One of my favorite trends in desktop PC design for the last couple of years has been what we call “The War on Cables,” wherein all the interior power and data cables are hidden on the backside of a case. It makes a desktop look oh-so-clean, and that’s great when PC builders these days are all about presentation. But at CES 2025, the latest incarnation of MSI’s Project Zero takes things too far.
Spy out the new build MSI is showing off on the CES floor. Upon first glance, it’s exactly what builders dream of for this kind of “hide everything around the back” approach — all the better to show off those gleaming white and aluminum components with a curved glass (or polycarbonate) enclosure. But look a little closer and you might notice that things are a little… off. 90 degrees off, that is.
MSI
See, this Project Zero X motherboard has its I/O board pointed straight down, out of a recessed hollow in the bottom of the case. Ditto for the graphics card (custom mounted via a PCI extender cable). That means that all the power, video, and data cables will need to be routed out of the bottom of the case, too.
I think this design might have been inspired by the Power Mac G4 Cube desktop from way back in 2000. And that thing was infamous for several reasons, not least of which was that you had to connect all the cables to the bottom of the machine.
MSI
I have a few other notes. If you use a blower-style GPU with the Project Zero X, it’s not going to be a great setup for the graphics card, shooting hot air down to that bottom chamber only to let the heat rise across all those components. (But I suppose it at least doesn’t require a specific compatible card, like some Asus designs.) It’s also a massive case, dedicating what looks like more than half its total volume to extra space for the hidden power supply and space for cables, internal and external.
But to be fair to MSI, this doesn’t look like it’s ready for a retail release yet. The CES demonstration doesn’t even list out the parts hiding under all those shrouds. So chalk this up as an experimental showpiece.
We’ll probably see some more refinement on the idea (maybe at Computex later in the year?) before we see it in any form that’s ready for buyers. In the meantime, you can try something a little less extreme with MSI’s current Project Zero parts and cases.
Further reading: The best PC and home tech of CES 2025