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Balance Technology Extended (BTX) Explained
Anonymous Coward writes "The folks over at TweakTown have just posted an article which talks about Balance Technology Extended (BTX) - Intel's upcoming new form factor which will replace the aging ATX form factor standard we've grown used to. BTX is meant to offer better cooling and quiet computing through its smart design."
"Buttocks"?
Who bets this will be the new marketing feature to "power users"? Why don't we just stick with ATX? It's suited us fine for years, computers run too hot these days, maybe we ought to concentrate on stability and quality rather than quantity and TLA's...
I have had many AMD processors overheat, but I have never had any intel do so.
Graphics card on the other hand require some serious cooling adjustments. I don't imagine BTX will really solve the heart of the cooling problem... the video card.
This sounds like a good initiative. I really hope it catches on and we can see even more mass market focus on quieter PC's. I've been thinking of buying pre-built systems just to get a quieter computer.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Heaven forbid Intel reduce the 100W portable heater to a lower wattage. Clearly only the case & motherboard are the only components not "smartly" designed.
Hmm why should php make more than one pool worth of connections?
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Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
More info, greater bandwidth, fewer ads, etc at Form Factors and, of course, Intel.
You mean maximum connections, dude. I have no idea how minimum connections would even be implemented.
"No! No, you can't disconnect! I have to keep some of these open! Aaaargh!"
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
half cocked attempt to keep the intel/MS upgrade spiral happening.
Some informed information is avaialable here.
However this is also half cocked.
You can download a copy of the BTX spec in PDF from this site.
So, you never owned a Pentium 60, did you... I could fry a barquedo on the case of mine.
Too bad they don't have a BTX server.
HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected
So this article has now taken down two distinct sites. Anyone willing to see if we can slashdot Intel?
Cue The Sun...
Try This
Or This
Or This
Here's a few other links to similar data:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1876
http://www.dvhardware.net/article.php?sid=1894 Has PDF's of the Spec.
http://www.intel.com/update/contents/dt10031.htm
Introduction
The computer industry is constantly evolving and building upon technology with as much mind for the future as possible. However with such a constantly changing industry, standards which we rely on do not always anticipate the changes that occur in the future. That had been the case for the AT form factor and the issues with it were addressed by the creation of the ATX Form Factor all those years ago - the design specification which computer companies abide by when designing and manufacturing their products for the PC.
Now, as ATX and its closest cousins begin to show its age from the advent of new technologies like Serial ATA and PCI Express, a new form factor is seen as a need by many companies and Intel has the answer - it's called Balanced Technology eXtended (BTX). BTX, in its basic principle design, is very similar to that of ATX, but there are a slew of changes that can and will be utilized to show that it has the potential to improve the system as a whole in terms of acoustics and heat dissipation.
Intel has been kind enough to provide us with some technical information and pictures on BTX. Let's see what the future holds for us!
The BTX specifications call for a new location for the system processor. The relative position, at a locale close to the top and front of the motherboard, allows for a new way of cooling not only the processor but the highest heat producing components of the system through the use of a "thermal module."
The thermal module consists of a duct, seal, heatsink, fan, and clip. The duct encloses the heatsink area and forces the air inducted through the massive fan over the heatsink and processor directly to the upper back of the system in a tower case. After the airflow provides cooling for the processor, it continues through the system to the graphics subsystem, whether it is on a riser card or directly into a PCI Express slot, providing additional cooling to the video card. Supposedly, airflow then trickles throughout the rest of the system to the memory and the various other internal components.
The thermal module of BTX represents how the LGA-775 Prescott will have to be cooled. BTX will more than likely be coming to the market at the same time as the LGA-775 Prescott processors with such a higher heat production. The first motherboards we will see with BTX will probably be high-end solutions that target the wealthiest enthusiasts and workstation systems then as usual we'll see more affordable systems come onto the scene shortly afterwards.
