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More on BTX Motherboards
venger writes "Anandtech has an article on the new standard of cases and motherboards that is soon to be released. Looks like they are trying to cater for the increase in heat devices are now producing while keeping the noise levels down!" We mentioned BTX earlier.
Just have the board lying on the table and a bunch of wires going all over the place. Have a pedestal fan blowing right on it for cooling. That is the sign of true geekiness.
will these new motherboards be compatible with MOBIG-2 cases? I know a lot of sun servers use these cases.
why not a air filtration system ?
Will these cases/board/supplies work with 64 bit CPUs or are those another ball of wax? Apple's got their 64 bit desktop machines for sale already, any i386 ones I've seen are rack mounted or sold as "big ass servers" meaning "you canna build yer own cheap, laddy"
What about water cooling systems? Isn't there a stable future for such device? Long life Naomi-
It's in here.
but..
'graphics will use a x16 PCI Express implementation that offers 8GB/s of bandwidth. '
will it be able to handle doom 3?
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Ooh, they're going to start making the cases out of water? That's even better than making them out of cheese graters.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
What would be different to need a whole new case? The new Athlon 64's will be using the old case first.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
I am going to be proactive in registering "CTX.com" through "ZTX.com"
Nothing to do now but sit back and wait for the checks to arrive
I think the adoption of BTX is going to come very slowly. For the 90% of computer users out there, a 3Ghz P4 is already a huge overkill to browse the net and check email. What are these BTX computers going to run that will make them appeal to current users.
Gamers, like usual, will be the biggest target for BTX. They are the only ones that will need the higher bandwidth bus for gfx and the faster cpus.
The big change that I see with this new BTX spec is video cards will be PCI Express and not AGP. I think I can safely assume that PCI Express has a bandwith that is much faster than that of AGP can ever have, which is why it would be desireable. But isn't the point of AGP that it allows you to set an arperture and use some of the system RAM as an extension of the memory on the graphics card? So unless every PCI Express Video card has like 256MB plus video ram on it, wont AGP still be better? I really know nothing about this PCI Express thing except that expansion cards go in it, and it's fast.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I thought some guy who wrote Saint Seiya already made the BTX a long time ago, and it wasn't even about computers...
only three problems computers have -- heat, dust and noise. others are the human art
-- There is four mistake in this sentences.
They specifically note that the cooling module doesn't have to just be fans, an din fact may well one day be something cooler (sic) like water cooling.
Actually the BTX has computer in it. But how can anyone makes a form factor that looks like a beast in an assembly line is anybody's guess.
link
There is a story floating on the net that this is not so. However it is likely that it for axtra bit in and out IE maybe the Secret Yamhill project is still alive and if not kicking at least not dead.
Yamhill is if you remember the Intel backup solution for 64bit using the AMD Opteron model.
Help fight continental drift.
Well, Apple has lead the world in case design going back to that Blue and White G3 they produced where the side of the system dropped open with full access to all the internals, many of them right on the door. (I might argue that the old 8600 and 9600 designs are still better than any other Wintel case I've worked with).
However, this G5 I am looking at again establishes Apple as the premiere company for case design. The case itself is aluminum for efficient transfer of heat and the multiple zone design with multiple low speed fans is absolutely the way to go until optical computing hits it's stride. All bits of the case are easy to access and they are absolutely quiet.
Looking at the BTX cases, I see nothing impressive when it comes to cooling or quiet other than perhaps the cool circular heat sink.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Why not work to make the CPU produce less heat?
The cases won't be made of liquid water, rather the motherboards will be encased in ice sculptures. By the time the ice melts, you'll need to upgrade CPUs anyway.
Oh come on, thats got to be the worse acronym I've ever heard!
Hopefully neither DIC nor anyone else get the hands on this 'form factor'. Butchering Knights of the Zodiac dub is already as bad as it is.
More on BTX Motherboards
Translation: Please don't call this a dupe.
We mentioned BTX earlier
Translation: Please, Please don't call this a dupe.
From article: The move to BTX will also bring us closer to a fully legacy-free PC, with PS/2, serial and parallel ports already beginning to disappear from prototype motherboards.
Honk if you're horny.
They say one main difference is the CPU is at the front of the case and the video card can share the cooling. My case is like this already! The CPU is in the lower front and the case fan can blow directly on it and the video card. The only difference I can see is the video card interface...no other advantage!
