The latest development trend in case and component design is mostly towards eliminating the unsightly cables wherever possible: at minimum, this means hiding the cables from plain sight, but fancier solutions involve eliminating the cables altogether for a cleaner look inside and out.
BTF3.0 Standard Eliminates PSU Cables
The next evolution of this trend is presented as the new “BTF3.0” standard according to Uniko’s Hardware, which involves a special 50-pin PSU connector that completely eliminates power supply cables, which is often the major contributor to cable management issues. Pair this with existing implementations like GC-HPWR connectors for GPUs, and we could be looking at a system devoid of thick power cables, leaving a few minor ones that can be easily tucked behind a hidden spot.
So what’s the deal with this new 50-pin connector? It shares some similarities to MSI’s EZ-Conn fan headers: like the 3-in-1 11-pin header for MSI motherboards, this 50-pin bus connector consists of three major connections – 10+6 pins for 12VO (the newer standard that replaces ATX 24-pin, but non-existent in DIY systems today), 8+8 pins for CPU, and a 16-pin 12V-2×6 connector that deals with GPU power delivery. It’s unclear what the remaining two pins do, but all of them are designed to deliver a combined power of 1500 watts under this new standard.
Another major difference of this new PSU design is the placement inside the case. We’ve seen old PCs with PSUs located up top, but that eventually was evolved into PSUs mostly slotted in the bottom part of the chassis. This new implementation will put the power supply next to the motherboard (at least in current iteration), and this will have implications on future case designs: think shorter in height, but longer in length.
Of course, with the current rear-connector designs still taking its time to penetrate the DIY PC market (though good progress has been made on the case market), don’t expect this new standard to arrive very soon. PC case and component makers will have to design their products to comply with the new standard, and that’ll take some time to figure out what is ultimately the best implementation.
Pokdepinion: I see this probably taking inspirations from server-grade power supplies – those are cable-less and have the bus connectors to facilitate hot swaps.
