one wired for PCIe 5.0, dual onboard Thunderbolt 4 ports, WiFi 7, and more.

We'll end the first part for the mean time and in the next article, we will cover chassis and GPU options to finally complete your ultimate BTF setup!

This is feature content is sponspored by ASUS and ASUS Republic Of Gamers