I live to gib...
So now I'll have to buy expansion cards (and waste slots) to use my IBM Model M, UPS comms cable, modem and printer?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
You could always buy one of those USB Serial ports.
Well, is that 8 Gigabytes, or 8 Gibibytes? And which one is better?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Here is a link to above story about possible 64 Bit Yamhill processor in the works.
Help fight continental drift.
hopefully this will actually work, allowing us to have uber-quiet-efficient-small pc's.
i do remember how angry i was at ATX when it was 1st introduced, and having to figure that all out....
i'm sure this will be the same.
--- #@$DF@#2%@^%3^&*$%FRHG%%[NO CARRIER]
Looking at this overview, some of the changes just don't make sense, and give me the feeling that they want to just screw the consumer into forced upgrades by making it as incompatible as possible. This design is also going to piss off quite a few techs. First off, they put the interface cards on the other side of the motherboard (without reason), but they also moved the CPU so that it would be right in front of the fan. Makes more sense to put both the cards and the CPU in front of the fan if you want maximum efficiency. The gay cooling duct module is going to make it a pain to get into your system to add memory or change jumpers around (not that I do it very often, but techs do). Ever spend time working on a Sun? No? That's because nobody likes to work on them for these same reasons. And PCI Express? Come on, the last thing we need is to go back to the days where we had to worry about PCI/ISA/VLB with the parts we buy. Theres nothing wrong with AGP for a video controller; this is just ATi and Intel's way of forcing you to buy a new card to use BTX. And if buying a new video card doesn't piss you off enough, the video riser board completely blocks your acess to anything near the CPU. Ironic how cooling was the LAST thing mentioned in the article, as you'd want to piss people off AFTER giving them the good news. On the other hand there's not much good news...it's still a little plastic fan that rotates. And they changed the shape to make you feel obsolete even if you do use your existing power supply. It's all bullshit.
Among other things, HTPC. Esp. with realtime software HDTV decoding. Remember those old days when we needed hardware DVD decoders ?
Also, video producers always need more power, to convert all those home videos to DVDs.
That reminds me - didn't someone predict long time back just four computers would be needed in the world. We also "need" more, because, once we get that more, it makes possible applications we would have never thought of earlier ... like HTPC.
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
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I really like Anadtech reviews,
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but they really do seem to have
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*Banner Ad* *Banner Ad* *SideBar Ad*
very little content on each page of their
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*Banner Ad* *Banner Ad* *SideBar Ad*
lengthy reviews. Anyone else notice this?
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If you're like me and are already on the quest for a quiet PC... here are some good/decent sources:
:)
www.quietpcusa.com
www.silentpcreview.com
Nexus makes some pretty good stuff I hear.
Something to be aware of though, there are some sites out there advertising a 14dbA SilenX PSU for $50... and they are counterfit. The real SilenX company DOES produce 14dbA PSUs, but for closer to $100. These authentic ones have been renamed away from the SilenX brand. See www.silenx.com fore more info on that
no comment
I can't believe no one else posted these yet! It's just not a Slashdot Thread without them!
"I, for one welcome our new BTX Overlords..."
"All your form factor are belong to us!"
"Microsoft == Evil!"
"In Soviet Russia, CPU cools Front Intake Fan!"
The longer I'm a member of the Human Race, the more I believe Apocalypse is a valid solution.
I always use to cut myself up when dealing with risers back in the day.
Why would you want to place your brand new 64-bit CPU powermonster in a case that hides its true power? Would you muffle a fearsome V8 so that you cannot push the pedal to the metal at 2 PM and wake all your neighbours so that they can watch in awe as you and your car disappear into the horizon!
How would your friends know that you have something special in that case unless they hear, no, scratch that, feel the power?
BOO! TERRO
but is 8Gb/s really 8Gb/s?
Democratic USA - Government of the corporations, by the Corporations, for the corporations.
One thing I want to see is a standardized case connector for the power and reset switches, LEDs, and speaker. Having each of them on a separate cable is just stupid. If they standardize that, I will be very happy.
Any self respecting geek would have their box stitting without the side panels on leaving their hardware nice and chilly and easily accesable.
Unfortunatly I have a cat who has a taste for IDE ribbons so I need to keep my case closed but dammit, one little push and I have access to everything. Now that BTX boards are going to go on the wrong side of the case I'll have to rearange my apartment so I have quick access to my gear again!
