BTX form factor and AMD - I thought there was a physical limitation with the memory controller

[eBauer]

Back when BTX was first announced, I remember that everyone said it would be hard to implement due to the Athlon 64's one die memory controller.

Fast forward to today, and Dell's entire AMD lineup (IIRC) uses the BTX form factor.

How was this problem solved?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: eBauer
Back when BTX was first announced, I remember that everyone said it would be hard to implement due to the Athlon 64's one die memory controller.

Fast forward to today, and Dell's entire AMD lineup (IIRC) uses the BTX form factor.

How was this problem solved?

...apparently it wasn't as much of an issue as some uninformed hardware site hacks tried to lead people to believe?

Probably it works fine at stock DDR2 speeds, but it may impact your OCing slightly if the distance between the RAM and CPU is higher. Either that or they found a way to get the RAM closer.

 

[Peter]

Well, the suggested component placement of the BTX layout kind of implies that the memory connects to the northbridge, not the CPU ... but that doesn't mean you can't find a useful placement for when the RAM connects to the CPU.

 

[aka1nas]

My understanding was that it would mostly be an issue with latency if the memory was positioned so far away from the memory controller. Probably not an issue with Dell machines as they don't typically have very demanding memory configurations. If anything, they usually try to stick you with the lowest speed grade for the given memory technology.