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Intel Upgrades Hardware

Balance Technology Extended (BTX) Explained 368

Posted by timothy from the clicky-clicky dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "The folks over at TweakTown have just posted an article which talks about Balance Technology Extended (BTX) - Intel's upcoming new form factor which will replace the aging ATX form factor standard we've grown used to. BTX is meant to offer better cooling and quiet computing through its smart design."
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Balance Technology Extended (BTX) Explained More

Balance Technology Extended (BTX) Explained

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  • Pronunciation? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:30PM (#8164911)
    "Buttocks"?

  • Yeah yeah yeah... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dotwaffle ( 610149 ) <slashdot@walst[ ]org ['er.' in gap]> on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:30PM (#8164920) Homepage
    Who bets this will be the new marketing feature to "power users"? Why don't we just stick with ATX? It's suited us fine for years, computers run too hot these days, maybe we ought to concentrate on stability and quality rather than quantity and TLA's...
    • ATX is ill suited for many things. I for one would like to see a form factor standard that included a memory riser card or two so that we can make use of these dang 64bit CPUs.

      • Re:Yeah yeah yeah... (Score:4, Informative)

        by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:08PM (#8165233) Homepage
        You have memory riser cards. They are called DIMMs, SIMMs, and RIMMs, you young whipper-snapper. You do not know the pain of plugging in, chip-by-chip, DRAM chips, in a specific and defined order.

        It's most likely the case that, unless you are talking about a NUMA system (which is really, at this stage of the game, only for high-end server systems where a standard architecture is not yet a good idea) electrical interference, impedence, power concerns, speed of light, etc. all work together to make you really only want a few memory sockets, say 4 tops. Otherwise, it just won't work without hurting performance in a major way.
    • " Who bets this will be the new marketing feature to "power users"? Why don't we just stick with ATX? It's suited us fine for years, computers run too hot these days, maybe we ought to concentrate on stability and quality rather than quantity and TLA's..."

      ATX sucks. There's no guaranteed airflow across the CPU, so you need to bolt a fan on the CPU heatsink.

    • Why don't we just stick with ATX?

      Because it's so very lowsy. I admit that BTX is actually a step down, but that's besides the point.

      It's suited us fine for years,

      No, it hasn't. What it has been is a major struggle, a major hassle, and a major problem for many years.

      MOST PC manufacturers do not come close to following ATX specifications. DEC and HP used 80MM fans in the top/front of their cases, and used plastic ducting to direct that over the CPUs. In the "hot" DEC Alpha systems of the time (about

  • Cooling is needed on video cards (Score:3, Interesting)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:31PM (#8164932)
    I have had many AMD processors overheat, but I have never had any intel do so.

    Graphics card on the other hand require some serious cooling adjustments. I don't imagine BTX will really solve the heart of the cooling problem... the video card.
    • So, you never owned a Pentium 60, did you... I could fry a barquedo on the case of mine.
      • You mean the Intel coffee warmer?
      • IIRC from my super-special "Intel Training" when these things came out, the P60 was rated to operate at temperatures as high as 75C. The wild thing was doing the temperature test -- the "approved method" was to load the DOS edit program, tap the alt key, and wait a while. It seems that the editor went into a very tight loop when the menu thingamagig was up.
    • I would think that rather than this new form factor reducing the (if any) overheating problems of intels current chips, they would be able to ramp up the clock speed of future chips because they can be sure of a cooler environment for these chips to run in.

      (E.G. New Pentium 3Gazillion Mhz*)

      * Only suitable for BTX mainboards.

    • Re:Cooling is needed on video cards (Score:5, Informative)

      by djohnsto ( 133220 ) <dan.e.johnstonNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:52PM (#8165118) Homepage
      It was my understanding (from articles about last year's IDF where this was intro'd) that the BTX design basically mandates a wind tunnel from the front of the case, over the CPU / chipset, out the back - with one "wall" of the tunnel typically being implemented by a video card. There was talk that both the CPU *and* the video card could revert to passive heatsinks, with large (slow rpm) fans driving the air through the tunnel. Regardless of the specifics, I'm positive that the BTX form factor will help video card cooling.
      • The BTX Specification will no doubt help with video card and north bridge cooling, allowing passive, very large heatsinks on both. The problem will lie in CPU cooling...

