I'd be amd right now too, but when my BH7 died (my bad) i couldn't afford a chip and nf7, so i just bought an IS7 - which now houses a 2.6C and a gig of ram.
I would say that most of the changes are just inevitable with technology progression, you don't expext to be using AGP in 10 years time do you? The new socket and LGA mounting system are interesting... But the boards changing the side of the case is just a needless change for change's sake and is going to piss a lot of people off. me for one.
yes, it is true that new tech needs to come along, but even i found it mildly confusing. a lot of different slots and such. Plus, it's smart to PHASE stuff out, not just drop it. I mean, what would happen if the day PCI came out, ISA was totally wiped out - completely?
I thought there was less slot types in the new chipsets - only 1 infact - PCI Express, and you will be able to get AGP to PCI Express converters, and PCI Express is backwards compatible with PCI.
Not really looking forward to it myself, the airflow thing doesn't really matter 2 hoots to me (watercooled) so its just something new I gotta get used to, pci-x should be good though as soon as we get some gfx cards that can use the xtra bandwidth
I'm looking forward to some of the aspects of the btx form factor like pci express ( the pci bandwidth is pretty limited right now to about 156 mgs a sec for ALL the pci cards, 4 raptors in raid would use that up before you even got to your sound card. Pci express would be a major kick in the heiny) Also native sata support in psu and mobo is another plus as I only found one board that had 2 sata slots and sata raid on the market. The cooling bit doesn't really concern me as I'm usually watercooled and I usually run my systems hot, I believe the cooling solutions they suggested are more thoughtfully enigneered and offer better performance. The thing I'm not looking forward too is having this all shoved on us at once. I uphold the long tradition of phasing computer parts in an out and maybe upgrading one part every few months so that I have a new system almost every 2 years. this is a wall as it appears not many parts will be BTX compatible. As far as change in direction its probably more to do with being able to discernn btx boxes from atx boxes or to make it possible for absolutely no compatibility between certain btx and atx parts
Oh I don't know the A64 chucks out a fair chunk of heat, not in the same league as a Prescott. However that is a 2.2GHz chip how about 3GHz? Or for that matter when they switch to 90nm, Intel had thermal issues and they have a vast process R&D budget compared to AMD. AMD are likely to hit some fairly serious heat issues in the not too distant future. Most likely they will let Intel take the heat of changing form factors and then quietly move over to the new form factor. Not quite. Using big slow RPM fans reduces noise and directing this large airflow effectively allows the reduction in the number of fans used. It is quite likely that with a large heatsink and good airflow from the front of the case they could do away with the CPU fan entirely. You know I get the feeling when they were designing this new form factor they didn't take that into account Plus you could flip the case upside down, granted your optical drives would be at the bottom, but the left side of the case would free. Yes I have seen LGA it looks interesting. Difficult to say whether the cons you have outlined will actually be problems, can't really say till the socket is in general use. The new Intel chipsets will support both PCI and PCI-E simultaneously to aid the transistion. The loss of AGP is a mite irritating, but hey doesn't worry me none I'm hardly wanting to keep this 9000 Pro if I upgrade
LOL, I know, I am just trying to grasp the logic in changing what is basically an industry standard. Unless, of course moving the board from the right side to the left side has some kind of hitherto undiscovered cooling property
The same reason behind the transistion from Baby AT to ATX in 1995 (which Intel designed). Things changed and the form factor had to accomodate those changes. In the 9 years that have followed things have changed significantly again, the gfx and cpu pump out vast amounts of heat compared to the Pentium and 2D cards back in 95'. Flipping the board over to the right side means they no longer get a waft of updraft from the intakes, but a full blast from the intake (as they are now situated at the bottom of the case rather than the top). So they are cooled more effectively and this heat can be vented by the ouput fans.
Sorry JADS, I don't follow. How does changing the side the board is attached to prevent updrafts? Surely this is just a concequence of moving the intake fans?
The card have not been turned upside down, it has been ROTATED 180* No.. wait.. It`s been turned upside down AND rotated 180* horizontally! That`s prolly easier than re-designing the PCB I need some sleep...
