Topic: New BTX form factor - views / opinions (Read 2346 times)

digi · « **on:** February 19, 2004, 10:03:13 am »

I've been planning on a total upgrade for my current PC but I about this new BTX form factor coming out this year.

What do you guys think of it?
Is this going to be a major upgrade? If so I'll wait it out. Get PCI Express, BTX, SATA all at the same time.

digi · « **Reply #1 on:** February 19, 2004, 10:15:14 am »

PCI Express sounds nice as well......

Quote:

The new PCI Express made a lot of noise this year. Developed by Intel and many other partners, it is intended to replace the classic AGP and PCI bus in the mainstream before the end of the year. Aside from the naming, PCI Express and its predecessor do not have much in common. Instead of a bandwidth and clock speed limited parallel protocol used in PCI, PCI Express uses a serial model that is very scalable.

The current PCI bus operates at 33- or 66-MHz and allows transfer rates of up to 133 / 266 MB per second, but all PCi-devices have to share this bandwith. The limited nature of its parallel architecture serves to hamper PCI's performance, while PCI Express uses a serial architecture at clock speeds of 2.5 GHz, resulting in a transfer rate of 250MB per second (PCI Express x1) for every slot.

PCI Express's advantage is its scalability. Its specification allows x1, x2, x4, x8, x12, x16 and x32 lane PCI Express implementations.

The available bandwith results in the number of lanes multiplied by the performance of 250 MB/s (PCI Express x1). This results in the effective data bandwith - for one direction only. As PCI-E is a bi-directional interconnect, the same bandwidth is available the opposite way, as well.

In mainstream desktop systems, we will see PCI Express configurations with one x16 slot for graphics and up to four x1 slots for other add-on cards. Motherboard manufacturers can also add traditional PCI slots. Server and workstation boards will additionally feature x4 and x8 slots.

AGP is likely to be phased out this year and completely replaced by x16 PCI Express. This means that the available bandwidth for graphics data doubles from 2 GB/s (AGP 8x) to 4 GB/s - or 8 GB/s if you consider both data transfer directions.

The feature of transferring data from the card back to the system at the same speed enables new possibilities for video and 3D applications. AGP 8x only allows 266 MB/s; and that is only reached when no data is transferred to the card at the same time.

Tomshardware

Javora · « **Reply #2 on:** February 19, 2004, 12:45:55 pm »

If I hadn't already built my system last summer I would have waited for the BTX myself. It's going to be much quieter than the current form factor. The only two things I would be worried about are: 1. That I haven't seen any CD/DVD drives for the S-ATA come out yet. I'd by one for my current system if I could find one. 2. There doesn't seem to be any backwards compatibility for PS-2, P-ATA, or the 3.5" floppy drive for the BTX that are still used as main stream devices. Transferring information to your new BTX system will be much harder because of the lack of P-ATA unless you already use S-ATA. Sure you can spend $40~$60USD on some type of data mover or just spend $8~$10 on a loop back network cable but that can be a pain. They should have left one P-ATA connector for just such an occurrence. Or in lack of that create a P-ATA connector adapter for the PCI-Express slot.

After I loaded my OS onto my new system I tried to move all the data from my old machine to the new one. I couldn't use a loop-back network cable because my network card on my old Dell died. So I had to pull the hard drive and attach it to the new system directly. I could do that because I had a P-ATA connectors on my new system. Had my new system been a BTX machine I would have been stuck. One other thing I should mention as well, with the lack of P-ATA and a 3.5" floppy drive Win98/se is going to be dead in the water. So if your new system is going to be a BTX form factor, make sure you have at least Win2000 on hand when you make the switch. Just my 2 cents worth on this subject, hope this helps.

hobbesmaster · « **Reply #3 on:** February 19, 2004, 01:00:33 pm »

My question is when will MS installer let you load drivers off of USB Flash drives? Those little beauties are soooo much better than floppies...

Barabbas · « **Reply #4 on:** February 19, 2004, 01:02:44 pm »

That giant sucking sound you hear is coming from the riser.....

Risers always suck, and they're unnecessary. I doubt this new BTX form factor will catch on because of it.

TB613 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 19, 2004, 03:59:11 pm »

I think that it is too early in the life of the BTX form factor to really consider using it. The picture shows a "micro" design which has extremely limited expansion capabilities with only one standard PCI slot to enable using all of the legacy PCI devices that are out there. I think that standard PCI slots will stay on motherbaords in the same way that ISA did on AT and ATX for quite some time. I also think that AGP will still be on many of the early BTX boards until the graphics card manufacturers can ramp up production of PCI-X boards.

digi · « **Reply #6 on:** February 19, 2004, 10:03:13 am »

I've been planning on a total upgrade for my current PC but I about this new BTX form factor coming out this year.

What do you guys think of it?
Is this going to be a major upgrade? If so I'll wait it out. Get PCI Express, BTX, SATA all at the same time.

