Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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
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.