BTX, unlike any prior standard form factor, was developed to support three different system sizes. With BTX, we have the standard BTX, microBTX, and picoBTX forms. At the IDF of Fall 2003, the reference systems Intel demonstrated were in the microBTX and standard BTX forms. With the microBTX form occupying only 12.9 Liters and regular BTX form system not much larger, Intel has been able to push acceptance of BTX with OEM manufacturers with some ease.
PicoBTX, the smallest of the BTX forms, is the most interesting of the BTX form factors, in my opinion. Intel will be demonstrating 6.9 Liter systems based around picoBTX, smaller than any small form factor PCs on the market. The 6.9 Liter system will be approximately 3.1 Liters smaller than the smallest SFF PCs currently on the market today from such companies as Shuttle. This compact size will push the evolution of the compact PC and increase the acceptance of BTX, specifically by SFF PC builders and users interested in buying SFF PCs - You can already imagine the SFF leaders of the industry rubbing their hands together.
An interesting thing about the different sizes of BTX is how Intel specifications reduce the need to shift system components significantly. With BTX locating most essential system components in the upper portion of the motherboard, there is a simple move of removing a few peripheral slots with each reduction in size, bringing the total peripheral slots to one with picoBTX.
Since BTX reference desig
The BTX standard is emphasizing getting rid of serial and parallel ports and "legacy" hardware.
Given this, I'm wondering if I will still be able to use my full tower ATX case on the BTX boards. I know there are standard BTX cases as well as the smaller form factors. The holes on the "back pannel" previously reserved for the serial ports and PCI cards are sure to give a lot of problems mounting BTX boards if the locations of the ports changes.
Using the standard BTX format (and not the mini-BTX), I have a few questions:
Will I be able to use my case on an ATX board? Will the mounting holes be located in the same location. Will AGP be on the BTX boards (specs I remember seeing emphasize PCI xpress).
It would be a total waste if I (and many others) would need to throw away a good case. I hope AGP will still be on the BTX boards. I want to upgrade within the next year and my ATI 9600 pro would go to waste as well.
Come on. Are there really people out there who are going to buy a brand new computer but still have a vital need for an old keyboard? Buy a freaking adapter and save some space.
The new form factor is probably not strictly necessary, but is useful, given the move to much smaller connectors (PCI Express, USB, SATA, etc.). Serial connections are primarily institute because they use fewer pins, and so save money. The costs of packaging on modern chips, with hundreds of pins and BBGAs, is enormous. You can save more money if you engineer the form factor to go with it.
1 876. pdf. htm
PCI Express also allows low-profile cards, so with BTX, you can make much smaller machines if you go legacy-free (no PCI, AGP, MCA, VESA, EISA, or ISA slots). Generally, boards are much more integrated now, use solely SMT components, small connectors, and are cheaper, but the overall system also requires less room. Observe the number of PCI cards that consist of a 1" sliver of PCB, right up to the back of the computer, and then extend to full PCI height. That's expensive, and wastes space. The height of PCI comes from the days of ISA, with through-hole parts and 25 pin connectors going to printers. The only big cards I've seen in the past many years are custom boards and graphics cards. Graphics cards have a funky horizontal option in BTX.
To relieve the slashdotted server, a similar review:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=
The actual spec:
http://web.newsguy.com/nstrom/BTX_Spec_1_0
Intel's info about it:
http://www.intel.com/update/contents/dt10031
it's a tangled mess of power supply wires that reduce airflow and look like shit, the lack of a standardized layout of ports and such on the back means you have to make like 30 cut outs on each case to get it to work with every mobo on the market, and the process of adding even more ports in the mix like Firewire (1394) and such via cables and slot headers make the inside look even worse. Why the 733T wants to have windows on their cases is beyond me - now look at the inside of a freakin Dual G5 - THERE'Sa case to have a window for.
The heat from the CPU(s) is exhausted INSIDE the case (!) leading to high temps and heat related failures.
The Apple G5 case is the best designed case around IMHFO and the BTX is still behind it on a number of fronts. At least they are'nt going to exhaust the hot air from the CPU inside the freaking case any more. Jeeezzz. :/
I have to use ps/2 cause my kvm switch doesnt have usb support. just cause you dont need it doesnt mean others dont
There are plenty of ways to get ATX silent.
