Maximum PC

im trying to build a new rig...just i hear alot about btx being the thing of the future....and i dont want to put my new rig in a atx case if btx is comming around the corner. That and i hear amd isnt really all for this btx stuff. anybody know anything about this?

i doubt that AMD will go to BTX any time soon because its just Intel trying to save there own ass from there own problems

im pretty sure ATX will still be around when BTX format becomes dominant.

IF.... AMD dosn't dosn't seem particularlly eager for BTX alot of Case and MB makers are not super thrilled.


the only one really Pumped BTX is Intel (and that is mainly because Intel's latest chips are Hot like a Nuclear reactor)

AMD is a ways off from having to use btx. the only reason Intel is pushing it is because they werent smart nough to design a processor that was cool enough. amd is a long way from having their procs reach the temp of the press-hott.

BTX is in the future sure, but dont expect to see it anytime soon.

And even if BTX is released, I bet ATX will still be alive and kicking alongside BTX.

oh, very much so. i was looking at building a pc back in 99-00 and was looking at starting off with a barebones system. most of the systems i was looking at then were still the at formfactor, even after many years of atx availability. atx and btx will peacefully coexist for many years to come.

It's not only BTX that I'm after, but also DDR2, which I haven't found in any AMD mobo's yet. With PCI Express on the way, I'm eager to have a mobo that has both these features. What harm can AMD have in going with a BTX form? So what if they aren't "hot" enough yet, atleast they'd be prepped for the future. Perhaps they will make a socket 939 board in BTX for AMD.

amd is not going with either btx or ddr2, they dont need either of them. Intel needs btx due to their inability to design a cool running processor. Intel also needs ddr2 because the p4 has a voracious appetite for memory bandwidth. the athlon64 just doesnt need the bandwidth ddr2 can provide to perform on par with Intel. in fact, i doubt youd see much, if any, of a performance boost if you put the athlon64 fx-53 on a ddr2 board if it stayed at the same frequency. so in the end amd is designing much more efficient chips that dont need new expensive technologies to perform just as well as their Intel counterparts.

It can actually cause a good deal of harm

Many people dont want to have to upgrade their case, power supply, etc, just to move to BTX (unless they plan on changing those components anyway).

AMD doesnt need BTX yet, its that simple.

Hehe, well, you should remember that I dont think heat is the big issue right now. It is AN issue, maybe a major one, but definitely not the only one.

Also, remember that Intel's Northwood procs run plenty cool, so the "inability" to make a cool running proc is a little off. Lets not forget AMDs Thunderbird procs either (I had one! If you thought Prescott was hot...).

(not an Intel fanboy)

i'm runnin on a thunderbird 1.4 right now. It runs between 39C and 41C.

its most likely amd is having heat problems going to the 90 nm transistion too though.

That, and they've yet had to deal with the raw clock speed they're going to have to reach at some point.

or that the new dothan temps are very nice, even with more cache and more speed. Besides, the new E0 stepping has hope for controlling the power loss

There are some other benefits to BTX besides cooling...

My fave is this: The layout reduces latency, because the NB. SB, RAM, and CPU are more logically laid out

eventually amd will move to btx, but not yet. even today you can still buy brand new at style cases and power supplies even 10 years after the atx spec came out. im also not saying that btx is a bad thing, im just saying that at this time amd does not need it and has announced that they are staying with atx for the time being.

And because its a better design. OEMs (Read: Dell) have been designing computers to maximize air flow long before the Prescott came along, so BTX just relieves them of some of that R&D burden.



The Athlon 64/Opteron are also far more sensative to latency, so until DDR2 can be shipped in volume at lower CAS ratings (or AMD's need for bandwidth compensates for the high latency), so adopting DDR2 now would most likely HURT the K8's performance.



AMD also doesn't have the clout to push new technologies like Intel, so they can't afford to be as cutting edge.

even though i never had a thunderbird i remember when they were out and the people who said how hot they ran. i wasnt refering to all Intel chips either, i should have made that clear but i didnt, i was refering to the prescot and how they cant seem to get it to run cool.