wtf? those pictures of cases were backwards! That's gonna get confusing.
And in regards to the comment about Dells being quiet, as the not-so-proud owner of a Dimension 8200 I would like to differ. It's not quite what you'd call 'silent'.
But yeah, all that new stuff looks cool. Anyone know if there are any other companies working on the standard along with intel?

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Jeeeez. What a waste of time and energy. They call this innovation? All they did was move the CPU to the most advantageous position on the board and let everybody else scramble for what was left. Any moron could have done this. As a matter of fact if you look at a few of the old Compaq's (Crapaq) you will see that they directed the PS exhaust over the CPU and chipset heatsinks. Same difference, but the PS was first. Besides, if the ambient temp is 115F the "active" cooling doesn't work very well anyway. It's time for someone without a full time job to come up with the gas phase change cooling system that works intelligently. All you have to do to control condensation on an A/C system is determine incoming coolant temp with current die temp to make sure the system isn't overcooling. You could even use a condensation detection circuit as a backup. Too many electrical geeks trying to do the mechanical geeks job of cooling gets you nothing more than more, bigger, slower fans. Why not just make a pretty computer with no case at all. How about we just make a decent server and mount it in the cooling vent of my central air. Just brainstorming here, but dang, it's not that hard.

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Any word on if BTX will eliminate the need for the extra 12v power connector and will it include a standardized connector for front panel cabling?

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Nice article, Anand, but this looks like nothing more than a re-hashed WTX form factor. For those who don't know what WTX was...it was just like this new BTX, but without the PCI-express. It flopped like a fish out of water and also soon died. I think we should just stick with ATX micro-ATX, and flex-ATX.

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I also don't see the 'innovation' in this. All they have done is move the position of things to suit the needs of current components and maybe those to come for another few years and optimise the airflow which should have been done the first time with ATX. At least tower case users will probably be able to say that it puts the heatsink unit on their graphics card the right way up, but for the desktop this is a pointless change.

Also, what about all those people who have invested heavily in cases, such as those with all aluminium alloy cases costing over $200... I'm suspecting there to be a huge demand in ATX motherboards for some time mainly because if new BTX cases are made like brand new ATX cases, they will be flimsy and pretty much rubbish in everything except having stupid plastic stuck over the front to give it 'style'.

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This ain't innovation. Innovation is a USB vagina!

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so what you have to take out the video card to get the cpu that just does not make sense

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I agree, I don't see the "innovation" in all of this. It seems as though the current ATX design was mirrored and the processor moved to the front of the board. I suspect the motivation of this design was less "innovation" and more industry endorsed obsolescence in an effort to sell new parts.

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I would also like to know whether the horribly irritating job of plugging in speaker, power on switch, reset switch et al has been FINALLY eliminated by putting all the leads in a single connector. Which should have btw been done in ATX already.

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i like the way intel is legacy out the door. i doubt an avg consumer can afford an abit max just to be legacy free. but what i'm having trouble understanding is if the cpu, say a prescott w/ 100 watts of heat, is up front and getting the most cool air, won't it raise the case temp dramatically regardless, since its moving warmer air to an already hot gfx card and other components?

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