Intel's Long Awaited BTX Form Factor
by Purav Sanghani on November 15, 2004 5:31 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Noise Testing ATX, BTX
Besides the thermal advantages Intel claims BTX to have over ATX, Intel also states that BTX systems will produce much lower sound levels then ATX systems. We can see this as being true since our BTX evaluation kit includes the AOpen B300 which has zero case fans. The only cooling equipment in this BTX system is the thermal module which adjusts its speed according to the overall temperature of the system and the power supply. In turn, the only hardware producing any sound in the system would be the thermal module and the power supply.As we measured the sound levels of the AOpen B300, we noticed that as the Pentium 550's temperature rose from 62 to 63 degrees, the fan speed increased from 1400rpm to 1700 rpm. We realized that the heat sink fan was overcompensating for the increase of 1 degree to bring the temperature back down to a stable level.
We see that the uBTX AOpen B300 combined with Intel's thermal module and FSP power supply produced an extremely quiet 41dB of sound compared to the ATX D.Vine 5 and uATX TT-501. The D.Vine 5 had dual 60mm fans at the back while the TT-501 actually had two 80mm fans at its rear that produced the extra 9-10dB along with the CPU heatsink fans and power supplies.
The low sound levels of the BTX system came at a price of slightly higher temperatures through the case. Is the point of BTX to eliminate case fans entirely or just reduce them to keep a positive balance between thermal and sound levels? If a 80mm or even a 60mm fan is placed at the back of the chassis directly in line with the CPU thermal module, the air flow will be increased having a greater cooling effect on the components while still keeping sound levels to a minimum.
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ZobarStyl - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
God looking at those small cases makes me tremble and remember my parent's old IBM Pentium I system where you had to remove the PSU and the CD drive to install the RAM. I was so glad when I saw computers moving AWAY from this type of design...forget footprint, I want a case I can actually work in.Either way, congrats to Intel on making a new Delleron case, but I'm simply not interested. Great for OEM's but useless for me, just like most of Intel's products...
As for #3's question, why does Intel need it outside of helping their OEM buddies? Dual core is only going to make Prescott's heat issues stand out further and their x20/30/40's on the roadmap still are clocked in the range where they are going to be high heat output. All that heat has to go somewhere...
shabby - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
#5 that must be the canadian version, it'll keep us warm during winter by exhausting warm air into our faces.Jeff7181 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Am I reading this right... warm air from the CPU is exhausted out the FRONT of the case????mcveigh - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
I can't get past page 1??????skunkbuster - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
will intel even need btx anymore? since they are probably going to be dumping the p4 in favor of the pM(eventually)?i thought one of the main reasons why btx was designed was to better handle the hotter p4 processors and to cool them more efficiently?
PuravSanghani - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Thanks MAME, problem fixed :)MAME - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
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