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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stephenbrooks - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Do you think if you connect the power to the fans the other way around you can get air to flow in from the front and come out of the back instead?SolarWind - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Actually, I like how they moved the processor towards the front of the case. This way the processor isn't in the path of hot air rising from the video card.Also, having the video card flipped over means that high performance heat sinks on the video card won't block a PCI/PCI Express slot.
DeeTees - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Your right, I would have sworn that I saw that mess inside of a Packard-Bell. At least they have not yet started using custom fasteners that you need a special tool to replace or upgrade components. (?)quanta - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
BTX may deliver overall cooler temperature per volume of space, but what about all the hot air that was used to cool the CPU? Wouldn't the hot exhaust cook the video card and bridge controller, limiting overclocking potentials? Temperature aside, having air intake in front of the case reduces usable drive spaces that would be used for fan controllers. If I were designing BTX, I would put CPU on top corner, and a curved 'casing' that would route exhaust to top blowhole.PuravSanghani - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
#42: Actually it us just these micrBTX cases that do not have rear exhausts...so far. We may see case manufacturers employing case fans as soon as BTX becomes a mainstream form factor.At Computex this past year, we did see some companies like Enlight (http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?... show off some mid tower cases which did have room to add extra case fans. We still have a lot to look forward to concerning the new form factor.
skunkbuster - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
it would have been nice to have a rear exhaust...bob661 - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Man those P4's sure do run hot. 63C WITH the BTX case. My A64 runs at 36C inside the ancient ATX case. I'm still running the OEM CPU cooler and oh about 6 case fans. :-)Cygni - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Looks like BTX is going to work out for Dell and HP... but I dont think its going to have much effect for the enthusiast and self built markets. Seems to me that its going to be at its best in mBTX situations, but full BTX seems ho-hum. I guess its just more crap i gotta buy next time i upgrade. BTX mobo, BTX case, DDR2, SATA HD, PCI-Ex video card, new CPU... they really havent left anything for me to KEEP during a P4 to P4 upgrade. Me no likey.vedin - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
Where am I supposed to put a window and neon light in that case? Hmm?Spinne - Monday, November 15, 2004 - link
I don't see what the problem is with BTX cases. The design layout, atleast for Intel processors makes a lot of sense as far as thermal regulation goes. Channeled airflow on ATX cases is a niche market, and the fact that there are no standards means that you can't be assured of compatibilty across motherboard solutions. You really don't want to have spent money on a new mobo and case only to find that a lousy capacitor prevents you from using channeled airflow. Also, there's no reason why a manufacturer can't place additional fans in a BTX case to cool the case further. Remember, cases are not upgraded as regularly as the actual hardware, so one always has the option of moving to BTX at one's lesuire. I dunno about you guys, but I live in a college dorm, and the smaller my case footprint is, the happier I am, especially if it's a full form-factor case.