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New BTX Form Factor Announced At IDF
xyote writes "A new motherboard form factor was announced at IDF today. See Google News for various press stories on it (how's that for up to date links?). Also, go here for the actual BTX specs."
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The specs pdf for those whose browser doesn't handle backslashes.
Well lets see, ATX is getting replaced by BTX, so if I remeber correctly from Kindergarten the next new technology will be CTX, DTX and ETX. I just love it when a plan comes together! (A-Team circa 1984).
Gotta love the acoustics of my motherboard. In fact, I do all of my home recording inside while sitting inside my PC box.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but does anyone want to take a stab at how long it takes for this to turn into a problem?
I remember seeing a WTX case from Addtronics. I thought that was the next standard.
The announcement of a 3.2GHz P4 with 2MB of cache targeted at gamers as reported by The Enquirer is more of an eye opener to me. The price tag will probable live up to the "Extreme" label tho, seems like they are affraid that the Athlon 64 will take away some of their "bleeding edge gotta have it" revenue.
Didn't we have instant "off" capabilities back in the day of the 8086? Does anyone else miss the ability to push the power button and have their computer turn off now? With most modern BIOS's ignoring user settings for instant off, it really has to make me wonder about some of these new fangled "innovations".
The thing that makes me wonder though is this part
Just how are they going to avoid rebooting a computer if the power goes off? MRAM is set to debut, and this could in theory hold the users' data state, but you still have to boot the computer up through the normal BIOS process, or am I missing something?
That pdf is so slow Here is a mirror.
Much like a TV. That's what Intel/MS wants to do, make the PC into a "proper" consumer device.
Could read the article because it is slashdotted, but a replacement for atx is really needed.
At the time of introduction, atx was designed for CPUs with a power dissipation of 10-20W. The cpu socket was placed right under the power suply to cool the heatsink with the airflow of the PS fan.
Nowaday, 80W CPUs dont benefit from this closeness to another heatsource in the PC. ATX doesnt include anything that allows thermal coupling between board and case (think of audio amp heathsink) or air-tunnels to cool the cpu with air from outside the case.
Also, eATX boards are quite huge, to big for anything but server cases, but normal atx isnt quite big enough for dual cpu boards with dual channel RAM (or opteron with 4 channel ram).
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Can't read the specs, they seem to be slashdotted, how did that happen... Of course, the main thing that happens when a new form factor comes out is that everybody who wants to upgrade their motherboard needs to upgrade their case as well which means a nice fat pay-cheque for the the beige box builders... That, more than any technical reason, will probably drive the uptake of BTX.
Well, in the 80's in Germany and Austria (maybe in other countries, too?) a system called BTX (Bildschirmtext, On-Screen Text) was introduced. You could call it an Interner-precursor, comparable to the French stuff (Minitel?).
;)
Anyway, here are the pics: BTX
Maybe we'll get the cool cases back
Yes.
is not another desktop form factor.
This is just a neato way to make your old case and PSU obsolete come next upgrade. Hooray!
At least BabyAT to ATX made some sense, in that it generally relocated the hotter CPUs next to PSU fans, etc...
What we need is a common laptop form factor. I want to be able to buy an empty laptop chassis/lcd, my own mobo, drive, etc, etc an put one together... While possible, its a major hoof in the noots right now. I want to build a laptop with a trackball and full sized keyboard and not one of those useless touchpads or thumbsticks. I dont care if it's 8 inches wider than Dells junk.
Etc etc
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Steadily decreasing box size, I smell a problem.
Wumpus
PC's should get bigger, not smaller. We have plenty of space on our desktops, so I don't see why I should have to sacrifice speed for space.
What Intel should do is crank up CPU speeds to unreal heights - like 10 Ghz and put a monster cooling system on it. I don't mind if I have to plug the heat sink system into a separate outlet.
What Seagate should do is increase HD size to 100 terabytes and put a huge heat sink on that too. If I have to plug the hard drive and heat sink into separate outlets, that should be fine. I have plenty of free outlets on my power strip.
What NVidia should do is make a triple-slot GeForce FX2. Make it 10 times faster, with a huge huge heat sink fan that I can plug into another outlet.
With all this, I think the new PC form factor should be a cube, about 3 feet on all sides.
Call me silly, but I rather liked the VME and/or multi-bus for computers. [http://www.vita.com/vmefaq/index.html]
For those not familar, basicly you had a series of cards that you shoved directly into the case it self, without need of popping the top. Two thumbscrews for each card and it just slids on out. [http://www.vita.com/vmefaq/resources/Image2.gif]
There was no *motherboard* per say but rather a "cpu board" but basicly it was the same thing. While VME boards were "huge", I can imagine much in the way of scalability for a trimmed up variation of the theme. Small desktop systems can enjoy the benifits of having a smaller backplane with only 3 or 4 slots, more robust users could enjoy larger cases with just more slots but essentaly the same motherboard.
Silly idea, probally. It would produce less in the way of waste in every motherboard wouldn't need yet another slew of slots on it. Cards would be mounted at two points rather then one point without fear of one end poping up when you put the screw in like was an issue with AGP video cards.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
curious. after looking at the pdf from one of the mirrors, i wondered why the oddball metric measurements- and the answer is they're conversions from english. it's an even 10.5" deep, +/- .01". .25 millimeter.
all the other dimensions are based around english measurements, too, and have variances of 1/100 of an inch or
i presume this is for case compatibility, and existing case have slots that work out that way, too, so to avoid having to make a new case that replaces ATX, this is the compromise.
i wonder though- does this hurt manufacturing in the long run? is it harder for foreign factories to make something that fits *precisely* because of this? having spent much time over the years fighting to make things fit, especially cards, is it time to go to a more exact metric squaring?
or when manufacturing, does it really matter? is 266.7 mm just as easy to attain as 270?
some of you mechanical engineers, feel free to add.
stored on computers from birth to the grave