I sure hope you are not freelancing your technical (computer) skills. Because there is obviously something wrong with your system, and if you are the guy who is supposed to know how to use it- then there is a problem.
I just copied a 194MB file from one directory to another, and it took about 25 seconds. I'm running a PIII 700 with 384MB RAM- similar to the system you mentioned. Oh- I assume that you are not running an original Pentium at 900MHZ, but maybe a PIII.
So please- find the 'computer guy' where you are working, and tell him that your computer is 'broken' (no need for you to elaborate). He should know how to fix it.
Also- do you really type your Slashdot posts into Word? Is that to use the spellcheck or something?
No reason to lie.
For supposedly a state-of-the-art motherboard design (all 3 BTX reference boards), why did Intel wuss out and keep legacy ports on these mobos?
I'm looking at the pic for the micro-BTX board (yes, the micro edition) and I still see two (2) PS/2 ports and one (1) parallel port. What a waste. I bet they'll chicken out and retain ATA and floppy drive ports on the mobo itself too.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1876&p =3
C'mon Intel, Apple did away with legacy ports back in 1997. This design won't hit the market until 2004. Quit slacking. You either want the mobo manufacturers and PC brands to move away from legacy or you don't. I personally would rather have the $3 or so that goes into putting these dopey ports on the machines go toward something else, like Bluetooth support or extra Firewire ports.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
And a helluva lot of other legacy stuff.
But, you know, a lot of those old machines were designed very conservatively. I even have some old 286 running, and will continue to run them until they no longer function. Don't replace your legacy system... kinda like replacing your old SUV with the latest sports car should the bobbling heads start advocating it. Sure, the later one may be faster, but the old SUV will tote the kids.
In a pinch, a USB to serial converter will probably work. If its works, great, otherwise, its another case of having to do yesterday's work all over again, instead of doing today's work. Remember, you already got paid for yesterday's work... you don't get paid again for doing it again.
I did yesterday's work yesterday. I built my foundation years ago. Today, I use it. Kinda like years ago I put copper pipe in the house because I did not wanna mess with it ever again. I pour concrete foundations, because I know the wood one, albeit cheaper, will rot, and force me to do all my work over again. Some people have the money to do yesterday's work over and over and over again. Sure, they have the latest foundation in the neighborhood. But even I wonder how they economically justify such a paradigm.
Once I invest in a good solid foundation, I intend to use it for the lifetime I designed it for. Its not like I wanna design the Grand Coulee Dam, and demolish it every couple of years because someone came up with a different mix of concrete... Once I go through the trouble of building the thing, I intend it to perform its intended function from then on, usually indefinitely. Kinda like those Romans did things, where their aqueducts and roads still function as originally designed to this day.
I really take no thrill in developing the capability to sign checks to pay others to do the work... I take great pride in having the capability to do it. ( And also take comfort in knowing how my stuff works, as well as what to do if it doenn't work the way I want it to work. I think almost all Open-Source guys have this same mental picture. )
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
The advantages of moving the CPU to the front of the case, defining thermal zones, and so on, are clear, but overall this does look to me more like just another excuse to obsolete the cases already in use and add another marketing buzzword for manufacturers.
The most serious change to BTX versus ATX is switching the side of the expansion slots. What possible advantage could this have, aside from making it incompatible with existing ATX cases? In the reference examples they show, it just means that everything is moved to the opposite side of the case. As for the specially defined locations for the CPU and motherboard north and southbridges, they are pretty similar to a lot of boards already on the market (just reversed of course), and as the sizes of components change few BTX boards in the future will follow these specs exactly anyway. And the rest of the "advantages" (riser cards for horizontally-mounted video adapters, a sub-micro form factor, air ducts to chassis fans) already exist in practice with ATX anyway.
In the mean time, I hope I'll still be able to get new-generation ATX mainboards for the next couple years, because I see nothing in this new format worth buying a new chassis over.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
What's so new and great about this? You want a quiet and cool pc? Turn it off.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
For supposedly a state-of-the-art motherboard design (all 3 BTX reference boards), why did Intel wuss out and keep legacy ports on these mobos?
Just because they define a place for them in the standards does not mean a board is required to have them. They also define locations for sound, ethernet, and VGA ports, which certainly every board doesn't have. Contrarily, you can get legacy free ATX boards now if you really want them, and I'm sure this will be no different. But putting the ports in the spec allows them to meet the needs of all users, and for Intel's part it takes away a possible reason for some manufacturers to use ATX instead (as otherwise, anyone making a board with legacy ports would have to either use ATX or take up expansion slots with ugly brackets).
