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Intel's BTX Form Factor Launched Today
Hack Jandy writes "It's been almost three years in the making, but Intel's BTX form factor finally has some retail products to show for itself. Anandtech has some extremely thorough benchmarks of the new technology and proves that BTX definitely shows an improvement over ATX for the same sized chassis. Anand claims BTX as a design win, "It's obvious why Intel waited for Monday morning to lift their BTX platform - they have a winner on their hands.""
So far, it looks interesting. But I'm curious, it it's inteded competition the AMD64 platform boards, or will AMD have it's own version of BTX in the (near) future?
However time may prove me wrong on this (hell, I backed Beta vs VHS).
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
What I'm curious to know is if these guys FINALLY got rid of those god-awful nests of wires that you have to plug into the mobo for power, HDD LED, etc.
God, I hate those things. You either have to spend 15 min. reading the Engrish on the mobo manual to try and figure out which is which, or just cross your fingers and hope for the best.
A molex-type connector (or something along those lines) would make my life a lot easier.
Anyone know?
I really like the size of this thing.
I can already see it...the lunchbox laptop!
Gateway's 7200 line uses BTX.
I've looked at it semi-seriously and most of it seems to be only tweaks on ATX while being intentionally incompatibile. Most of those tweaks can and have been done already, and IMO, BTX is mostly unnecessary.
I personally was slow to accept ATX simply because I had a legacy case and didn't want to upgrade for the sake of an upgrade. Now I have a small number of ATX based computers and I don't see the point of scrapping the entire system, possibly save for the drives, just to go to BTX. I bet most BTX boards will be pretty exclusive to PCIe or only provide a minimum of legacy PCI slots. With existing ATX boards and cases, I can at least keep more of my PCI cards becase most of them don't have PCIe equivalents and they still work.
Judging by this image I'd say no. Looks like the same assortment of little twistyfellas.
there have been few pictures of standard btx boards, if you compare the micro-BTX boards that have been shown to micro-atx the slots are the same (2 memory maybe 2-3 expansion slots) i've actually been able to see a gigabyte BTX system in action with a standard btx board in it, it actually had 4 memory slots, and a PCI-X 16 and 4 PCI-X slots, as well as 2 traditional pci slots. for a grand total of 7 slots... at least iirc... its been a few months. I was worried about it too, until I talked to the gigabyte rep about btx.
The problem seems to be the relative CPU and DIMM placement; the standard requires placement of DIMM sockets too far from the processor. With the Athlon 64's integrated memory controller, following the BTX spec becomes very difficult. Of course, BTX is Intel's spec, but it is also a proposed industry standard.
Anybody else think Intel did this on purpose?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Seems like the story is confusing the benchmarks on the 3.8G P4 570J that are linked at the beginning of the BTX review with the BTX review itself.
The BTX is just a PC form factor - it may help your PC run a bit cooler, but it won't make it any faster.
Grabbed from Koan Computers: BTX - What is it BTX is the new computer case form factor that is replacing the aging ATX form factor. Some highlights of BTX are: BTX stands for Balanced Technology eXtended. BTX is being developed by Intel but will be supported across all platforms. BTX will initially have 3 sizes - BTX, microBTX and picoBTX. BTX is designed from the ground up with noise reduction in mind. PS2 connectors, Serial Ports, and Parallel Ports - all replaced by USB. PCI Express slots instead of AGP, PCI, or ISA. 20pin power supply will remain compatible with ATX, with the addition of 3.3v connectors for Serial ATA.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
Honestly, though: WTF? That can't be a hard fix. In fact, I'd bet it's downright simple.
I imagine they say it would increase case costs, but really, the increase would be marginal.
I'm seriously getting tired of these guys making new stuff with features 75% of us don't use or care about, and not making simple usability fixes instead.
It seems that you can almost get something similar for AMD platforms, and existing Intel ones as well. Some new cases flip the mobo upside down in the case and put it at the top, while moving the power supply to the bottom. Obviously not quite as good as a whole re-design like BTX but it seems to help quite a bit.
see: Lian Li PC-V1000 (I think Anand may have a review too)
Not only that, but this would have been the best time to introduce a change like that... a whole new formfactor means all new chassis design, just like it means all new motherboard design. There would be no compatibility headaches as long as it was part of the spec.
We'll probably have to wait for CTX now to fix it, if at all. And then, they'd get sued by the folks who've been calling themselves CTX for years and making monitors and OEM systems.
...with your new nickname that the industry will forever recognize...
ButToX
BTX doesn't look like it allows for multi-processor boards. Is intel pusing towards a world where SMP is via multi-core CPUs only?
We'll probably have to wait for CTX now to fix it, if at all.
Actually, nope. BTX seems to fix this, the article said this:
We also notice that the front panel connections (power/reset buttons, power/HDD activity lights) are also grouped into a single plug to make things easier.
PCI-X is not the same as PCI-Express (PCIe). I'm pretty sure you mean PCIe.
