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More on BTX Motherboards

Posted by michael on from the running-hot dept.

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.

13 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Since dust can be a problem by zymano · · Score: 5, Interesting

    why not a air filtration system ?

    1. Re:Since dust can be a problem by evilviper · · Score: 2, Interesting
      why not a air filtration system ?

      I would be willing to bet that the #1 reason, is that it seriously impeeds airflow.

      I have a couple 80mm filters covering my intake fans, which limits air intake, unfortunately. So, just to prevent some ammount of junk entering your system, you have to have fans that are significantly more powerful, meaning more noise.

      Besides that, I'm sure the material I used will not do a great job filtering out all dust, so an even more restrictive filter would be needed. Not to mention that a filter needs to be cleaned regularly.
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  2. Nice but.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting


    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"

  3. Re:you use cases? by aliens · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hehhe, I have two slabs of wood seperated by four dales, dawls, er (wood columns)

    Works well, a lil noisey, but easy to test stuff on!

    --
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  4. Maybe someone knows by Apreche · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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  5. 64 bit x86 from Intel? by bstadil · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The socket on the BTX board shown has 250 or so extra pins that was "explained" by Intel to be for Power reasons.

    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.

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  6. Best case design....period. by BWJones · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:Best case design....period. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Have you taken a really close look at the G5 motherboard? Have you noticed that the bridge chips are on the bottom ("solder") side of the board? (Probably so the heat from these chips is transferred to the outside shell of the case.) INTERESTING... And how about the hard drives and DVD burner? Are they on an aluminum frame to also transfer heat to the skin of the chassis? (I don't know about the drive mounting - but I definitely noticed that the bridge chips were on the "wrong" side of the board - which I found very interesting.)

  7. Re:why? by elmegil · · Score: 2, Interesting
    No no no no. The industry is struggling to figure out how to make money, so the idea is to make a new form factor that requires, in order to upgrade, the purchase of
    1. a new motherboard
    2. probably a new CPU
    3. a new case, and
    4. a new graphics card
    all in one shot. No more of this reusing everything but the component you want to upgrade stuff!
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  8. I'm gonna have a hard time programming my AVRs... by mofochickamo · · Score: 4, Interesting
    without a serial port. I use ATMEL's STK500, which uses the serial port to program the microcontrollers.

    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.

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  9. Re:why? by sweetooth · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This has less to do with processor speed and computing capabilities than it does with size and noise. There are a great many people buying smaller cases like the shuttle xpc because computers do everything they want and footprint, noise, and style are the things lacking now.

    Gamers won't care much about BTX unless there is a killer video card that will only be released in PCI Express form factor. At least initially.

  10. Re:I see a pattern developing !! by bhtooefr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ATX.com - ATX Communications (no relation to Intel's ATX)
    BTX.com - BTX Technologies (A/V equipment)
    CTX.com - CTX Corporation (down, but I think they're a monitor company)
    DTX.com - DTx (an embedded computer manufacturer)
    ETX.com - ETX (down)
    FTX.com - Drug portal
    GTX.com - GTX Corporation (CAD software)
    HTX.com - Marksmen (down)
    ITX.com - ITX Design (web design/hosting)
    JTX.com - Farrier Marine (boat manufacturer - second server for downloads)

    There's the first ten from A, so you'll need to be quick if you want one...

  11. Re:Planned obsolescence at its best by lspd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

    If this little change is so important, why don't we see anyone manufacturing ATX tower cases where the motherboard mounts on the left side rather than the right. You'd get the same effect (CPU in line with the case fan) without designing a completely new style of motherboards. This sounds more like an excuse to eliminate PS2, serial and parallel ports. My keyboard and mouse are plugged into PS2 ports, my printer is plugged into the parallel port, and I use the serial port to log in to headless servers. You only need a single USB port to plug in a hub, so why do they want to eliminate all the older ports?