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
But putting the ports in the spec allows them to meet the needs of all users, and for Intel's part it takes away a possible reason for some manufacturers to use ATX instead (as otherwise, anyone making a board with legacy ports would have to either use ATX or take up expansion slots with ugly brackets).
Good argument. However, when Intel does not take a strong stand, OEM's such as HP will continue churning out PCs for the home user that will continue to offer these ancient relics of interfaces and in turn, Joe Blow is going to be out extra money for something he won't use. My point is that the ports should be eliminated so that the average user can either have a lower price or conversely more technology that is suitable for today's needs. And if someone feels so inclined that they require legacy ports like PS/2, then let them buy an ugly expansion board with the ports on them. At least they will be the only ones paying for such a thing.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
No, dude! Don't respond! YHBT!!!!!!! =P
"for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one directory on the hard drive to another"
I just copied a 30mb file in maybe 5 seconds. I'd say you're either a troll or your PC is seriously messed up. In other words, don't expect any 'intelligent reasons'. Especially considering you posted AC, it's not likely you'd even read them.
Hint, hint: Go to an Apple story, set your threshold to -1, and search for "I don't want to start a holy war here".
--
est modus in rebus
Hhe he he, NICE REPLIES!!
Can anyone tell me why they completely broke compatibility with most existing cases with this product? Is it just to force a case upgrade so that those 1337 gamers out there will buy a new 200 dollar Lian-Li just to get that new mobo? This is rediculous, if you ask me.
I got a +5, Troll
Hell, I'm still happy on my 750MHz Duron w/ 768MB of PC133 RAM.
:P (That's a type of pagefile, for the technicly declined.)
Runs Linux just fine.
And I don't even need a swap partition.
I might need one in the future, though. Having lots of memory is going to really bite it when it comes to "software mode suspend" which is Linux's answer to S4 suspension. (Coming in kernel 2.6)
What's this Submit thingy do?
The Article even says that they will be able to incorporate heat-pipes and or water cooling.
30% of people are still using Windows 98 (http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html)
Try to spend a month using a usb keyboard and mouse with Win98 where it only recognizes them 50% of the time and you will end up buying a usb-2-ps2 adapter for both devices.
My laser printer also uses the parallel port. I am not going to buy an entire new laser printer just so I can use these motherboards. Only ABIT makes legacy-free motherboards and they are not exactly flying off the shelves.
That "gay cooling duct module" provides dedicated space for whatever cooling apparatus you may want. That means air or water cooling, and I'm sure someone will think to put a noise supressor in there, with technology akin to noise-canceling headphones.
And there's lots of proffesional equipment that'll go in PCI-X slots. Just open a NASA Tech-Briefs magazine, and you'll see all sorts of stuff whose data wouldn't fit across AGP 8x.
What's this Submit thingy do?
You're also looking at a 5 year old case... they've been modified several times since then (evolved, enhanced, improved, whatever) and for the last three designs go something like this:
Unlatch door (pull up and pull out)
Unscrew one retaining screw
Slide drive out and up
And as for re-imaging... why are they removing the drives?
Macs support boot across the net, boot across Firewire, and boot across scsi...
Meaning you boot off another image, clone/reimage the drive, then reboot off the internal drive.
GPL Deconstructed
Wow that's great, so let NASA use it. I seriously doubt anyone's going to have a problem filling up their AGP playing half life.
You're worse than a troll, you're a troll who doesn't even know what he's talking about...
This is true. I've used an STK500/STK501 with a USB/RS232 dongle on my laptop and it worked fine. I had one built in, but I wanted to be able to program and access the debug console on my device without swapping the cable all the time.
...will it run linux?
Gigabytes, because that word isn't so horrendously gay.
well, let's just say I have an 11" mercury gun
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
All -
I have to admit I'm less-than-impressed by the new BTX standard. Allowing for larger CPU heatsinks is a solid advance, but the ATX standard could have been modified to require that kind of offset without necessitating the switch to new case designs. Placing the CPU closer to an air intake is another plus, but again I see no reason why the ATX standard couldn't have been modified to allow for this as well.
