BTX Systems

Intel's showcase also had a number of BTX cases, the most interesting of which was Shuttle's microBTX SFF:

AOpen had a tower microBTX on display:

However AOpen's solution was the only tower solution present, the rest were desktops:

Chenbro's BTX Tower (continued) BTX Systems (continued)
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  • CrystalBay - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link

    The shuttles' seem to be the most intrigueing of the bunch.
  • jliechty - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link

    Anybody remember WTX? (*crickets chirping*) ... well, I don't suppose many would. Anyway, Intel was behind that also, and heck, some people even _liked_ it - and look where it is(n't) today. I'm not saying that's what will happen to BTX, but I'm certainly not going to be an early adopter here.
  • Dasterdly - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link

    BTX is a small step considering how long we've been using ATX (20+ yrs!).
    There's no cooling at the bottom for the expansion cards and they are still mounted flat, trapping heat under them.
    Intel is still fiddling around with this seems like it's not happening.
    It's almost time for upgrading for me I dont want to wait another year for BTX and Im not buying another ATX based system.
  • Cygni - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link

    Ive hated BTX since day 1. Its just completly un-needed in my eyes, even for a prescott. I see no reason for BTX to even exist.
  • ZobarStyl - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link

    The hate is simple...they want to change everything and the only semi-decent reason they have for it is improved cooling. The idea that all of our mobos and cases will be rendered obsolete by Intel for cooling reasons is frankly quite stupid; the only cases that have real trouble cooling are those lousy Dell/HP boxes that don't even have a single 80mm in them...changing the whole factor to facilitate even crappier designs by OEMs isn't exactly good news to me. Personally I think BTX would be good to implement only in SFF if indeed the cooling is beneficial...since pretty much every SFF case has a custom mobo it wouldn't affect the end user very much. However for those of us who love the ATX cases we plopped down so much money for, we'd like to keep putting new mobos in, thanks but no thanks Intel. Why not champion some effective standard of water cooling if you are worried so much about your flamethrowing Prescotts? Frankly I hope AMD and all the manufacturers completely ignore this and let it die rather than let Intel use its monopoly to push the industry into some silly, unfinished standard.
  • tfranzese - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link

    I must agree. Aside from some vague explaining of the BTX delima which has yet to be finalized by Intel there was a lot of good pics in there and descriptions.
  • mcveigh - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link

    great pics, clear explanations.....this is why I love Anandtech :)
  • tfranzese - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link

    I wish you guys did more investigating. The Inquirer gives much more reason for the hate behind BTX.

    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16294

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