Intel's Long Awaited BTX Form Factor
by Purav Sanghani on November 15, 2004 5:31 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Final Thoughts
Instead of an overnight switch akin to what we saw from Intel during the transition from 865 to 915, the move from ATX to BTX will be more of a slow gentle transition. We saw some exciting things in the AOpen/Intel combination today; smaller power supply, no dead heat spots (places in the case that air hangs around with no where to go) and smaller design. Although there are certainly advantages in BTX, no one would realistically expect Intel to force the new form factor down our throats. As Anand mentioned several months ago, "Switching CPU sockets is one thing, but force people to buy all new cases, power supplies and motherboards and you're bound to get some negative response." In the lab, some of us were fairly divided on BTX in general; Anand and I had spent the majority of dinners over the last year debating where the technology fit. When Intel sent us a microBTX board rather than a standard BTX design we were extremely hesitant on what we were ultimately proving here with this analysis.Years of planning, marketing and finally deployment have lead up to today's official release of Intel's first BTX product. Although the BTX solution we looked at today performed poorer than a full ATX desktop, we need to put things in perspective. Our microBTX case and motherboard ran a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 significantly cooler than a microATX case with the same volume, even though the microATX setup had an additional fan. The noise benchmarks further tip the scales in BTX's favor. How is Intel doing it? Aligning the core components into a strict path for airflow to follow while using a slower 120mm fan to "push" air. The internal wiring is reduced in favor of a single 24-pin adaptor, thing SATA cables are used instead of fat PATA ones; things inside the case are just less cluttered.
With the flurry of SFF computers over the last few years, we know smaller computing platforms are necessary. When we saw Shuttle, IWill and FIC designing their own small form factors to produce smaller and smaller desktop PCs, the results become obvious that an industry standard design was long over due. The original goals of BTX have always been to decrease the form factor size and progressively reduce the size of desktop computers in general. MicroBTX isn't the ground floor of the BTX standard, PicoBTX - even smaller than MicroBTX - was planned in the original design of the BTX spec. When we see BTX mature a little more, letting Shuttle or FIC run with the PicoBTX blueprint might really show us some revolutionary computing.
To succinctly put it, the BTX approach to a case/motherboard design is an approach in efficiency. As we saw in our uBTX measurements, there were virtually no dead spots in the case, and these results were obtained with fewer fans. The much larger ATX chassis with several additional fans (including a dedicated CPU heatsink fan) ran cooler, but we could see unused portions of the case. The ATX case used more space and ran louder. Don't forget that additional non-redundant fans increase the failure rate of a computer as well - more moving parts. Now back to the question as to why Intel sent us a microBTX design rather than a full ATX setup. Thermals and noise tests today showed us that a first generation microBTX setup ran slightly hotter - although not as hot as a standard microATX case - while reducing size, fans and noise. This is significant as we will undoubtedly see cases and motherboards moving to smaller designs. Many of us were skeptical for a long time, but after seeing the numbers and realizing Intel's long term plan to reduce the PC footprint, and not just on the OEM side, we can conclude that BTX is not hype. It's obvious why Intel waited for Monday morning to lift their BTX platform - they have a winner on their hands.
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sprockkets - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Not at all 48#.The move from AT to ATX, wonderful, nice, a big improvement.
ATX to BTX, err, why?
Well, I do see a need to have this in place with LOW PROFILE cases. Otherwise, the ventilation is terrible. And pBTX looks nice too. BUT, all you are doing is standardizing the design of small case designs, something that those poor OEMs had to do (aww, poor dell doesn't have to design utterly poor cooling solutions, like the ones we have at work, where the case doesn't even have front air intake, and the processor gets cooled from the very air it exhausts, sad). Large cases such as ATX do not need this.
Hmmm, doesn't that L shaped power supply bring back GREAT memories?
Add to it, why didn't video cards get mounted with the cooling on top? That would have helped it a lot with cooling.