        The problem with BTX, and that ATX has no problem, is the CPU cooling. In ATX, the video card is the problem, in BTX, the problem lies with the CPU. They make the CPU the end of the tunnel, where all the hot air accumulates before it is exhausted out of the case. Most high end video cards already get hotter (temperature wise) than cpu's in

        • None of the OEM's (except white boxers) use standard case design anyway.

          Every name-brand computer I've been inside in the past couple years had an ATX-type layout (most were actually microATX, but same basic layout).

          You also seem to think the airflow is from back to front. I got the impression it was the other direction. Hence, the CPU isn't where the heat problems will be. It's the graphics card.

          On the whole, BTX strikes me as an excuse to design a new specification to deal with Prescott's outrag

      • Yes, but what about the new Audio cards!
        Those sucker need to be overclocked..and uhh, I don't really know where I'm going with this...

  • Quiet PC's are a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ePhil_One ( 634771 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:32PM (#8164938) Journal
    This sounds like a good initiative. I really hope it catches on and we can see even more mass market focus on quieter PC's. I've been thinking of buying pre-built systems just to get a quieter computer.

  • Blame the form factor... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by schwep ( 173358 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:32PM (#8164941)
    Heaven forbid Intel reduce the 100W portable heater to a lower wattage. Clearly only the case & motherboard are the only components not "smartly" designed.

    • Re:Blame the form factor... (Score:4, Funny)

      by exley ( 221867 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:40PM (#8165006) Homepage
      Why don't we blame physics instead for making it so hard to keep transistors and circuits made from them cool as speed & complexity increase.

      • Re:Blame the form factor... (Score:5, Funny)

        by addaon ( 41825 ) <addaon+slashdot@gma i l .com> on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:05PM (#8165213)
        Because Via, Apple, IBM, and others presumably use the same physics without problems?

        • Have ya opened a G5? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @11:35PM (#8166499)
          Take a gander at those heatsinks. I mean damn, they are just HUGE. There are just realities when dealing with silicon transistors. Intel may have the highest consumption, but the other high performers aren't far behind. You just needs lots of fast transistors to get fast processing, and those give off lots of heat.

          Now that's not to say you can't make lower performance, lower power CPUs. Intel does that as well. However people generally want FAST (regardless of if they need it or not), so there is a drive to continue to increase processor speeds. Intel, AMD, IBM, et al are driven by market demand.
      • why? in this case, they are not to blame...what to know how I know?

        I know because I use 2 different platforms...I use x86 AND PPC......the 970 is running at 24 Watts at 2 ghz now...that is a 50% reduction in power, and it is expected to be no more than 35 or so for 3 GHz in the summer.

        whose fault is it again?

        I think it is so cute when a single platform user thinks he knows stuff about technology :-)
      • Because it's not how much heat you've got, it's how intelligent you are at dispersing it.
    • I say Intel should take the Dothan design, add SSE3, and make a dual-core processor outta _that_. More processing power than Northwood or Prescott, and half the power consumption.
    • " Heaven forbid Intel reduce the 100W portable heater to a lower wattage."

      No, based on todays Prescott information and a little guesswork about power disipation increasing with clock speed, we can expect that to become about a 120-150 Watt heater sometime in '05. More power, smaller die? Perhaps they plan to radiate thermal energy out through those clear cases in the future...

      Have they forgotten the laptop market?

    • Heaven forbid Intel reduce the 100W portable heater to a lower wattage.

