While agreement on a back connector standard appears to be in flux, and ‘BTF’ products remain thin on the ground, some interesting solutions leaning on a similar philosophy are being developed. A case in point is the Maxsun Terminator B850BKB WIFI, pictured today on ITHome (machine translation), with PCIe slots on both sides. The source says that Maxsun released the teaser images you see ahead of the AMD B850 chipset packing product’s Computex 2025 appearance.
From what we see, the new Terminator B850BKB WIFI bears little relation to previous BTF style designs. It shoves its PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, usually used for graphics cards, round the back. And it has one of its two M.2 SSD slots on the back, too. However, this doesn’t seem to have been done in the spirit of BTF – to enable an ultra-clean cable-managed build.
Instead, the upper side of the motherboard is still bristling with slots that are wiped from the face of other BTF designs we have seen. In other words, the oft-vanquished CPU power and motherboard power connectors, various front I/O, USB, SATA, and fan headers are all still present upper-deck on this design. It actually still has a PCIe slot on the top, too, a shorted PCIE x4 slot. The source reckons that this will be useful for low profile expansion cards. That’s pretty nice on such a compact Mini ITX form factor.
At the moment, all we know of the Maxsun Terminator B850BKB WIFI comes from the short translated blurb and these teased images. Rooting through the firm’s official product pages, we see only the next-size-up Terminator B850M WIFI, which doesn’t seem to feature any back-connector shenanigans.
Example PC builds would be appreciated
Seeing the new Terminator B850BKB WIFI in its planned environment, in a PC case we might be able to buy at retail, would have been more informative. Making the most from the potential that Mini ITX offers often involves very particular component compromises and creative thinking, so hopefully Maxsun will show how using this motherboard delivers advantages compared to its Mini ITX rivals.
Computex 2025 officially kicks off on Tuesday, running until Friday, so we hope that Maxsun explains this interesting new motherboard, and any other unusual treats it has in store, on the show floor. Stay tuned.
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