The hottest trend at Computex 2023 is The War on Cables, in which PC accessory manufacturers are doing everything they can to hide power and data cables in PC builds. While a lot of the solutions thus far have been very specific to one brand, like Corsair’s proprietary iCue Link daisy chain cooling or Asus’ motherboard-GPU combo, case maker SilverStone is here to offer some more modular, wide-open solutions. Gordon Ung reports from the front lines.
SilverStone offers a pair of new full-sized ATX PC cases, the C-341 and C-542, both of which are compatible with motherboards that have rear-facing power and data cable connections. That lets you route all your power supply rails on the back of the case, effectively making every cable (except those for your GPU and whatever’s cooling your processor) disappear. The MSI and Asus motherboards on display in the cases on the show floor demonstrate how clean the internal builds are, even using components from different manufacturers. Even the rear of the cases are slightly wider to accommodate all those cables.
The SilverStone C-341 is especially interesting, because it flips the usual internal motherboard layout for cases. The motherboard is mounted to the left side of the case’s frame, not the right, and the right side of the case is open to access the primary chamber. With the bottom-mounted power supply, that puts the PCIe ports on the top of the case instead of the bottom, which might make heat management a lot easier— you can exhaust those fans right out of the top of the enclosure. Neat.
Both cases are full retail designs, not concepts, so they should be hitting the market later this year. For more updates on the latest PC hardware trends, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer
Michael is a former graphic designer who's been building and tweaking desktop computers for longer than he cares to admit. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order.