I'm also less-than-impressed by the way the cooling solution has been implemented. Utilizing two small fans - one pushing air into the case in the front, for cooling the CPU, and another in the power supply sucking air out of the case, as has been traditionally done in PCs - strikes me as a bit goofy. You're going to get a relatively narrow channel of cool air flowing into the PC, most of it passing over the CPU and picking up a lot of heat. I don't see any cooling directed at the hard drives, which are a major source of heat these days in most cases. Given the diagrams displayed so far, the drives and the expansion cards all seem to be sitting in an area of dead air outside the channel formed by the relatively large CPU intake fan and the surrounding ductwork.
From a noise perspective BTX also doesn't look like much of an improvement. You'll still have 2 fans, as you do in many conventional case designs, and both of them are located on the outer edge of the PC, meaning their noise is going to blast directly into the room. The fans are slightly larger (90mm it looks like) than conventional PC and CPU cooling fans, so they'll be able to rev a little lower, but the improvement certainly won't be dramatic.
If they were going to go to the trouble of making this design almost completely incompatible with ATX, they should have gone all the way and produced something a little more revolutionary. For starters, they should have moved the fans deeper inside the case, where their noise would be less likely to enter the room, and increased the size of the fans to at least 120mm (or utilized squirrel cage fans). One possibility would be to mount an efficient 120mm fan on the interior face of the power supply, as Seasonic has done recently on its "Tornado" line of power supplies. Using such a large fan to exhaust hot air through the power supply could also generate a powerful flow of fresh air into the case, while its position on the inner edge of the power supply would help suppress the transmission of sound into the room. Careful placement of vent holes on the front of the case as well as the incorporation of plastic duct work such as that specified for the BTX "cooling module" could then be utilized to ensure the CPU, hard drives, RAM and expansion cards were all guaranteed an adequate supply of cool fresh air.
And all of this could be accomplished with only minor revisions to the existing ATX standard, while components designed around this standard (such as the new Seasonic-style power supplies) would benefit owners of older computers and cases as well.
I agree with your implied disatisfaction that new boards won't have serial or parallel ports.
Although, you won't have a hard time if you keep your old hardware around instead of repurposing it or throwing it out.
If you program microcontrollers you probably have enough know-how to make your own simple USB burner. (Unless, of course, you need the delopment features of the stk500.)
Laminar flow gives poor cooling and very little noise. Turbulent air flow gives excellent cooling and a lot of noise. Remeber convection? Lining up all the cooling channels is *not* a good idea to improve cooling, however, you'll quietly get to the point of needing some medium with a larger heat capacity, a.k.a. water. Everybody now get the point of the thermal module and how this is engineered to be immediately obsolete?
"What d'ya want for nothing? Rubber Biscuit?"
Why are these monkeys still putting the ethernet port in top of two usb ports? Why would I ever unplug my computer from the network (unless I was moving it)? Why then allow the ethernet cable block my access to the USB ports, which I'm much more likely to want to unplug? This has got to be one of the most stupid aspects of the port layout in current designs, and I pains me to see it hasn't dawned on the designer how stupid it is.
Look, if HP & Dell could save 5 cents per machine by removing PS/2 ports, they would. The fact is the total cost of PS/2 keyboard/mouse + connectors is still cheaper than USB. That's why 99% of new systems ship with PS/2 devices.
Also, the PS/2 circuitry is built into the chipset and costs virtually nothing. Try to remove it and you don't have a "PC" anymore, so it will stay along with the A20 gate, the daisy-chained IRQ controler, and other nonsense.
Allow me to suggest that if YOU want a legacy free system, YOU should bear the cost of that nitch item.
Look, if HP & Dell could save 5 cents per machine by removing PS/2 ports, they would. The fact is the total cost of PS/2 keyboard/mouse + connectors is still cheaper than USB. That's why 99% of new systems ship with PS/2 devices.
All PCs today ship with USB ports, and mainly of the USB 2.0 variety. So the cost of USB is inmaterial in your argument. It is a done deal. The PS/2 and other ports are legacy and they increase the price of the machine. It may not matter on a single machine, but when you multiply that across an entire platform line for a manufacturer, then it becomes a considerable cost factor. Considering how many PC companies refused to place Firewire ports on their wares because of the $1 licensing fee, you can see my point in action.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I don't really have a problem with removing the PS/2 ports. I do on the other hand have issues with removing the serial and parallel ports. I am all for changing their form factor (the D-Sub style connectors are way too big) but it requires so little logic to implement these features that are very helpful for debugging and other such tasks. Maybe the connectors could be removed from the back of the board and just left as headers on the board somewhere.