Dan
let me get this straight....
intel has introduced a new form factor standard
a) that amd can't follow because their memory controller is integrated into the cpu and the btx standard specifies that the memory must be too far away from the cpu, and in an orientation that would make equal length traces almost impossible
b) whose sole purpose is to provide additional cooling capacity to a processor that ran way hotter than anyone expected, and that intel has now announced will be phased out in favor of the p3 descended pentium-m
and somehow this is a winner? btx will die off with the prescott's. i give it 2 years max.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
RTFA says yes, they did. The mishmash of led, powerswitch etc cables has been combined into a single plug.
This is not a sig.
Personally, I like the idea of BoToX... swollen and paralyzed with an injection of Intel's poison.
This is not a sig.
You know, ATX systems could be designed well, and cooled appropirately... But absolutely nobody is doing so. Actually I think HP might be, but I don't know if their own workstations completely qualify as ATX.
Anyhow, the locations for air intake and output are pretty close to standard, but manufacturers aren't taking advantage of it. CPUs and memory aren't put on a motherboard so they will be in-line with the air intake, and being cooled by the rear exhaust fans, or power supply fan. Instead, it's a hack-fest, with a bunch of fans inside the case, blowing hot air in circles, and hoping the case fans are 10xs more massive then they should need to be, to replenish the whole case with cool air every few seconds.
You can take certain steps on your own, like ducting air from the intake, directly to your CPU, which will cool things down IMMENSELY, but will not help with your RAM, Videocard, etc., which need proper cooling as well.
If you look at old DEC systems, you'll see they already had the cooling thing down to an art. 3 thermal zones, with very slow, quiet, thermo-controlled 80mm fans. They weren't ATX systems, however, and nobody adapted those ideas to PCs.
So, while ATX can be pretty effecient, it isn't happening. If it takes a whole new form-factor to force manufacturers to get it done correctly, then I'm certainly willing to switch. BTX isn't ideal, but it's a big step up.
And you can't say it's only Intel's problem. All processors put off a lot of heat, and with ATX you have to have several very loud fans just to fight against the heat. A better design means cooler, and quieter, whatever processor you use. Sure, maybe Intel will have to ignore the BTX specs on motherboard design where it will hurt them, but that's nothing new. ATX specified that power supply fans should blow air in, not out, but most everyone just ignored that, too.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
From the company that brought us the CPU's that could double as toaster ovens, we now have the BTX. Let's see what improvements (ahem!) we can look forward to:
- More heat: Rather than make the CPU run cooler, we'll redesign the motherboard to accommodate. Oh, and the design will *coincidentally* thwart faster processors by making the trace lengths unequal.
- Fewer options: Windows is the dominate OS, so there's no need for more than one or two PCI cards. Who cares if the onboard peripherals don't support Linux - it's not like buyers would add a PCI card or two to improve performance or achieve interoperability...
This board is a non-starter. The PC overtook the Mac because of the fact that it was more customizable (even if it was technically inferior). If people wanted a big company to restrict which hardware they run, they'd buy an Apple.The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Real innovation would be to put the processor on the backside of the mainboard so that the case can be used as a huge heatsink. The graphics card should plug in horizontally, so that it can also use the case for cooling. I'm tired of those noisy power sucking machines. J/
idle and full load system power
A system with Athlon64 3500+ uses 85 watts at idle, others take more power at idle.
Damnit there goes my $15 labor fee! Hopefully the USB and firewire are all still seperate little pins or I may be out of a job. ;)
The inside of the BTX case looks very similar to the workstation designs, especially those of SGI. I remember that the Indy workstation didn't have a single fan and was virtually noiseless due to correctly designed air ducts.
PCI Express which is somewhat like SGI's crossbar (PCI Express uses switch instead of bus), AMD's on-CPU memory controllers with NUMA, SATA almost like SCSI, etc. made PC's more and more like workstations. I think that correct thermal design is the last and final thing and BTX is a big step in this direction.
You can defy gravity... for a short time
It's called an iMac. Maybe you've heard of them.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Am I the only one who thinks it's a bad idea to blow warm air into the user's face?
For a tower model, this would of course not be an issue, but for a desktop model like the one presented in the article. the airflow out of the case might be such that it goes straight into the user's face.
...than to judge by pictures. The article says there is a single standard connector on the motherboard to replace the myriad of fiddly little jumper-like 2-pin connectors. BTX case makers must terminate the "assortment of little twistyfellas" to this single, standard connector. This means you no longer must decipher the secret code screen-printed onto the board or refer to the "happy-excellent Engrish manual" to figure out where the plugs go and what the proper polarity is to make the LEDs emit light.
The "twistyfellas" won't likely disappear any time soon because case designers may want to place the LEDs in different areas of the case, but at least they all find their way to a single connector now.
Intel changes sockets, Mobo and other specs periodically to force people to update to their latest crap. Don't expect a rush to BTX. It's another Intel spec unlikely to ever gain foothold...
For those who don't already know you can do wonders for ATX case cooling with "managed airflow". By actually directing incoming cool air to the heat sources and isolating the CPU fan from warm air in the case, no one really needs a BTX case and your PC will run much cooler with managed airflow.
While Intel definitely needs a tornado inside a box to cool their defective 90 nm CPUs, the BTX standard is just another Intel marketing scam for all practical purposes.
Just say NO!