For that matter, you people REALLY need to get with the program with InWin cases. Their latest uATX case has a large fan duct for processor fan intake, a large holed opening on the bottom left hand corner for cooling the add in cards, a quiet 90mm fan exhaust and a 120mm fan on the 300w power supply for exhaust.
Bozo Galora - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Intel quicksand gets deeperDS Delaroca - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
so the way i see it, its that for a long period of time we will have to standards for each company, BTX for Intel ATX for AMD, so these means for us DIY computers builders the future its limited by what CPU U choose,as for none of the parts for an AMD system would be not interchangeble with an INTEL BTX system, as it is today that both use the same ATX desing, and i mean u would not be able to use the same PS, video card,sound card and any non BTX complyant part, correct me if im wrong if this correct THANKS.pjarvi - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Unless I misread the article, the exhaust is blowing out the front?!? If that's true, then that's really, really, stupid. Every company I've worked for buys dekstop systems, that sit infront of, or to the side, of employess. If BTX is blowing exhaust out the front, then a lot of people are gonna get cranky due to allergies. I know that I personally can't stand a fan blowing air in my face, and hot dusty air is gonna be a million times worse.Nonsense - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
The airflow described on page 6 is inconsistent:"The CPU, Northbridge, Southbridge, and VGA card are all inline which creates a single path for air to flow and in one single direction, from back to front through the thermal module"
...PICTURE...
"From the picture we see the flow of warm air pulled forward from beyond the VGA card. As it moves towards the front of the case the air flows over the Southbridge and Northbridge passively cooling each chip. "
Now look follow the link at the top of that page: "heat paths in a BTX system" which goes to: http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?...
Which says: "The redesign of the board layout was done in order to improve airflow through the system; moving the CPU to the "front" of the case allows it to be right next to the intake fan, giving it the coolest air out of any component in the system. You will then notice that the chipset is directly in line with the CPU, allowing airflow over the CPU's heatsink to be channeled over those heatsinks as well before exiting the case."
These two articles directly contradict of each other. I think the latter is correct. Please post a correction, thank you.
PsharkJF - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Fat fingers for ATX ;]Chuckles - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
OK, so after all that, I have only one question. Why in the name of $DIETY are they venting out the front of the case? Do they want the dust bunnies to have a home? Why not flip the components around and (with a little coercion towards the graphics card manufacturers) vent all the hot air out the back?Also, to those that think AMD is immune to the heat problems: Power consumption (and dissipation) has gone nowhere but up in computers. Heck, ten years ago CPU's didn't have a heatsink, much less one with a fan. With increased heat has come to be expected more noise. I personally think BTX is a stumble in the right direction towards reducing the noise while dealing with the heat output of modern and future micorprocessors.
ZobarStyl - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Yeah 48, what about the guy who's pissed cuz he can't do a P4 to P4 upgrade because the damn thing is now obsolete for the mobo AND Case/PSU? And all the HP/Compaq old school jokes are true; this looks exactly the same, and will have all the same problems.The issue isn't so much that we hate Intel, it's that they are a) forcing this on us and b) it has little tangible benefits to necessitate the cost and some of c) AMD chips may not be able to use the standard, but have no need for it anyway. Mostly, we're all tired of Intel moving the industry around wherever and whenever it wants to make up for its own downfalls.
bob661 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
#48No one needs it but Intel. It doesn't take a "fanboy" to see that. AMD does NOT have the heat issues that Intel does. That's just a fact. There are some here that hate Intel but some do not. I will only buy what gives me the most bang for my buck. Intel does not provide this at the moment. So I will continue to buy AMD unless that changes. There are others here with the same mentality. No hating involved.
five40 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
I'm not a fan boy of intel or amd but so much blatant dislike of intel is sad. It seems that if AMD came up with this standard you guys would be saying how amazing it is and that you want it ASAP. Since it's Intel, no one "needs" it.