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AT-Style K7 Motherboards?
yhetti asks: "I'm pretty old school and I love my K7. But there seems to be some sentiment around the cubicles and whatnot that there should be AT form factor K7 boards. The arguements of AT vs ATX are pointless and, like so much other stuff, it comes down to preference and use. My main qualm with ATX is that as nice as the BIOS softpower and power settings might be, they don't always work. You all know what I mean. AT is at least garenteed to start back up on power fail. In a perfect world everything is on an UPS. But then...HAH. So are there any plans for an AT style Athlon board coming down the pipe? Some sort of arch. problem that won't let it happen? Maybe power requirments? Are any of the major companies (read as: "Asus, Tyan, and FIC") thinking about this? I'd buy a dozen... " I too must state my desire to see something like this.
Usually, the biggest problem with this is power supplys and board layout. True, you can easily obtain 250/300W AT power supplys (and I *do* prefer a nice switch instead of soft power), and a lot of the newer AT form boards support ATX power, too, so that's not a big deal. Layout is always a factor, and, as an owner of an AT Slot1 board (Soyo 6Y-BB), I can personally tell you that having to saw off part of the hidden drive cage for tall DIMMS is kind of a pain 8^) Cooling is always a factor, but this can always be alleviated with extra fans, cutouts, etc, and isn't always necessary (however, given the power draw on the Athlons, it might be more of an issue - I don't own an Athlon yet (or a follow-on), so I can't tell you).
There's not necessarily a lot of physical reasing that you can't have an AT style board, but manufacurers may consider it a little to much of a niche product, especially since, given the cost of the other parts involved, the case ends up being fairly negligable... unless you want to replace a *nice* case (I've got 6 5" bays, 2 3" bays, and 5 internal mounts on my AT, and I can't give it up - my big ATX case has 5 5", 1 3", and 7 internal mounts - I'm a sucker for expandibility... and I believe in SCSI)[/offtopic]
So, technically feasible, but financially questionable, given:
1) SlotA - A lot of AT cases may not have the juice/cooling and a new supply can cost as much as a case
2) SlotA - Athlons still don't make up the majority of the marketplace (some Intel company, I think)
3) $$$ Creating a line of boards for a small user base would price the boards higher, or eliminate all profit. Either way, not good buisness sense.
Sorry, but that's just my e^(-j*Pi) cents...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Power requirements cannot be an issue, as a motherboard can get more power from an AT power supply than from an ATX (Dell actually uses a hybrid connector on some of its boards that allows the board to get enough power from an ATX supply). And whoever thought the soft-power idea was a good one should be drug into the street and shot! Also, ATX cases tend to be cheaply made and pretty flimsy compared to AT cases. The positioning of components on ATX boards is better than on AT boards, though. If the soft-power "feature" is the only problem you have with ATX boards, it is pretty easy to circumvent it. Just get an ATX power supply with a hard-switch capability (I think PC Power & Cooling makes one) and put a jumper cap across the pins on your board where the power switch plugs in. Then it will act pretty much like an AT, although it may behave strangely if you try and power it off in software (just don't compile "power off on shutdown" into your kernel and you will be fine).
s/negligable/negligible/
[/beating head]
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Are there even any Socket 370 or Slot 1 (or 2) AT-style boards?
- A.P.
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Tower touched on this, but it really is a big advantage of the ATX design. The power supply pulls air across the CPU, and the K7 does get very hot, especially at high clock speeds. I doubt I would trust it in an AT case without several extra fans, and motherboard manufacturers probably see AT as a dying breed anyways.
So my advice would be that go for an ATX mobo and an ATX case. The soft-power off is really nice, and as you've found out, there aren't really many newer AT motherboards out there.
I've been going for ATX all the way since 1996 (back when AT was still the standard, and an ATX system cost more) and I must say that I haven't regret it. It made switching motherboards since then much easier, since ATX is "the standard" now.
And ATX is also a spec for some of the board layout on the mobo. All ATX mobos have the CPU slot on the top half, so there is no risk of having a stupid mobo where the CPU sits in the way for full-length PCI cards. Such simple things, that makes life easier... =)
Of course, before you buy the mobo, make sure that it has this "resume state on power failure" option. Ask the dealer or the manufacturer.
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