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AMD Aims At New Standard for Motherboards
alexwcovington writes "CBC reports that AMD is launching DTX, a new motherboard layout about the size of micro-ATX. Their goal is to provide a small, energy efficient board that's compatible with as much hardware as possible. In the DTX, they're hoping to produce a new standard for desktops, and somewhat reverse the decline in consumer interest. From the article: 'Most desktops still have motherboards that operate using a standard laid out in 1995 by Intel called ATX, which stands for Advanced Technology Extended. ATX was designed to allow everything from memory cards to mouse ports to have a standardized spot alongside the central processing unit on a typical desktop motherboard. While there have been other standards since, ATX remains the most common standard for desktops, though its design is not suited for smaller, more energy-efficient desktops, AMD said.' Ars Technica has further details on the board."
But this topic is worthless without pics.
I couldn't find any of these... But I could be missing something
(1) Does it provide something that is not encompassed by one of MicroATX, MiniITX or ATX
(2) Does combine advantages of any of the above listed form factors?
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Am very disappointed. There is no "in soviet russia the motherboard .... you" post.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"and somewhat reverse the decline in consumer interest"
Let's hope for the sake of AMD, their level of excitement is greater than the submitter's. The new boards will have to deliver something effective if they are going to be of any use. Scale down component infrastructure, increase speed and decrease power requirements. Intel could stand to do the same, but still...
HP launched small form factor PCs called Slimlines, and I had a few customers buy them from me -- so far no complaints, but it will be nice to see these models reduced further and then pushed for speed as well, in the future.
AMD seem to really have their eye on the ball, IMHO.
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Cases are part of the problem. Intel realized this and that's part of what BTX is about, and I have to say the design really makes sense. Move air in a reasonable fashion through the case for more effective cooling. Current CPU cooling is totally asinine in the way you smash air directly against the heatsink to spill the hot air out in random directions throughout the case. It wasn't a problem back in the 486 days when you consider the microscopic fan size, but now it's truly beyond help.
I'm not sure who this thing is really targeted at. BTX at least was focused on replacing ATX as a better alternative. AMD admits that it wants to drive up desktop sales because laptops are now dominating computer purchasing more. They then cite that desktops are more upgradeable than laptops. Then it says the DTX will have ONE pcie slot. What is DTX trying to accomplish? A platform trying to capture the Mac Mini market I'm guessing (however big that is).
With AMD now announcing this new form factor. They can take a look at what made the BTX standard fail. I just hope AMD doesn't do what Intel did that limited the BTX standard and that is to not shut out Intel from the DTX standard. The BTX was strictly for Intel CPUs since the 775 socket. The BTX was lay out was to simply have the CPU near the front of the desktop where the cool air enters the computer. THis was possible since the 775 CPUs still utilizes a northbridge to communicate with the memory. AMD couldn't apply itself to the BTX since its memory controller is on the CPU. DTX should allow Intel to be able to apply itself towards the standard if they want to see third party board makers and chipset makers create products for the DTX. If AMD achieves that, then the DTX has a chance taking over ATX.
The ATX is just way out of date but soo common and cheap that manufacturers continue to utilize it.
It is about time a big company like AMD, and soon Intel (they haven't officially announced any plans to start focusing on more efficient products), start focusing more on energy efficiency right next to better processing power.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
I cant for my life understand why all the computer manufacturers insist on having the CPU inside the box. Its the worst possible place to cool it. Not only is it hot in the box, its also very hard to get a good airflow going. By placing the CPU on the backside of the motherboard and let it protrude out from the case it would be very feasable to use passive cooling. One 10x20 cm cooling plate with fins is more than enough to cool away 120w if there is a free flow of air.
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dailytech.com and thetechlounge.com have some great photos:.
I don't see much point in yet another desktop standard. We've laready got a number of good standards there. ATX, MicroATX, BTX, Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX, etc...
What I'd really love to see is a motherboard standard for the laptop. Let me choose the motherboard, the CPU, and other features on it, and let me choose the shell, and let me choose the screen to put into the shell with this chosen motherboard. Why is thre no LTX?
That'd be wicked cool.
AMD and ATI merged recently. ATI is pushing CrossFire, two cards together. Most non-full-ATX boards can handle this. Will the DTX? They want to share technology, and this would be the perfect (though risky) opportunity. Though, of course, it would not be exclusive. I have heard some crazy stories of how to cool down dual-ATI uber-cards, so maybe the "low power" aspect can help this, too. Just speculation, though.
Cases are part of the problem. Intel realized this and that's part of what BTX is about, and I have to say the design really makes sense.
While the design of BTX did make more sense in particular for cooling, for Intel it wasn't just a "better ATX", it was a way to make the increasing power demands of the Pentium 4 acceptable as it was becoming near impossible to sufficiently cool them. Now that Intel has dropped Netburst, the need for BTX isn't there. Not that there's anything wrong with a better ATX, but the industry doesn't want to switch from something that works.
Then it says the DTX will have ONE pcie slot. What is DTX trying to accomplish? A platform trying to capture the Mac Mini market I'm guessing (however big that is).
They're trying to create a larger small form-factor market. Like all those cool Shuttle small form factor cases that cost more than normal sized ones. The idea behind DTX is to provide a standard that can lead to mass-produced, cheap, commodity cases and motherboards just like we enjoy with ATX, and with the minimal amount of retooling of existing manufacturing. There is certainly a demand for smaller, cooler, quieter computers which don't need a lot of expandability (and other than a video card, with networking and sound built in, what do most people need at minimum?), and AMD wants to bring commodity economics into that market (so they can sell more chips to it).
That's the point. Whether it will work, I don't know. The technical details aren't even out yet I don't think, and it remains to be seen if the industry accepts it.
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DIN Connectors go back decades as a standard connector for audio equipment. This standard connector style showed up in the early computer world in the form of serial interfaces known as "SIO ports". For some reason (probably the wide availability of parts), IBM decided to use the DIN connector for their detachable keyboards.
When IBM redesigned the computer as the PS/2, they moved to the smaller DIN standard known as "mini-DIN" rather than devising a new connector. In addition, they added a dedicated mouse port to the PC, which helped solidify the mouse as a standard PC interface. Since the keyboard and mouse were both input devices, IBM felt it made sense to unify them into a single connector. Thus the keyboard connector was transferred to the mouse.
This is how we got the PS/2 mouse and keyboard interface we all know today. Unfortuantely, IBM hadn't considered that anyone would want to hotplug their mouse or keyboard like they had been doing with serial cables. As a result, the PS/2 standard was woefully inappropriate for the original task. Thus the USB standard was developed to provide a single, unified, hot-pluggable connector for all manner of serial device. (Including mice and keyboards.) The result is actually quite good, even though USB is a pain for hardware designers to implement.
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See the $120 (1 off) tiny PC at http://www.norhtec.com/products/mcjr/index.html and make the CPU a VIA Eden 1.2GHz, the GPU/subsystem a VIA CX700M with MPEG2/4 hardware decode, USB2... and you have a desktop replacement that is fanless because it draws under 20W total with HDD.
It's called Microclient Sr., and announced at CES this week.
If you want onboard DVD/CD player/burner, there are other versions that are bigger to accommodate a slimline DVD.
I have a Microclient Jr., and it is acceptable with XP and zippy with Win98 - not bad for 200MHz and 8W!
Give it a couple of years, and desktop cases will be just for the gamers and people needing a lot of cards of storage.