Last October, at an event in China, ASUS showed off a pair of conceptual Micro-ATX motherboards that moved all power and peripheral connections to the rear panel. The manufacturer finally decided to release a similar product to the mass market in the form of the TUF Gaming B760M-BTF WiFi D4 model for Intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake processors.
Image source: Asus
The abbreviation BTF in the board’s name means Back To (the) Future. The manufacturer is unlikely to be officially allowed to use such a name under copyright and trademark law, so ASUS decided to shorten it to BTF.
All TUF Gaming B760M-BTF WiFi D4 power connectors, four SATA III, USB-C and USB 3.0 ports, front panel connectors and one of three M.2 slots for NVMe drives are located on the back of the motherboards. This allows you to organize the wiring in the PC more competently.
The novelty received one slot each PCIe 5.0 x16, PCIe 4.0 x4 and PCIe x1. One of the three available USB Type-C ports can transfer data at speeds of up to 20 Gb/s. The board also has a 2.5 Gigabit network adapter.
The ASUS TUF Gaming B760M-BTF WiFi D4 model belongs to the middle segment of mainboards. With its release, the company probably wants to assess the interest of buyers in such solutions and, based on this, draw conclusions about the possibility of releasing more advanced models with similar capabilities. However, the disadvantage of such motherboards at the moment is that there are practically no compatible computer cases for them on the market. ASUS doesn’t shy away from it and says directly: “This motherboard is only compatible with specific computer cases“. True, the manufacturer does not indicate with which ones.
It is very likely that in the future ASUS will take this problem into its own hands by releasing the necessary models of computer cases. By the way, as early as May last year, Gigabyte planned to do the same thing and offer gaming systems with motherboards and graphics cards, in which power connectors and other connectors are also located in unusual places for them. Ultimately, however, the manufacturer decided to work with system integrators who sell ready-made gaming computers. ASUS may take a similar approach.
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