De-fan components. Heatsinks can be made sufficient for many video cards, chimpsets, and possibly CPUs (I'd bet in an otherwhise well-ventilated case, you could run a Duron at 1500 or so fanless)
Mount hard discs in frames with sound dampening.
Larger fans where fans are required.
Cover holes with filter
BTX won't solve the noise of a CD reader spin up, and it can't keep my fans oiled.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
Are there really people out there who are going to buy a brand new computer but still have a vital need for an old keyboard?
h tm l
Goddammit YES. The IBM Model M is the best keyboard ever made. I have 6 of them. Typing on one is an epiphany. The Stuff Of Legend.
And they have a PS/2 connection.
http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ohland/keyboard.
That does not leave much space for upgrades, CTX has already been taken by a computer monitor company, see the CTX website.
To relieve the slashdotted server, a similar review:
The actual spec (PDF!):
Intel's info about it:
I've mirred it here:
http://209.15.36.47/btx.htm
I've heard that it is very difficult to reliably keep chimp-sets quiet.
the lack of a standardized layout of ports and such on the back means you have to make like 30 cut outs on each case to get it to work with every mobo on the market
That's a design feature in the ATX spec. It fixes the problem that the old AT-style cases had where you were forced into using expansion slot headers or punch-outs in order to provide access for connectors other then the AT-keyboard cable. If you look at any ATX motherboard on the market today, you'll see that they come with a ~1.5"x4" metal insert that fits into a standard cutout area on the back of the ATX-case and which matches up to whatever ports the vendor decided to put on the motherboard.
Yes, the G5 is probably prettier on the inside... but you get what you pay for, but with lack of options (there's only one maker for motherboard that you put inside a G5). OTOH, with the ATX-spec, you can mix-n-match motherboards and cases to get exactly what you want. The downside is that you have to do cable/wire management yourself (rounded cables and a bit of wire-tie do just fine).
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Every article is split across 10 pages.
/. editors should do us a favor and just link to the Intel propaganda; at least Intel can keep their servers up.
Every page has 10 ads.
And there isn't even any original content; the articles are just rehashed press releases or IDF presentations. OK, occasionally they run some stock benchmarks on some stock hardware (all the sites have to use the same benchmarks; they wouldn't want to break away from the herd).
The
There are some major problems with the BTX Specification. Some things are better than ATX, some are worse...
1) BTX forces you to cool your video card, north bridge, memory, and CPU with the same fan/duct combo. the BTX specification allows ONE 80mm fan to drive the wind tunnel.
This is a major design flaw. There is no possible way on earth that high end systems will be able to use the BTX form factor. Memory is getting hotter every year as clock ramps. North bridges too (not for athlon64, but other platforms it has) Video cards are already putting out more heat than even the hottest CPU's. You just can't push enough air with a single fan to cool all these components running under load unless you are using mid to low end hardware. It just won't happen.
2) BTX doesn't leave room for anything larger than 80mm at the end of the fan duct. This is a MAJOR problem.
This is actually a drawback from the ATX standard, where even the slimmest ATX cases have the physical room to house a 120mm fan in both the front intake, and rear exhaust. This means slower, lower powered fans pushing the same amount of air. This keeps your fans lasting longer, reduce maintenance needs, and reduce overall TCO. In the BTX specification, you are forced to use high speed 80mm fans to keep the system from overheating, even in a midrange setup. You simply cannot cool modern day video cards and northbridges, and memory banks and CPUs with just 1 80mm fan, no matter how efficient the ducting system is.
Suggestions for improvement:
1) Seperate the video card from the BTX wind tunnel. Put it at the bottom of the case, and make it part of its own tunnel. This would allow you to spin the fans dramatically slower and have overall cooler system.
2) Resize the ducting so 120mm fans fit properly. There is nothing worse than an 80mm fan whining in your ear running at 5,000 RPM's when you could have a 120 or 92mm fan running half the speed.
