ASUS's high-end ROG Maximus Z790 HERO BTF motherboard featuring backside power connectors has now been listed for 799€.
Backside Power Connector Design Comes To ASUS's High-End ROG Maximus Motherboards With Z790 HERO BTF
ASUS introduced new products within its BTF lineup at CES this year which include the Z790 ROG Maximus HERO BTF motherboard and the ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 4090 BTF GPU. Both of these products are a step up over the TUF BTF lineup which has been on shelves since last year and the company is looking to innovate more into the backside/hidden power connector ecosystem as it gains more support from PC components and case manufacturers.
Looking at the specifications, the ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 HERO BTF motherboard is as high-end as it gets, featuring the LGA 1700 socket which is powered by a 20+1+2 phase power delivery and juiced up by two 8-pin connectors. The motherboard features four DDR5 DIMM slots which support up to 8000+ MT/s speeds and up to 256 GB DDR5 capacities with the latest BIOS updates.
Expansion slots include a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot along with five M.2 slots (1x Gen5x4, 4x Gen4x4). The motherboard supports both standard PCIe GPUs and the BTF designs which receive power through a dedicated graphics card high-power connector that is capable of delivering up to 600W of power to designs such as the aforementioned ROG STRIX RTX 4090 BTF. There are also 4 SATA III ports.
In terms of I/O, the ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 HERO BTF motherboard features 2 Thunderbolt 4 (Type-C) ports, 6 USB 3.2 Gen2 (5 Type-A + 1 Type-C) ports, 4 USB 3.2 Gen1 (4 Type-A) ports on the rear I/O panel and 1 USB 20 Gbps header, 2 USB 5 Gbps (4 USB ports), 2 USB 2.0 headers (4 USB 2.0 ports) for front panel connectors. Connectivity includes a single Intel 2.5 GbE LAN port along with the latest WiFi7 and BT5.4 support. Audio is delivered in the form of a ROG SupremeFX 7.1 interface which is powered by the ALC4082 CODEC which additionally comes with the ESS ES9218 Quad DAC.
The full list of rear I/O on the motherboard includes:
- 2 x Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports
- 6 x USB 10Gbps ports (5 x Type-A + 1 x USB Type-C)
- 4 x USB 5Gbps ports (4 x Type-A)
- 1 x HDMI port
- 1 x Wi-Fi Module
- 1 x Intel 2.5Gb Ethernet port
- 5 x Gold-plated audio jacks
- 1 x Optical S/PDIF out port
- 1 x BIOS FlashBack button
- 1 x Clear CMOS button
Since the motherboard is void of all power connectors on the front, the back is where you will be able to find the fan headers, power plugs, SATA slots, and the rest of the headers. The full list of I/O on the backside of the motherboard include:
- 1 x 4-pin CPU Fan header
- 1 x 4-pin CPU OPT Fan header
- 1 x 4-pin AIO Pump header
- 4 x 4-pin Chassis Fan headers
- 1 x W_PUMP+ header
- 1 x 24-pin main power connector
- 2 x 8-pin +12V power connector
- 1 x 12V-2X6 Auxiliary power connector
- 4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports
- 3 x Addressable Gen 2 headers
- 1 x AURA RGB header
- 1 x FlexKey button
- 1 x Front panel audio header (F_AUDIO)
- 1 x Start button
- 1 x 10-1 pin system panel header
- 1 x Thermal sensor header
- 1 x Q-Installation Switch
Having the connectors on the backside is a major plus as it ensures that cable management is clean & users have less to worry about cables being intrusive for the airflow of the chassis. ASUS has its latest ROG chassis which supports such designs and there are plenty of options coming out that also support backside/hidden connector motherboards such as the ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 HERO BTF.
The motherboard is currently listed at French retailer, LDLC, for a price of 799€ which is €110 higher than the standard variant (+16%). More and more system integrators and pre-built PC makers are also offering such designs which shows that there's genuine interest building up for such products and PCs in the DIY market.
News Source: Momomo_US
