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AMD Aims At New Standard for Motherboards
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 12, 2007 03:43 PM
from the little-quite-different dept.
from the little-quite-different dept.
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."
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Might be just me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Might be just me (Score:5, Informative)
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photos to the rescue: (Score:5, Informative)
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hmm BTX style? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:hmm BTX style? (Score:5, Informative)
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).
Parent
Re:hmm BTX style? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:hmm BTX style?: Shuttle mini market (Score:2)
The poster who pointed out that the "Smashing of air over the processor" not being feasible hit it on the head. The Shuttles (and some other SFF makers) generally try to make a heatsink fan that pushes air out of the case.
There is an article on this at: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36833 [theinquirer.net] with a pic of
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so, which of these advantages does it have? (Score:5, Insightful)
(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?
Re:so, which of these advantages does it have? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The DTX standard will be designed to embrace energy-efficient processors from AMD or other hardware vendors, and allow an optimally designed small form factor system to consume less power and generate less noise," the company said in a release Thursday."
How AMD intends to implement this is beyond me. It seems that is more of a case layout and CPU issue than motherboard
Parent
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I have found that one of the big cons of desktops is noise and heat. My laptop can do 99% of what my desktop can do, but somehow does it using a lot less power (and I consider myself a gamer, plus I use Matlab quite a bit for CPU and memory intensive applications). I support AMD in what they are doing, even though I think it is mostly a strategic move.
Checkout Norhtec for fanless... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:so, which of these advantages does it have? (Score:5, Insightful)
miniITX has a similar goal in theory and it has the advantage of being nearly 100% backward compatible with ATX, but fails at making a good small factor PC as it does not specify an airflow across the MB. It is also severely limited in its expansion capabilities as it supports only 32bit PCI. Every single ITX MB out there has slightly different positioning of thermally active components and different airflow requirements. Why Via did not make the airflow and the thermals a part of the standard is beyond me as it often defeats all the advantages of having a quiet motherboard and multiple bad case designs give Via's otherwise excellent Eden based MBs an undeserved bad name. Classic example are older Cubid cases where the CPU and the disk overheat while the case emits hovercraft like noise because it has 3 fans to blow air from nowhere to nowhere. There was an even more horrible one which used a 1U rackmount PS with 40+db noise (forgot the manufacturer). And all this to power a 7W fanless CPU system...
So now AMD has joined the fray. By the way, it is still mostly vapourware as there is nothing on their website. Personally, I would like to see a spec, especially the thermal,ps,expansion and airflow part of it. Without this it is not possible to compare it to the existing competition. AMD has plenty of experience aquired via Geode as well as a clear picture of the failures in the miniITX, nanoITX and BTX specs so it should be able to make a better one if it wants to. I somehow doubt it. It is more likely going to end up as another marketing initiative like Live!
Parent
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Your case is designed the way it is largely because of the motheboard spec. They all tie together. More importantly, without an appropriate motherboard standard you can't build a case with optimal layout and put anything but a custom-designed mobo inside.
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Sounds like a scaled down version of mATX. mATX boards are big enough for 4+ expansion slots.. this makes it a bit smaller by getting rid of some traditional slots and adding an XpressCard slot.
Re:so, which of these advantages does it have? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
well then (Score:2, Insightful)
If that's the goal, then with ISA, PCI, AGP, PCI-X, IDE33/66/100/133/SATA and a few hundred flavors of SIMMS and DIMMS, I can see this becoming a very large board indeed.
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That does not mean everything under the sun. That means as possible.
Is english your first language? Not mine.
6 posts and still no soviet russia line (Score:5, Funny)
Re:6 posts and still no soviet russia line (Score:5, Funny)
Happy now?
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Re:6 posts and still no soviet russia line (Score:5, Funny)
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Reversals (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Bleh (Score:2, Insightful)
Now - if they would come up with modular notebook design, mmmm.... Standardize on some internal configs (12", 15", 17") and sell cases with different design that I would be able to stuff with motheboard, RAM, HDD, optical drive, etc. Like curre
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In the business world you are completely wrong. Expensive, easily breakable (spill coffee over keyboard - oh fuck - that's $1000 wasted - spill coffee over desktop keyboard - oh dear, that $10 wasted), not value for money, poor screen size, easily steala
Re:Bleh (Score:4, Informative)
Even within the confines retail market, unit sales still favour desktop systems; notebooks have only outstripped desktops in terms of dollars spend due to the unit price being approximately $400 higher.
Parent
"standardized spots" (Score:2)
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You still can't tell which way is up with USB. Half the time, I end up trying to jam USB plugs in the wrong way. At least the sockets appear to be mechanically robust.
Re:"standardized spots" (Score:5, Interesting)
DIN Connectors [wikipedia.org] 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.
Parent
They might fare better than Intel's dead BTX.... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:They might fare better than Intel's dead BTX... (Score:2)
How about the vertical (Score:4, Interesting)
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What would be even nicer, though, is an open laptop specification. I want to be able to get a laptop shell and fill it with off-the-shelf components, or put a laptop motherboard / power supply in a micro-sized desktop case.
Something they forgot to mention... (Score:2)
Personally, I would rather have seen something more substantially different from MicroATX, but I still think that there is a good chance of this catching on.
Put the CPU on the backside! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Put the CPU on the backside! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
I'd rather have a laptop standard board (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Battery types change, CPUs change, graphics change, add-in cards change and so on. There are differing ranges of CPUs, some consume 5 watts and others take 30 watts, the cooling system needs
A guess: Ati? (Score:4, Informative)
VGA? Not dual DVI (Score:3, Informative)
How about including single voltage power? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about including in this design the single voltage [google.com] power supply design that Google wants? You can read the original Slashdot discussion here [slashdot.org].
Poorly chosen press photos (Score:3, Interesting)
While those in the know realise that this is just demonstrating that you can make four motherboards from one standard circuit board panel, your average guy is going to say "holy crap, that's HUGE!".
That said, you can have a bit of caption fun with it, e.g.: "AMD announces eight-core DTX motherboard."
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There is more to this than using your new sparkly USB keyboard via Windows.
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Wrong Answer.
<URL:http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=btx+amd&
0 results for BTX mobos for AMD
Regardless of the benefits, Intel has decided to cancel BTX development as of Sep 06.
Stuffing ATX boards in BTX cases might happen though