IMHO, the worst piece of legacy hardware is an x86 CPU. No amount of new ports/interfaces is going to help change that.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The cost of having USB in the computer is immaterial, yes, but the extra cost of USB keybopards & mice over PS/2 ones is not.
The point is that the extra cost of the USB devices is more than the cost of having PS/2 interfaces in the computer, so it overall costs less to include PS/2 interfaces and use cheaper devices than to not have the PS/2 ports and therefore have to pay more for the devices.
See?
It seems kind of silly to moan about the PS/2 ports; they're simple, low speed, and have small connectors, so they're hardly a burden to support. More importantly, there have been lots of great keyboards/mice produced over the years using PS/2 connectors which there's absolutely no reason to obsolete.
:-). My boss bought the original HH Keyboard even earlier, which cost some absurd price like $250 -- and it's built like it; it's probably going to be going strong 10 years from now. Another example is that people are still using the great keyboards IBM produced in the 80s.
For instance, I have a `Happy-Hacking Keyboard Lite' that I bought (well my company bought) 5 years ago, and it still murders every usb keyboard that I've seen (though I actually also have a usb HHK Lite 2
Anyway, the point is that there's still a very good reason to retain PS/2 port support. Apple can strut and preen all it wants about being modern and edgy, and sometimes they have a point -- but sometimes it's just hot air.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
"The point is that the extra cost of the USB devices is more than the cost of having PS/2 interfaces in the computer, so it overall costs less to include PS/2 interfaces and use cheaper devices than to not have the PS/2 ports and therefore have to pay more for the devices.
See?"
Yes, I understand that. However, that figure will switch places soon enough when all keyboards and mice ship natively in USB vs. PS/2. And then prices for PS/2 hadware devices in relation to USB devices will be like buying SIMM chips today versus their DIMM counterparts. And guess what? If Intel and the others moved directly to legacy free, the price changes would happen even faster. Furthermore, this argument is moot if a company like Dell offers to sell something like Microsoft Natural Keyboards with their machines. You'd have to demonstrate Microsoft charges more for a USB model over a PS/2 model if they actually made separate editions. And then, in that case, the PS/2 ports on the PC itself becomes an unnecessary expense. Kinda like Dell and the floppy drive...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The point of pci-x, while also to bring higher bandwidth, is to eliminate the outdated pci bus. PCI just wasn't intended to handle the data we throw at it. When graphics cards outpaced PCI, we added AGP, and when network cards did (think gig-e), intel added csa to by-pass the pci bus. The biggest thing holding SATA back is the PCI Bus, because any controller not integrated in the southbridge must rely on PCI, which is counter-intuitive when dealing with s-ata. And that's only sata-150, soon to be s-ata300.
Once you have PCI-X in place, why not give the video card plenty of bandwidth? You start out with 16x connectors, it means less design changes when we want to add more bandwidth.
Also, no one is forcing you to upgrade. You can still use PCI or AGP, they're not going away any time soon. The point is that when you want to upgrade, these better technologies will be in place for you to benefit from.
You also rant about the design of the board. What's the big deal? As far as the shroud, who's to say it's not easily removable? Who's to say you need to have it at all. The point of the spec is to define the space as unusable so the boards and cases are compatible. If you want to throw in watercooling, go ahead. It's not like manufactureres are going to put jumpers or dip switches right next to the socket where they are difficult to get to, and why do you assume it will be difficult to change memory?
Lastly, you have to realize why these design changes were made. They allow quieter AND more efficient cooling, something that the average pc user definitely wants. And as I've pointed out, they don't limit the enthusias from being creative with cooling solutions.
I think Intel's answer to that for desktops is hyperthreading or multi-core cpus. I would also guess there isn't enough wiggle room in their thermal specs to take an extra cpu. It's an 100+ watts per now.
> that figure will switch places soon enough when all keyboards and mice ship natively in USB vs. PS/2
When will that be? A vast majority of keyboards & mice are sold to OEMs for new systems.
Add on keyboards like the Microsoft one are great examples, because they all contain both USB *and* PS/2 circuitry. So there's no cost savings. Not to mention the margin on 'deluxe' input devices is ridiculous.
same $hit different name
a Beowulf cluster of these!!!