      Read some of the stuff in my sig, man. Intel has some "hot stuff" coming our way. *Lots* of solid-state storage. Although Intel hasn't gotten specific in their patents, Hitachi now has a good one [uspto.gov] that illustrates the magnatude of what is coming. A quote:

      To resolve the aforementioned problems with the present invention, the present invention has the object of providing a memory cell structure and forming method for that memory cel

  • Article text (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonas the Bold ( 701271 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:37PM (#8164979)
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  • More/better info (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bushcat ( 615449 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:37PM (#8164983)
    More info, greater bandwidth, fewer ads, etc at Form Factors [formfactors.org] and, of course, Intel [intel.com].

  • Just another (Score:3, Informative)

    by tarquin_fim_bim ( 649994 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:38PM (#8164989)
    half cocked attempt to keep the intel/MS upgrade spiral happening.
    Some informed information is avaialable here [anandtech.com].
    However this is also half cocked.

  • PDF link (Score:5, Informative)

    by leapis ( 89780 ) * on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:39PM (#8164995)
    You can download a copy of the BTX spec in PDF from this site [formfactors.org].

  • Too bad... (Score:5, Funny)

    by natrius ( 642724 ) <niran@[ ]an.org ['nir' in gap]> on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:41PM (#8165012) Homepage
    Too bad they don't have a BTX server.

  • Some Other Links (Score:5, Informative)

    by GoodNicsTken ( 688415 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:45PM (#8165050)
    Here are a few links:

    Try This [formfactors.org]

    Or This [technobabble.com.au]

    Or This [a1-electronics.net]

  • Links to similar data on other sites (Score:3, Informative)

    by -ParadoX- ( 158084 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:46PM (#8165056)

    Here's a few other links to similar data:

    http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1876 [anandtech.com]
    http://www.dvhardware.net/article.php?sid=1894 [dvhardware.net] Has PDF's of the Spec.
    http://www.intel.com/update/contents/dt10031.htm [intel.com]

  • Text from article (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:48PM (#8165073)
    Introduction

    The computer industry is constantly evolving and building upon technology with as much mind for the future as possible. However with such a constantly changing industry, standards which we rely on do not always anticipate the changes that occur in the future. That had been the case for the AT form factor and the issues with it were addressed by the creation of the ATX Form Factor all those years ago - the design specification which computer companies abide by when designing and manufacturing their products for the PC.

    Now, as ATX and its closest cousins begin to show its age from the advent of new technologies like Serial ATA and PCI Express, a new form factor is seen as a need by many companies and Intel has the answer - it's called Balanced Technology eXtended (BTX). BTX, in its basic principle design, is very similar to that of ATX, but there are a slew of changes that can and will be utilized to show that it has the potential to improve the system as a whole in terms of acoustics and heat dissipation.

    Intel has been kind enough to provide us with some technical information and pictures on BTX. Let's see what the future holds for us!

    The BTX specifications call for a new location for the system processor. The relative position, at a locale close to the top and front of the motherboard, allows for a new way of cooling not only the processor but the highest heat producing components of the system through the use of a "thermal module."

    The thermal module consists of a duct, seal, heatsink, fan, and clip. The duct encloses the heatsink area and forces the air inducted through the massive fan over the heatsink and processor directly to the upper back of the system in a tower case. After the airflow provides cooling for the processor, it continues through the system to the graphics subsystem, whether it is on a riser card or directly into a PCI Express slot, providing additional cooling to the video card. Supposedly, airflow then trickles throughout the rest of the system to the memory and the various other internal components.

    The thermal module of BTX represents how the LGA-775 Prescott will have to be cooled. BTX will more than likely be coming to the market at the same time as the LGA-775 Prescott processors with such a higher heat production. The first motherboards we will see with BTX will probably be high-end solutions that target the wealthiest enthusiasts and workstation systems then as usual we'll see more affordable systems come onto the scene shortly afterwards.

