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Is BTX form for MB dead? When should we expect?

M

MplsBob

Senior member
I have been vaguely aware of the BTX form factor for quite some time. Has it been all talk and no show? Did it slowly pass into oblivion or is it actually going to exist? If so, when should it appear? Will there be AMD-based MBs that have it?

Thanks much for your replies, they are appreciated.


Bob in Minneapolis



There is a slight possibility of snow in our forecast. Honest.

What a true joy it is to live in a wonderous winter fairyland.

NOT.

 
There is no reason for it not to come into mainstream. It is designed far better then atx. It supports atx psu, has the cpu and ram and video card slots relocated to allow for airflow.

It is just like pcie. I knew about pcie back in 2001, and it took till now to just barely get it started.
 
The problem with AMD and BTX is that the CPU is too far from the RAM for the A64's on-chip memory controller. Until that's resolved there won't be any AMD BTX MBs.
 
Yep it reminds me of the slow but sure switch from AT to ATX boards. There for a while you could still use an ATX power supply with your AT boards because all AT boards came with both types of power supply connections. However ATX boards didn't have that same option. I would guess that BTX is probably 2 years away from full usage in all new computers that get built. We will probably start seeing some BTX boards around christmas time 2005 or maybe not till early 2006.
 
The good thing with btx is, they make btx compatible cases now, and a btx mainboard will use the exact same atx psu. So not much will be needed to change.
 
I just read the review and one thing troubles me. From the looks of it the hot air is exhausted from the front. Now the case reviewed is a desktop case which would most likely sit below the monitor not on the floor, so is all this hot air going to be blowing in your face while you are using the computer? I know at work most systems are desktop and sit right in front of you, and if I were to be getting that air blown on me all day it would really not be comfortable. I wonder if Intel considered this at all or assumed everyone would put the case on the floor or something? hmmmm. Anyone else think of this when reading the review?
 
Actually, I think it works the opposite way, cool air in through the front across the CPU, hot air out the back.

Even if it doesn't take off in the mainstream PC arena, BTX looks like it has potential in the HTPC market. It takes care of a lot of the thermal issues with existing desktop-style cases that make it hard to squeeze in the kind of high performance gear you want for a HTPC and still have it be reasonably quiet. Since the P4s are nice processors for the kinds of video encoding work you will do if you are using the machine as a PVR but are hampered somewhat by their high heat output, BTX could help Intel out a lot in that market.
 
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