I hadn't heard of this until I read this thread. I have to say, looking on the plus side that the change is interesting (that's really looking on the plus side though), if not that drastic. I can understand the complaints that "my case won't be compatible", "my power supply won't be compatible" etc. however, what's really changed? PCI express has been on the cards for a while now, SATA is already with us, and USB 2.0 has been around even longer (BTX doesn't seem to support anything else - you would think). I have to admit though, that changing the side of the motherboard does sound like change for the sake of change. I know that it's meant to put the processor closer to the intake. Why though couldn't they have just moved where the processor is on the board? I guess though that this could involve major circuit redesigns, and that's the reason why perhaps. I took a look on FormFactors.org (specs and features of BTX). The main features outlined are: Easy integration in small/thin form factors Optimised for efficient system cooling Multiple system sizes and configurations Mechanical characteristics to support high mass motherboard components To be honest, the optimised cooling part sounds dubious to me. It certainly isn't a new idea to duct airflow across passive heatsinks from a large and quiet fan at the front intake. Open an Apple Mac G3 and you'll see the same thing. The blurb there claims that BTX lets you scale down to system sizes smaller than a typical micro ATX system. At first I found this hard to believe though because the standard BTX spec is 12.8" x 10.5" (not too different from ATX), whereas the Micro ATX form factor is 9.6" x 9.6". If you read on though you see that you can get micro and pico versions of BTX, these are 10.4" x 10.5" and 8" x 10.5" respectively. I have to ask myself whether or not we'll get decent offerings of the smaller BTX forms or will we just end up with poorer performing versions of full BTX as has happened with ATX and micro ATX? . I've been looking for a small motherboard with performance to rival a normal ATX for a while. The best you can do is to buy a barebones system like shuttle etc, even then, they're normally not at the cutting edge. What happens though when you want to upgrade, do you replace the whole thing? One thing that sounds good to me though is the specifying of volumetric zones. These specify how much space each area of the motherboard needs around it. Hopefully, this should mitigate typical problems caused by not being able to fit your custom cooling solution in. Also, the increased mechanical strength part has got to be a step in the right direction. I suppose we'll have to wait and see on that one though. What will these SRMs look like I wonder? It does sound a bit hyped up though, or is that just me?
Remember the change from AT to ATX? Man, that was painful. All my hardware (from cases to PSUs) was obselete and I had to buy new stuff. Next time I had a PSU failure or needed a case I had to go buy a new one... Now I have an absolute stack of ATX stuff, and guess what, they want to change it again!. No offence, but I like the way computers are currently layed out. BTX looks like a mac clone to me
I think it`s a good thing all these standards come at about the same time! One upgrade, and you have everything. That is better than phasing-out, because you don`t get stuck with all those hybrid-products and converters, and you don`t have to wait very long before each upgrade. But it`s going to cost $$$! I`ll stick around with my current hardware for a while, until the prices drop and everything is actually working as it should
Possibly so, we shall wait and see... there have been no reports of delays to the 90nm A64's so far, so everything can be assumed to be going according to plan. We shall see over the next couple of months when stories unveil themselves. 3Ghz won't be achieved on 130nm they're not planning to go much past the FX-55 on 130nm. This should take them to where intel release their 3.8Ghz Prescotts for an idea of time scales. All processors throw out heat, but the prescott is a special case at the moment, in a league of it's own. It's been said before about Intel having this huge R&D budget, they've got so much that they don't know what to do with it IMO. I'm very interested in how AMD pan out over the 90nm switch, it'll be an important part of their future (obviously), but it will mean life or death I feel. I hope it's the former for the sake of the microprocessor industry. Without healthy competition in the marketplace, the industry will take a nose dive. I can't wait for the new round of sockets I think that's more interesting than the switch to BTX, considering the BTX switch is WELL over 6 months away... I can't see BTX coming mainstream until this time next year in all honesty. LGA doesn't look promising for anyone wanting to use any kind of subzero cooling, I can already see the condensation dripping from around the socket hold down system...
With BTX we have to get new cases as the MB is like an ATX board that is mirrored. Intel's new design unnecessarily puts the components on the other side. BTX means we have new sockets like PCI Express. Whoop-de-friggen-do. As I recall, the ATX specification has changed to include the 12V connecter and AGP, (I think) they could add PCI Exp easily The final important change with BTX is the processor socket's location. With BTX it is set in stone. This is a good thing. No more worries about heatsinks not fitting if they are BTX compatible. My problem with BTX is that the real reason for change, the CPU location, is not the only thing that was changed. The MB does not need to be mirrored, and PCI Exp does not require a flipped MB. It looks like Intel just wanted to make the new MBs incompatible with ATX cases to prevent users from putting the board in a thermally crappy box.
I'm not seein the real problem tbh, so instead of upgrading components bit by bit you'll have to do your case, cpu and gfx all at the same time, what's the big deal with that?