3) Do the same large fan combo for the video card tunnel.
4) Integrate circuitry that monitors temperature of the exhaust air of these 2 compartments. Set reasonable thresholds for this temperature, and have the fans spin up to a higher speed when the temperature rises such that you know that particular compartment is under load. For instance, if you load up Doom3, the video card compartment exhaust will heat up, thus requiring more airflow and thust faster fan spinning. This is not currently available on any standard systems and so far the only consumer systems which ship with microchip controlled fans are apple computers (sadly). No, thermister fans do no good, as they are tuned such that they are always running full speed (even at lowest temperature) or always running low speed (even at highest temperature). you need something which allows the PC Builder to adjust the thresholds.
4) Do away with all chipset mini fans and insted attach very large passive heatsinks. Be sure to make these heatsinks part of the wind tunnel of its repsective compartment.
5)...
6) Profit!
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
I think Intel's new form factor is more than a little imbalanced in that it's centred around the CPU. Just when we should be trying to strike a balance between performance and power consumption, Intel's design uses a "thermal module" that looks like it's custom made for a new generation of superhot CPUs like the >100W Prescott.
This is not a good indication of where they're trying to take us. While there will always be performance freaks out there who will demand higher benchmark results even if it means central-heating-in-a-775-pin-socket, there has to be a more sensible middle ground for the rest of us, even if that means slowing down the pace a bit.
AMD seems to have taken a slightly more sensible approach, with its Athlon 64 CPU peaking at less than 90W and implementation of a speed throttling technology they've branded "Cool 'n' Quiet". But it's still a pretty hot CPU at full speed.
What we really need is better middle ground. For a desktop PC at the moment you can choose between very fast and very power hungry Pentium 4s and Athlons, or very cool but very slow VIA C3s or Edens. But there's not much in-between.
Tests have shown that if you underclock/undervolt an Athlon XP, you can retain very good performance while drastically cutting power consumption (to P3 levels and below). Effectively, it's the opposite of overclocking. This setup is ideal for people who desire all the architectural benefits of the latest platforms, but don't quite require the CPU power. But despite this, it's still a very uncommon and unsupported approach.
Instead of recruiting everyone in their race to the top and designing new form factors to cope with the power-hungry CPUs that result, why don't AMD and Intel offer us cheaper CPUs with more sensible power consumption for the mainstream, and give people a genuinely balanced choice? Why can't I buy a nice, cool-running Barton clocked at 1166MHz, or a 2GHz Northwood?
On the other hand, things might get a bit choppy when Joe User tries to run Flight Simulator. So perhaps AMD does have the right approach after all with its Athlon 64: 2GHz when you need it, but a nice cool 800MHz when running web browsers and office programs.
Well, from what I've gathered, getting the drivers sorted for a USB input device (under, say, linux, or a bootloader) is one hell of a lot harder than just using PS/2. Of course, PS/2 ain't perfect - if it comes out the back, you're probably gonna need a reboot to get it back in sync - but having to set up a whole addressable, hot-pluggable, daisy-chainable bus before you can even type always seemed a bit much to me.
But maybe there is an easier way, and I'm just ignorant - how exactly do PS/2-USB adapters work? I mean, a PS/2 device never has to deal with addressing does it?
Take a gander at those heatsinks. I mean damn, they are just HUGE. There are just realities when dealing with silicon transistors. Intel may have the highest consumption, but the other high performers aren't far behind. You just needs lots of fast transistors to get fast processing, and those give off lots of heat.
Now that's not to say you can't make lower performance, lower power CPUs. Intel does that as well. However people generally want FAST (regardless of if they need it or not), so there is a drive to continue to increase processor speeds. Intel, AMD, IBM, et al are driven by market demand.
So BTX means a whole new raft of cases? Great for landfill operators!
If the computer industry had EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility, or sometimes called Product Stewardship), they might reconsider their headlong rush to create short lifespan products.
After all, it's not the 3GHz Pentium 4 that we want, but it's the computing power that it provides.