Ever since we slapped a window onto our gaming rigs, we’ve been wanting cleaner cable management, better lighting, and bigger windows to show off our hardware.
Last year MSI took things a step further by introducing an ecosystem of products, dubbed Project Zero, that gives gamers the ultimate cable management trick, rear-mounted I/O ports. This means that all the connectors you plug cables into are now placed on the back of the motherboard. Not only does this allow for better access to these ports, but it turns out PCs look far better without cables ruining “the look.”
It’s not just MSI heading in this direction, Gigabyte has Project Stealth and even Asus and Corsair have products aimed at better cable management and rear-mounted I/O. Whether each ecosystem will be compatible with the next is yet to be seen, but so far, things are looking promising.
We managed to get our hands on the first MSI Project Zero PC in the country and let me tell you, it was a sad day when it had to go back. Not because of its performance but because it looks so damn good in the NAG studio – of course, it does have a few horses under the hood, and its gaming performance…. well, read on to find out.
The concept of moving the motherboard’s I/O to the rear is rather clever but does require you to look at upgrading the rest of your PC. For one thing, you need a lot more space around the back panel where the connectors are now situated. Your case will also need to support cutouts in all the right places so that you can get access to those ports, and it would be a waste if you don’t have a full wrap around window to show off the cable-less layout of this PC. As more case manufacturers catch on, we’ll definitely see more back-connect-compatible models come to market.
The one which houses this MSI Project Zero PC is the MAG PANO M100 PZ, in white. It features a 270-degree panoramic window that shows you every corner of the hardware it houses. The big panel on the side of this case is removable for access to your components, while the power button and front I/O ports are neatly situated on the side near the front of the case. The power supply is neatly hidden at the bottom of the chassis and features extra space to hide additional cables.
Sitting at the heart of this build is the MSI B760M Project Zero mATX motherboard, compatible with Intel 12th, 13th, and 14th-gen processors. An AMD version featuring the B650M chipset will also be available. This motherboard features two PCI-E x16 slots and one PCI-E x1 slot. For storage, you can add two M.2 drives and up to six SATA 6G drives. For connectivity, there’s an Intel Wi-Fi 6E module preinstalled, and Bluetooth is also supported.
The CPU installed in this rig was the Intel Core i5 processor 14600KF processor that also enabled the onboard graphics for this motherboard. But we did not mess much with that; the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming X Slim White Edition kept us distracted.
This graphics card is nestled nicely into the top spot as one we highly recommend. The RTX 4070 chipset hits the sweet spot in terms of price versus performance within the Nvidia 40-series range – and the benchmarks prove you really don’t need much more power than that. Running 3DMark’s latest benchmark, Solar Bay, we managed to secure a score of 86,215. Running Cyberpunk 2077 on Ray Tracing Ultra produced an average frame rate of 98fps. Marvellous!
Considering most of this hardware is not yet available in South Africa, it’s difficult to get an overall price for this machine. The MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming X Slim White Edition retails for around R18,000 and the Intel Core i5 processor 14600KF processor will set you back about R7,000. Once we get updated pricing on the rest of the hardware, we’ll update this review and add a score; for now, it will just bear the title of Most Drool-Worthy PC of 2024… so far.
