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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?
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.
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
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)
...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?
Maybe AMD should create a competing form factor, which has some improvements over BTX (someone already mentioned the connectors), and works for both AMD and Intel (and is explicitly marketed as such)?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
On purpose or not, it seems pretty short-sighted. What happens when Intel wants the advantages of an integrated memory controller?
Then again, they can just change the spec again and make more money off new boards and chipsets. Ahh, well.
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.
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.
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.