(someone had to say it)
"Legacy free" and an old IBM keyboard is why I have a USB/PS2 adapter. Never leave home without it.
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
Why would I use Windows? Like a lot of slashdotters, because I have to, and *_only_* because I have to. Quickbooks for Windows at work (IE only, ActiveX).
I'm using my K5-166, with 96 Megs of RAM, since my Athlon CPU died. My K5 system takes forever to boot. While copying files (or downloading them), everything grinds to a halt.
Part of this is the slower IDE drive and cable. Can you use the 80-pin cables? I can copy files from my SCSI-CD/RW much faster than copying from my IDE CD-ROM.
Part of this is Windows, the multitasking just sucks. For that I gently recommend Linux, at least for surfing, downloading, and some light office tasks. The multitasking is just better. One new application doesn't make everything slow down so dramatically as under Windows (you notice it more with slower machines).
Sorry to hear about the long copy times, I have the same problem right now.
This is clearly flame bait
There is no way you know anything of the new strandards beeing proposed.
This is the kind of post that just makes me wander how one can build an opinion on so little knowledge
PCI-Express will be 100% hot swapable and should enable PC-CARD like expansion modules on desktops, but on a MUCH smaller formfactor. It also needs about 1/10th of the infrastructure allowing for MUCH smaller/simpler boards
And as far as pissing of the techs, i'm not pissed in any way shape or form.
As a matter of fact, I more than welcome standard cooling on cases so that people will have less of a chance of getting systems that have no chance in helll of cooling properly.
Sincerly, next time, read up on it a bit before posting what you think OTHERS will think of something.
Yeah, I'm sure Intel really wants to encourage you to get Firewire ports... heh.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Well, is that 8 Gigabytes, or 8 Gibibytes? And which one is better?
Well, Giga (and mega, kilo, etc) go by powers of ten (10^3), and Gibi (and mebi, kibi, etc) go by powers of two (2^10).
Since 10^3 is 1,000 and 2^10 is 1,024, one gibibyte is larger than one gigabyte. Specifically, 1 gibibyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes, while 1 gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes.
Unless, of course, you're a sane person. Then 1 gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes, and 1 gibibyte doesn't exist.
Did somebody say c-h-u-r-n ??
I will surrender my 1992, 13 Lb Fujitsu keyboard when they pry my cold dead white paws from the smoking ceramics & melted titanium.
One thing I want to see is a standardized case connector for the power and reset switches, LEDs, and speaker. Having each of them on a separate cable is just stupid. If they standardize that, I will be very happy.
Amen!
has been a feature of PCI since day one. Your AGP bridge lets you set a window in that space your OS sets aside for the graphics card, and redirects it down the AGP bus so it goes extra fast.
[You might have noticed your video card (AGP or not) is logically attached to the PCI bus in your device manager... ^_^]
So the northbridge can resolve memory accesses in at least 3 ways, PCI bus lines, memory banks, or AGP. Some systems have multiple PCI busses, and a dedicated, seperate system bus on the southbridge. (Head spins)
PCI-express is just a fast PCI. Standard PCI will be attached via a bridge to PCI-express. Logically it flattens the arrangement out.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
If I ever feel the need to add a toaster to my Home entertainment center, I'll buy a Shuttle Small Form factor bare bones box. My cable box,VCR and stereo receiver are all roughly 18" wide and 3-5 inches high. Where are all the PC cases that conform to these dimensions. Toasters don't quite fit the theme. That's o.k. All you case designers can go back to pondering your navels while shamelessly collecting a paycheck. Idiots!
Add on keyboards like the Microsoft one are great examples, because they all contain both USB *and* PS/2 circuitry. So there's no cost savings. Not to mention the margin on 'deluxe' input devices is ridiculous.
Not all keyboards and mice are "both". Most retail mice are USB based and come with the dongle adapter to convert them over to PS/2.
It all comes down to my original point about Intel taking the initiative of getting rid of legacy stuff like PS/2 ports on their reference board design and chipsets. If they would take a stand, then the PC builders would follow suit because they'd have no other choice (unless VIA or ATi chose to offer PS/2 and legacy support in their chipsets)...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
The USB to PS/2 dongle is a simple plug adapter -- it doesn't do protocol conversion.
When you attach it, it tells the input device to use it's built-in PS/2 circuitry.