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New BTX Form Factor Announced At IDF

Posted by timothy on from the why-does-factor-follow-form dept.

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."

15 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Link to specs by dalleboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The specs pdf for those whose browser doesn't handle backslashes.

  2. Whats next? by pagercam2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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).

  3. Huh? by elid · · Score: 5, Funny
    BTX will enable the industry to strike a better balance in thermal management, system size and shape, acoustics, and performance -- all critical attributes to innovate desktop PCs for the digital home. (from http://www.dvhardware.net/article.php?sid=1894)

    Gotta love the acoustics of my motherboard. In fact, I do all of my home recording inside while sitting inside my PC box.

    1. Re:Huh? by Zathrus · · Score: 4, Informative
      What, you think the motherboard plays no part in the acoustics/sound level from your PC?

      So, I suppose that a motherboard with a fan on the north bridge is just as quiet as one without a fan, right?

      Acoustics may not be the best word to use, but it's certainly valid. From Webster's:
      1 singular in construction : a science that deals with the production, control, transmission, reception, and effects of sound
  4. New Form Factor, and Easy to break! by -Grover · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From here
    A new technology available from Intel in mid-2004, will help to simplify home networking by including a wireless access point and router functionality as an embedded feature of the PC to help minimize the need for external equipment or cables to build a small home network.

    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?
    1. Re:New Form Factor, and Easy to break! by MouseR · · Score: 5, Funny

      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?

      Well, Longhorn is currently scheduled for 2006, so my guess is ~3 years.

  5. P4 "Extreme Edition" much more interesting by msgmonkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  6. On off button by onyxruby · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Interesting note here about the on/off button.
    Intel also previewed an instant on/off technology, allowing consumers to press the "on" button and the PC is ready in a few seconds.

    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
    If the PC loses power, this technology quickly recovers without losing data or rebooting the PC under normal operation.

    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?
    1. Re:On off button by msgmonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In answer to your question about avoiding rebooting even when the power is down, most likely to be "suspend to disk". Memory contents are copied to a part of the hard disk when you turn "off" and restored if the machine loses power.

      The problem with suspend to disk is that you have to store the "state" of any adapters so that they can be restored too when power is restored. Your add-on adapters need to support this feature otherwise it just wont work, the spec has been out for a while but I'm not sure how well it has been implemented up to now.

  7. Mirror by Arc04 · · Score: 5, Funny

    That pdf is so slow Here is a mirror.

  8. Its about time. by imsabbel · · Score: 4, Informative

    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?
  9. BTX by absolut_kurant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  10. What we really need by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!!!!
    1. Re:What we really need by Zathrus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is just a neato way to make your old case and PSU obsolete come next upgrade. Hooray!

      Glad you RTFA.

      The PS is identical - same connectors (as long as you have the newer PS w/ the 4-pin 12V connector), same lines, etc.

      Doesn't look like the case needs to change either, although I haven't looked into the nitty gritty details of the mounting holes (appear to be the same at first glance) or volumetric zones (which look interesting; my first glance doesn't show any problems with cases that follow the true ATX spec and don't try to provide side vent holes for the CPU).

      At least BabyAT to ATX made some sense, in that it generally relocated the hotter CPUs next to PSU fans, etc...

      The ATX form factor made no sense at all when it was first released. Which is why it was revised quickly to make up for the utterly braindead ideas in it. The original spec called for the power supply to pull air inward and vent onto the CPU. So you had a huge heat source (the PS) sucking in cool air and then blowing the now warmed air onto an even warmer part of the case that desperately needs cooling (the CPU). The ATX 1.03 spec quickly remedied that and reversed the airflow of the PS back outwards.

      Now you "merely" have one huge heat source (the CPU) located right between two other huge heat sources (PS and video). Yeah, that makes "sense".

      Not to mention issues with putting this into a small form factor case where there is inadequate specs on maximum heights for components.

      I won't even touch the laptop suggestion... other posters have done it justice already.

  11. PC's should be getting bigger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.