anyone know when/if BTX takes over?

[Cartoon Corpse]

i had read it's the layout that allows > 4Gz chips (better cooling)

is this something worth waiting for (over a year so far)

i see gateway is selling some BTX cases.

anyone else 'hot' for this?

 

[Mariner]

But Intel are now moving away from such high-speed chips, so is BTX necessary for them any longer? Perhaps the micro- and picoBTX formats might be of some use but I'm not to sure about the full-size BTX in the short term.

I can't see ATX being superseded by BTX any time soon.

 

[Guden Oden]

BTX isn't about cooling hot-running P4s, that's just a bullshit AMD fanperson internet theory that somehow has perpetuated itself for the last couple years - in part I suppose because Intel's specs didn't cater for AMD's integrated memory controller where memory placement is concerned, and these people probably felt discriminated against and their fan-behavior triggered them to start screaming and flinging poo like simians at the BTX concept.

BTX is overall smarter and better than ATX. I should know, I own systems of both types.

 

[arjan de lumens]

Intel recently demoed a PentiumM-based thing with CPU and memory controller placed in the same package - which would have the exact same problems with BTX and memory module placements as those AMD chips ...

 

[Moloch]

BTX isn't about cooling hot-running P4s, that's just a bullshit AMD fanperson internet theory that somehow has perpetuated itself for the last couple years - in part I suppose because Intel's specs didn't cater for AMD's integrated memory controller where memory placement is concerned, and these people probably felt discriminated against and their fan-behavior triggered them to start screaming and flinging poo like simians at the BTX concept.

BTX is overall smarter and better than ATX. I should know, I own systems of both types.

You're the guy who thinks the whole P4s runs hot is a myth right?
I'm not so sure you have an objective view either since you have denied the obvious.

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

BTX isn't about cooling hot-running P4s, that's just a bullshit AMD fanperson internet theory that somehow has perpetuated itself for the last couple years - in part I suppose because Intel's specs didn't cater for AMD's integrated memory controller where memory placement is concerned, and these people probably felt discriminated against and their fan-behavior triggered them to start screaming and flinging poo like simians at the BTX concept.

BTX is overall smarter and better than ATX. I should know, I own systems of both types.

you build or buy your BTX system? what's some case brands? i've only seen them offered from gateway (not sure if you can buy just a case from gateway?i spose so)

anyway does it really pose some design probs fitting the other components in the btx case?

 

[Accord1999]

Intel recently demoed a PentiumM-based thing with CPU and memory controller placed in the same package - which would have the exact same problems with BTX and memory module placements as those AMD chips ...

Unless of course, they designed the memory controller to be tolerant of the distances.

 

[arjan de lumens]

Unless of course, they designed the memory controller to be tolerant of the distances.

AFAIK, the standard DDR/DDR2 DRAM signalling protocols offer very little wiggle room for long or mismatched trace lengths; if it was practically possible to route such buses over long distances (without e.g. sacrificing clock speeds), I would have expected at least AMD to have found out how to do so a long time ago.

 

[Guden Oden]

You're the guy who thinks the whole P4s runs hot is a myth right?
I'm not so sure you have an objective view either since you have denied the obvious.

All I said was that the "P4s runs hot, ergo BTX was created to deal with hot P4s" circular reasoning theory was bullshit. I don't know what the fuck it is you're talking about however.

ATX has been in use for more or less ten years soon (and as we all know, P4 processors are very capable of functioning in such an environment), it stands within reason BTX is scheduled to be in use for a similar time period, by which time the P4 will be long gone, dead and buried. So BTX was obviously not created solely to deal with the non-existent problem of getting P4s to work in ATX cases. Use your brain, man.

 

[Mariner]

All I said was that the "P4s runs hot, ergo BTX was created to deal with hot P4s" circular reasoning theory was bullshit.

I don't think you'll find that I even mentioned P4 so I'm not quite sure why you have such an 'attitude' about this in your original post. BTX was designed at precisely the same time that Intel were pumping up the speeds of their Netburst architecture so I'm sure there is at least some relationship between the two. No need to start slinging around fanb accusations.

It seems pretty obvious to me that BTX was designed with Netburst (and its originally planned successors) in mind. You yourself mention that placement of memory when using an integrated memory controller is not well supported. After Intel's recent turn away from Netburst and towards higher IPC, we now know it's very probable that some future Intel chips will also have an integrated memory controller. Will the BTX spec change to allow this?

Even with Intel's shift towards higher IPC there still seems to be an inevitable creep towards hotter chips for the performance sector of the CPU industry as evinced by the increased max TDP of Revision 'F' A64s and the fact that multi-core PCs are due to become commonplace. Perhaps a redesign similar to BTX will be necessary in the future but not everyone (myself included) is convinced of the current need.

I should mention that I'm primarily interested in silencing PCs rather than noisy speed-demons. The best CPU heatsinks which allow quieter running currently use 120mm fans, something that the BTX cooling modules simply can't accept by design so this is one of the reasons why I don't have any real interest in the standard at present.

 

[SugarCoat]

BTX is going to allow better airflow, component placement, and hopefully quieter cases as well. Has nothing to do with the P4's heat...if it was BTX would of taken off a year ago, rather then a year from yoday. BTX is still very new and aimed at next year for real marketing.

 

[Fodder]

AFAIK, the standard DDR/DDR2 DRAM signalling protocols offer very little wiggle room for long or mismatched trace lengths; if it was practically possible to route such buses over long distances (without e.g. sacrificing clock speeds), I would have expected at least AMD to have found out how to do so a long time ago.

After Intel's recent turn away from Netburst and towards higher IPC, we now know it's very probable that some future Intel chips will also have an integrated memory controller. Will the BTX spec change to allow this?

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/06/03/msi_amd_btx/

 

[IgnorancePersonified]

It's been around for yonks hasn't it? I remember seeing reports from taiwan at least 1year ago or more. case and mobo and power supply manufactures were pissed because that meant 2 sets of inventories. Was this spec ratified in a committe like the IEEE or is it from intel only?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

It's been around for yonks hasn't it? I remember seeing reports from taiwan at least 1year ago or more. case and mobo and power supply manufactures were pissed because that meant 2 sets of inventories. Was this spec ratified in a committe like the IEEE or is it from intel only?

The problem with BTX is primarily from the Far Eastern board and case manufacturers. For years they've been complaining that Intel is changing the spec every five minutes, and that they considered it to be focussed on cooling the CPU, ignoring the rest of the components in the case. ATX still has so much life in it because BTX has been made unattractive by Intel to the people that they need to support it.