Why the opposition to btx?

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: hans007
i am building a btx machine. i mean i think its basically better in every way, just no one wants to spend the money to upgrade yet.

it is slowly gaining momentum though. coolermaster just released a minibtx case, inwin has some available, chenrbo has one out, and there is aopen and evercase, plus the coolermaster / thermaltake stacker. and antec is developing one which was shown at a show a while back.

its going to happen either way. i mean, why NOT have the better cooling quieter case. there is a gateway machine out there that with the btx air tunnel can passively cool a 6800ultra its reviewed on hardocp.

i mean really that is pretty nice. and even if amd doesnt NEED it, it would be nice to have it. i meen i probably only need a toyota but if you give me a lexus thats better.

ALL of this is just one huge justification for what you've decided is good for you, which technically means absolutely nothing. I frankly don't care why you've set on BTX, just like you shouldn't care why I won't be stampeded into replacing a perfectly good ATX solution just because Intel wants to flex muscles it doesn't have anymore.

Again, let the market decide, and without turning your nose up at ATX people for being backwards-leaning heathens and impediments to your bright, new BTX ?revolution.?

 

[Cerb]

1. Intel rushed it a bit, due to Prescott. The P4 was reaching 150w, and at the time, they were figuring revisions of the Prescott would get them into 5GHz or so.
2. Intel, as usual, didn't work with too many other companies, and instead did their, "this is how us and one or two [exaggeration, but still...] partners like it. Build some cases with it."
3. We don't need it. This is not to say a BTX-like design (front-to-back air flow with multiple air channels) wasn't going to be the future, but the Athlon64 and Pentium M have shown us very well that performance can continue to increase at reasonable power levels.
4. Hard drives get screwed. A decent case will fix it, but there's not a good reason not to give them decent cooling as part of the spec, because you know cheap cases will skimp.
5. Video cards get semi-screwed (do you want your dual high-end video card getting your CPU's hot air?).
6. As #1/2, they should have worked with others, and figured out a really good design. Turning the mobo around is nice, but some of the rest is basically just tweaking ATX.

Imagine if the folks with performance in mind who designed the P180 (including, of course, Mike Chin) could make their own physical standard, limited mostly by expansion slot and and drive sizes. BTX leaves a fair bit of leeway, but seems more like a way to get SFFs and big vendor workstations to be compliant with some standard than to actually make a meaningful change.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

well designed ATX boxes have equal or better cooling than BTX, the user base is there for ATX already, and there are no re-tooling costs for products already in production that sell well already.

I personally view BTX as another attempt by Intel to bully the market around to thier liking (and I think it's more than coincidence that it was developed very shortly after the amd64 was released)

 

[Cerb]

I mostly agree (though it was actually in development much earlier--it's more likely that they thought they'd need it for Tejas, that they then canceled, IMO). A new design for smaller motherboards, more standardized connectors*, and separating video card, PSU, and CPU cooling, would be nice, but BTX does it very oddly. My opinion on it being mostly for SFFs and workstations is that if you look at some of the almost DVD-player sized cases they were showing off, it is a very elegant design. However, it is almost as cludgy as ATX in larger versions.

* A major problem with ATX now is connectors and cables. If the PSU were placed on the bottom (so as not to be the default case exhaust), and power connectors for the motherboard also placed on the bottom (the roatated mobo design is good for this), that would remove the need for long main power cables, and allow unused cables to rest in a zone of neutral air flow, thus getting rid of a large part of the cable clutter. Then, make a required minimum length (30" would be start, assuming a case about the size of a ATX mid-tower) for 2 of the smaller power cables, and you could route them on the side of drive bays with ease. That would take out the vast majority of cable-clutter, and still not hinder creative designs (designer cases could come with main power extensions for their typical costs!). Or, better yet, have all small cables, and require cases to include extensions.

I've gotten a 5900XT passively cooled in a Enlight 7237. Because of only having IDE cables in a handy spot, I had to spend hours of cable-gami and zip tie use to get it to work. If the connectors were managed nicer, or the overall design made so they would be more out of the way, it would have been much easier, and would end up making work on various PCs in general easier, as there wouldn't be cables all in the way most of the time.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: HardWarrior

Originally posted by: hans007
i am building a btx machine. i mean i think its basically better in every way, just no one wants to spend the money to upgrade yet.

it is slowly gaining momentum though. coolermaster just released a minibtx case, inwin has some available, chenrbo has one out, and there is aopen and evercase, plus the coolermaster / thermaltake stacker. and antec is developing one which was shown at a show a while back.

its going to happen either way. i mean, why NOT have the better cooling quieter case. there is a gateway machine out there that with the btx air tunnel can passively cool a 6800ultra its reviewed on hardocp.

i mean really that is pretty nice. and even if amd doesnt NEED it, it would be nice to have it. i meen i probably only need a toyota but if you give me a lexus thats better.

ALL of this is just one huge justification for what you've decided is good for you, which technically means absolutely nothing. I frankly don't care why you've set on BTX, just like you shouldn't care why I won't be stampeded into replacing a perfectly good ATX solution just because Intel wants to flex muscles it doesn't have anymore.

Again, let the market decide, and without turning your nose up at ATX people for being backwards-leaning heathens and impediments to your bright, new BTX ?revolution.?

well i did buy the btx stuff because i do think it is better. i do also have a lot of atx based computers. no one is making your replace anything its just a debate as to whether it is better or not. i have taken the apparently unpopular it is actually better point of view.