    BTX, unlike any prior standard form factor, was developed to support three different system sizes. With BTX, we have the standard BTX, microBTX, and picoBTX forms. At the IDF of Fall 2003, the reference systems Intel demonstrated were in the microBTX and standard BTX forms. With the microBTX form occupying only 12.9 Liters and regular BTX form system not much larger, Intel has been able to push acceptance of BTX with OEM manufacturers with some ease.

    PicoBTX, the smallest of the BTX forms, is the most interesting of the BTX form factors, in my opinion. Intel will be demonstrating 6.9 Liter systems based around picoBTX, smaller than any small form factor PCs on the market. The 6.9 Liter system will be approximately 3.1 Liters smaller than the smallest SFF PCs currently on the market today from such companies as Shuttle. This compact size will push the evolution of the compact PC and increase the acceptance of BTX, specifically by SFF PC builders and users interested in buying SFF PCs - You can already imagine the SFF leaders of the industry rubbing their hands together.

    An interesting thing about the different sizes of BTX is how Intel specifications reduce the need to shift system components significantly. With BTX locating most essential system components in the upper portion of the motherboard, there is a simple move of removing a few peripheral slots with each reduction in size, bringing the total peripheral slots to one with picoBTX.

    Since BTX reference desig

  • BTX factor and mounting holes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by failedlogic ( 627314 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:53PM (#8165124)
    The BTX standard is emphasizing getting rid of serial and parallel ports and "legacy" hardware.

    Given this, I'm wondering if I will still be able to use my full tower ATX case on the BTX boards. I know there are standard BTX cases as well as the smaller form factors. The holes on the "back pannel" previously reserved for the serial ports and PCI cards are sure to give a lot of problems mounting BTX boards if the locations of the ports changes.

    Using the standard BTX format (and not the mini-BTX), I have a few questions:
    Will I be able to use my case on an ATX board? Will the mounting holes be located in the same location. Will AGP be on the BTX boards (specs I remember seeing emphasize PCI xpress).

    It would be a total waste if I (and many others) would need to throw away a good case. I hope AGP will still be on the BTX boards. I want to upgrade within the next year and my ATI 9600 pro would go to waste as well.
    • From the anandtech article linked many times elsewhere: "Just in case you were told otherwise, the BTX form factor is largely incompatible with the ATX form factor..."

      It looks from some of the pictures like the location of the slots will be entirely reversed, with the MoBo mounted on the other side of the case (Don't know if these pictures have been flipped however).

      Luckily it looks like you'll still be able to use your existing PSU in most cases, unless you're trying to build a miniature sized system.
    • Getting rid of Serial ports? Damnit, Texas Instruments better get their ass together and release a Ti-86 compatible USB cable.
      Other then that, good riddence to the serial ports. The next step is replacing floppies with USB flash keys.
      • Well, they DO make serial-to-USB adaptors. Basically, it's a serial controller with port that plugs into a USB port.
      • Actually, I don't care if they get rid of the serial ports, it would be a great thing. In the process though, they will probably get rid of the parallel port. While it can be a pain, there are awesome printers out there that are parallel port only. The USB adapters are a fortune. The old HP series printers models 4 through 5, the toners last a long time, are fairly speedy and dirt cheap - and they last a long time. *This* is why I don't want the parallel port gone. I have two such printers.

    • Re:BTX factor and mounting holes (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @11:42PM (#8166526)
      Well AGP is theoritically obsleted by PCI Xpress. See we actually have kind of a shitty situation right now. WE have only one slot that will work with performance graphics cards. That means if you have 2 or more monitors and want them all to have a performance graphics card (maybe you do engineering work, or maybe you're just a power gamer) you're SOL. PCI Xpress should cure that, you ought to be able to get a board with enough high-speed slots to have plenty of graphics cards, or other high performance devices. Also AGP sucks at talking back to the CPU. No big deal in the past, you pushed stuff to the graphics card and didn't care. Now, however, graphics cards are becomming highly programmable. It is becomming desirable to have efficient 2-way communication with them, which PCI Xpress should allow.