Javora · « **Reply #8 on:** February 19, 2004, 12:45:55 pm »

If I hadn't already built my system last summer I would have waited for the BTX myself. It's going to be much quieter than the current form factor. The only two things I would be worried about are: 1. That I haven't seen any CD/DVD drives for the S-ATA come out yet. I'd by one for my current system if I could find one. 2. There doesn't seem to be any backwards compatibility for PS-2, P-ATA, or the 3.5" floppy drive for the BTX that are still used as main stream devices. Transferring information to your new BTX system will be much harder because of the lack of P-ATA unless you already use S-ATA. Sure you can spend $40~$60USD on some type of data mover or just spend $8~$10 on a loop back network cable but that can be a pain. They should have left one P-ATA connector for just such an occurrence. Or in lack of that create a P-ATA connector adapter for the PCI-Express slot.

After I loaded my OS onto my new system I tried to move all the data from my old machine to the new one. I couldn't use a loop-back network cable because my network card on my old Dell died. So I had to pull the hard drive and attach it to the new system directly. I could do that because I had a P-ATA connectors on my new system. Had my new system been a BTX machine I would have been stuck. One other thing I should mention as well, with the lack of P-ATA and a 3.5" floppy drive Win98/se is going to be dead in the water. So if your new system is going to be a BTX form factor, make sure you have at least Win2000 on hand when you make the switch. Just my 2 cents worth on this subject, hope this helps.

hobbesmaster · « **Reply #9 on:** February 19, 2004, 01:00:33 pm »

My question is when will MS installer let you load drivers off of USB Flash drives? Those little beauties are soooo much better than floppies...

Barabbas · « **Reply #10 on:** February 19, 2004, 01:02:44 pm »

That giant sucking sound you hear is coming from the riser.....

Risers always suck, and they're unnecessary. I doubt this new BTX form factor will catch on because of it.

TB613 · « **Reply #11 on:** February 19, 2004, 03:59:11 pm »

I think that it is too early in the life of the BTX form factor to really consider using it. The picture shows a "micro" design which has extremely limited expansion capabilities with only one standard PCI slot to enable using all of the legacy PCI devices that are out there. I think that standard PCI slots will stay on motherbaords in the same way that ISA did on AT and ATX for quite some time. I also think that AGP will still be on many of the early BTX boards until the graphics card manufacturers can ramp up production of PCI-X boards.

digi · « **Reply #12 on:** February 19, 2004, 10:03:13 am »

I've been planning on a total upgrade for my current PC but I about this new BTX form factor coming out this year.

What do you guys think of it?
Is this going to be a major upgrade? If so I'll wait it out. Get PCI Express, BTX, SATA all at the same time.

Javora · « **Reply #14 on:** February 19, 2004, 12:45:55 pm »

If I hadn't already built my system last summer I would have waited for the BTX myself. It's going to be much quieter than the current form factor. The only two things I would be worried about are: 1. That I haven't seen any CD/DVD drives for the S-ATA come out yet. I'd by one for my current system if I could find one. 2. There doesn't seem to be any backwards compatibility for PS-2, P-ATA, or the 3.5" floppy drive for the BTX that are still used as main stream devices. Transferring information to your new BTX system will be much harder because of the lack of P-ATA unless you already use S-ATA. Sure you can spend $40~$60USD on some type of data mover or just spend $8~$10 on a loop back network cable but that can be a pain. They should have left one P-ATA connector for just such an occurrence. Or in lack of that create a P-ATA connector adapter for the PCI-Express slot.

After I loaded my OS onto my new system I tried to move all the data from my old machine to the new one. I couldn't use a loop-back network cable because my network card on my old Dell died. So I had to pull the hard drive and attach it to the new system directly. I could do that because I had a P-ATA connectors on my new system. Had my new system been a BTX machine I would have been stuck. One other thing I should mention as well, with the lack of P-ATA and a 3.5" floppy drive Win98/se is going to be dead in the water. So if your new system is going to be a BTX form factor, make sure you have at least Win2000 on hand when you make the switch. Just my 2 cents worth on this subject, hope this helps.

hobbesmaster · « **Reply #15 on:** February 19, 2004, 01:00:33 pm »

My question is when will MS installer let you load drivers off of USB Flash drives? Those little beauties are soooo much better than floppies...

Barabbas · « **Reply #16 on:** February 19, 2004, 01:02:44 pm »

That giant sucking sound you hear is coming from the riser.....

Risers always suck, and they're unnecessary. I doubt this new BTX form factor will catch on because of it.

TB613 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 19, 2004, 03:59:11 pm »

I think that it is too early in the life of the BTX form factor to really consider using it. The picture shows a "micro" design which has extremely limited expansion capabilities with only one standard PCI slot to enable using all of the legacy PCI devices that are out there. I think that standard PCI slots will stay on motherbaords in the same way that ISA did on AT and ATX for quite some time. I also think that AGP will still be on many of the early BTX boards until the graphics card manufacturers can ramp up production of PCI-X boards.

digi

Re: New BTX form factor - views / opinions

digi

Re: New BTX form factor - views / opinions

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