Considered one of my favourite tendencies in desktop PC design for the final couple of years has been what we name “The War on Cables,” whereby all the inside energy and knowledge cables are hidden on the bottom of a case. It makes a desktop look oh-so-clean, and that’s nice when PC builders as of late are all about presentation. However at CES 2025, the newest incarnation of MSI’s Undertaking Zero takes issues too far.
Spy out the brand new construct MSI is displaying off on the CES flooring. Upon first look, it’s precisely what builders dream of for this type of “hide everything around the back” strategy — all the higher to indicate off these gleaming white and aluminum parts with a curved glass (or polycarbonate) enclosure. However look just a little nearer and also you would possibly discover that issues are just a little… off. 90 levels off, that’s.
MSI
See, this Undertaking Zero X motherboard has its I/O board pointed straight down, out of a recessed hole within the backside of the case. Ditto for the graphics card (customized mounted by way of a PCI extender cable). That implies that all the ability, video, and knowledge cables will have to be routed out of the underside of the case, too.
I feel this design may need been impressed by the Energy Mac G4 Dice desktop from approach again in 2000. And that factor was notorious for a number of causes, not least of which was that you simply needed to join all of the cables to the underside of the machine.
MSI
I’ve just a few different notes. In case you use a blower-style GPU with the Undertaking Zero X, it’s not going to be an important setup for the graphics card, capturing sizzling air all the way down to that backside chamber solely to let the warmth rise throughout all these parts. (However I suppose it at the very least doesn’t require a particular suitable card, like some Asus designs.) It’s additionally an enormous case, dedicating what seems to be like greater than half its whole quantity to further house for the hidden energy provide and house for cables, inner and exterior.
However to be honest to MSI, this doesn’t appear like it’s prepared for a retail launch but. The CES demonstration doesn’t even listing out the components hiding underneath all these shrouds. So chalk this up as an experimental showpiece.
We’ll in all probability see some extra refinement on the concept (possibly at Computex later within the 12 months?) earlier than we see it in any type that’s prepared for consumers. Within the meantime, you possibly can strive one thing rather less excessive with MSI’s present Undertaking Zero components and instances.