  • Still using PS/2 style keyboard and mouse ports? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gannoc ( 210256 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:53PM (#8165127)
    Come on. Are there really people out there who are going to buy a brand new computer but still have a vital need for an old keyboard? Buy a freaking adapter and save some space.
  • Someone needs to look into database connection pooling [sourceforge.net].

  • Related articles, justification (Score:5, Informative)

    by arrianus ( 740942 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @07:55PM (#8165144)
    The new form factor is probably not strictly necessary, but is useful, given the move to much smaller connectors (PCI Express, USB, SATA, etc.). Serial connections are primarily institute because they use fewer pins, and so save money. The costs of packaging on modern chips, with hundreds of pins and BBGAs, is enormous. You can save more money if you engineer the form factor to go with it.

    PCI Express also allows low-profile cards, so with BTX, you can make much smaller machines if you go legacy-free (no PCI, AGP, MCA, VESA, EISA, or ISA slots). Generally, boards are much more integrated now, use solely SMT components, small connectors, and are cheaper, but the overall system also requires less room. Observe the number of PCI cards that consist of a 1" sliver of PCB, right up to the back of the computer, and then extend to full PCI height. That's expensive, and wastes space. The height of PCI comes from the days of ISA, with through-hole parts and 25 pin connectors going to printers. The only big cards I've seen in the past many years are custom boards and graphics cards. Graphics cards have a funky horizontal option in BTX.

    To relieve the slashdotted server, a similar review:
    http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1 876
    The actual spec:
    http://web.newsguy.com/nstrom/BTX_Spec_1_0. pdf
    Intel's info about it:
    http://www.intel.com/update/contents/dt10031. htm

  • The G5 case is the best today anyways (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Selecter ( 677480 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:05PM (#8165210)
    This is overdue X 10. The ATX case has quite a few problems -

    it's a tangled mess of power supply wires that reduce airflow and look like shit, the lack of a standardized layout of ports and such on the back means you have to make like 30 cut outs on each case to get it to work with every mobo on the market, and the process of adding even more ports in the mix like Firewire (1394) and such via cables and slot headers make the inside look even worse. Why the 733T wants to have windows on their cases is beyond me - now look at the inside of a freakin Dual G5 - THERE'Sa case to have a window for.

    The heat from the CPU(s) is exhausted INSIDE the case (!) leading to high temps and heat related failures.

    The Apple G5 case is the best designed case around IMHFO and the BTX is still behind it on a number of fronts. At least they are'nt going to exhaust the hot air from the CPU inside the freaking case any more. Jeeezzz. :/

    • the lack of a standardized layout of ports and such on the back means you have to make like 30 cut outs on each case to get it to work with every mobo on the market

      That's a design feature in the ATX spec. It fixes the problem that the old AT-style cases had where you were forced into using expansion slot headers or punch-outs in order to provide access for connectors other then the AT-keyboard cable. If you look at any ATX motherboard on the market today, you'll see that they come with a ~1.5"x4" meta
    • "The Apple G5 case is the best designed case around IMHFO and the BTX is still behind it on a number of fronts."

      It is far easier to design a case that works with a single power supply and a single motherboard than it is to design a case that works with a whole class of power supplies, motherboards, CPUs, and other technologies that haven't even been invented.

      ATX does a great job in many regards. Anyone can take any ATX compatible board and put it in an ATX compatible case. The power supply is standard, an
  • to cool their new Prescott blast furnaces [zdnet.co.uk]. An Intel D875PBZ w/Prescott 3.2GHz burns 69W more power at maximum load than an ASUS K8V Deluxe w/Athlon 64 3400+, and lacks the Cool 'n' Quiet power-saving modes of the AMD chip. The Prescott burns 61W more than its Northwood predecessor. Comparing an ASUS P4 board to an Athlon 3200+ the results are even worse! AMD's upcoming desktop Athlon 64 CG core will increase that gap [amd.com] (.pdf file, see page 9).

    Good grief, California should ban these things before they ove

  • ATX, BTX expansion (Score:5, Funny)

    by owlstead ( 636356 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:16PM (#8165292)
    That does not leave much space for upgrades, CTX has already been taken by a computer monitor company, see the CTX website [ctxintl.com].
  • This looks like another rambus to me.
  • Intel is pushing its agenda with BTX, seemingly with blatant disregard for everyone else. Unfortunately, the world will fall in line, because the world is populated by idiots.

    What I'd really like to see from Intel is a standard form factor for "blade" servers. Every manufacturer who does blades has its own chassis with its own proprietary form factor, and that's one reason blade systems aren't really selling too well -- they're not future-proof because you're at the whim of one manufacturer's potentially

  • Hardware review sites are useless (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Monday February 02, 2004 @08:58PM (#8165602) Homepage
    Every article is split across 10 pages.

    Every page has 10 ads.

    And there isn't even any original content; the articles are just rehashed press releases or IDF presentations. OK, occasionally they run some stock benchmarks on some stock hardware (all the sites have to use the same benchmarks; they wouldn't want to break away from the herd).

    The /. editors should do us a favor and just link to the Intel propaganda; at least Intel can keep their servers up.

  • BTX problems, why its not better than ATX... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mp3phish ( 747341 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:10PM (#8165679)
    There are some major problems with the BTX Specification. Some things are better than ATX, some are worse...

    1) BTX forces you to cool your video card, north bridge, memory, and CPU with the same fan/duct combo. the BTX specification allows ONE 80mm fan to drive the wind tunnel.

    This is a major design flaw. There is no possible way on earth that high end systems will be able to use the BTX form factor. Memory is getting hotter every year as clock ramps. North bridges too (not for athlon64, but other platforms it has) Video cards are already putting out more heat than even the hottest CPU's. You just can't push enough air with a single fan to cool all these components running under load unless you are using mid to low end hardware. It just won't happen.

    2) BTX doesn't leave room for anything larger than 80mm at the end of the fan duct. This is a MAJOR problem.

    This is actually a drawback from the ATX standard, where even the slimmest ATX cases have the physical room to house a 120mm fan in both the front intake, and rear exhaust. This means slower, lower powered fans pushing the same amount of air. This keeps your fans lasting longer, reduce maintenance needs, and reduce overall TCO. In the BTX specification, you are forced to use high speed 80mm fans to keep the system from overheating, even in a midrange setup. You simply cannot cool modern day video cards and northbridges, and memory banks and CPUs with just 1 80mm fan, no matter how efficient the ducting system is.

    Suggestions for improvement:

    1) Seperate the video card from the BTX wind tunnel. Put it at the bottom of the case, and make it part of its own tunnel. This would allow you to spin the fans dramatically slower and have overall cooler system.

    2) Resize the ducting so 120mm fans fit properly. There is nothing worse than an 80mm fan whining in your ear running at 5,000 RPM's when you could have a 120 or 92mm fan running half the speed.

    3) Do the same large fan combo for the video card tunnel.

    4) Integrate circuitry that monitors temperature of the exhaust air of these 2 compartments. Set reasonable thresholds for this temperature, and have the fans spin up to a higher speed when the temperature rises such that you know that particular compartment is under load. For instance, if you load up Doom3, the video card compartment exhaust will heat up, thus requiring more airflow and thust faster fan spinning. This is not currently available on any standard systems and so far the only consumer systems which ship with microchip controlled fans are apple computers (sadly). No, thermister fans do no good, as they are tuned such that they are always running full speed (even at lowest temperature) or always running low speed (even at highest temperature). you need something which allows the PC Builder to adjust the thresholds.

    4) Do away with all chipset mini fans and insted attach very large passive heatsinks. Be sure to make these heatsinks part of the wind tunnel of its repsective compartment.

    5)...

    6) Profit!

  • Balanced? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by D. Book ( 534411 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @09:11PM (#8165684)

    I think Intel's new form factor is more than a little imbalanced in that it's centred around the CPU. Just when we should be trying to strike a balance between performance and power consumption, Intel's design uses a "thermal module" that looks like it's custom made for a new generation of superhot CPUs like the >100W Prescott.

    This is not a good indication of where they're trying to take us. While there will always be performance freaks out there who will demand higher benchmark results even if it means central-heating-in-a-775-pin-socket, there has to be a more sensible middle ground for the rest of us, even if that means slowing down the pace a bit.

    AMD seems to have taken a slightly more sensible approach, with its Athlon 64 CPU peaking at less than 90W and implementation of a speed throttling technology they've branded "Cool 'n' Quiet". But it's still a pretty hot CPU at full speed.

    What we really need is better middle ground. For a desktop PC at the moment you can choose between very fast and very power hungry Pentium 4s and Athlons, or very cool but very slow VIA C3s or Edens. But there's not much in-between.

    Tests have shown that if you underclock/undervolt an Athlon XP, you can retain very good performance while drastically cutting power consumption (to P3 levels and below). Effectively, it's the opposite of overclocking. This setup is ideal for people who desire all the architectural benefits of the latest platforms, but don't quite require the CPU power. But despite this, it's still a very uncommon and unsupported approach.

    Instead of recruiting everyone in their race to the top and designing new form factors to cope with the power-hungry CPUs that result, why don't AMD and Intel offer us cheaper CPUs with more sensible power consumption for the mainstream, and give people a genuinely balanced choice? Why can't I buy a nice, cool-running Barton clocked at 1166MHz, or a 2GHz Northwood?

    On the other hand, things might get a bit choppy when Joe User tries to run Flight Simulator. So perhaps AMD does have the right approach after all with its Athlon 64: 2GHz when you need it, but a nice cool 800MHz when running web browsers and office programs.

    • <plug for="banias,dothan">I heard that PowerLeap is working on an adaptor for the Pentium M. Why not just use that? I mean, it's even less than Pentium III heat levels, and the IPC is similar to the A64.</plug> Also, while you can't get an 1166MHz Barton (I think the current Durons are Applebreds (AKA Thoroughbreds with half the cache)), you can get a 2GHz Northwood (even a full P4! The slowest P4 Northwood is the 1.8A, AFAIK.)
  • Anyone got a link to any solid-state hard drives big enough to run Windows XP without emptying my bank account? If the rest of the PC is all silent, it would be a shame to require a noisy hard drive.
  • Aging form factor?

    I fail to see how ATX is aging.. it might have some short commings, sure.. but hell, it seems like only yesterday ATX came out. (And i remember we were all whinging cuz we needed new cases, new powersupplies, everything, and couldn't upgrade from our old AT form factor).

    All that said, the ATX form factor was a nice improvement on the AT form factor though. No longer needed a 240v mains powercable to the powerswitch on the front, more standardised, and has that cool panel at the back for
  • Introduction

    The computer industry is constantly evolving and building upon technology with as much mind for the future as possible. However with such a constantly changing industry, standards which we rely on do not always anticipate the changes that occur in the future. That had been the case for the AT form factor and the issues with it were addressed by the creation of the ATX Form Factor all those years ago the design specification which computer companies abide by when designing and manufacturing the
  • this looks great for pizza box layouts, but i like towers. And i particularly hate verticly mounted drives in my towers, cause then i cannot use my 8cm cdrs without an adapter.

    I like the direction that Dell and Apple have gone in with their towers. Bottom mounted PSU mainly, to keep the center of gravity low.

    I want to see a good new tower spec, because it looks like BTX will not scale to tower configs.

  • this looks suprisingly similar to the design of my G5. Except for the separate temp zones, but they can't do that with a builkd-it-yourself form factor. Or could they? Anyone know? Maybe they'll call it CTX.

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