From ATX to BTX

For years, motherboards have been installed in cases made up of ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) form factor. But the increasing number of applications for computers is making it difficult for ATX to keep pace. To handle this situation, an initiative was taken by Intel to develop the successor to ATX , which it codenamed Big Water. After some development, Intel officially renamed Big Water as Balanced Technology eXtended Form Factor or BTX for short. This new technology will overcome the shortcomings of ATX and systems will be able to add in the latest technologies also, be able to meet the shortcomings faced by manufacturers such as increasing power, thermal and acoustic requirements.

One of the changes in the BTX form factor is that the memory slots have exchanged places with the expansion slots. This change will facilitate the airflow to be shared by many system components such as processor, chipset, voltage regulators and graphics card, thereby eliminating the need of additional system fans.

Initially, three types of motherboards will be offered based on the BTX form factor, namely: picoBTX, microBTX and regularBTX. All the three versions will be 266.70 mm deep and the board width will vary from 203.22 mm to 325.12 mm.

A regularBTX board, where the expansion slots have swapped places with memory slots. Also included are one PCI-Express X16 slot, two PCI express X1 slots, apart from the regular four PCI slots

The motherboards will differ in the number of expansion slots and mounting holes required. The picoBTX will have four mounting holes and one expansion slot, microBTX will have seven mounting holes and four expansion slots and regularBTX will have 10 mounting holes and seven expansion slots. In the last one, the seven slots will comprise of one PCI-Express X16 slot, two PCI express X1 slots and four regular 32-bit PCI slots. BTX offers another advantage over ATX, that it supports two system heights. The first system height is 3.98 inches, which is similar to the standard height defined in ATX, while the second system height is reduced to 3 inches, which will reduce the overall size of the system. Overall, the BTX form factor design makes it incompatible with ATX except that the ATX power supply could be used with BTX boards. 

BTX will allow easy integration of components into the system that are interoperable. The manufacturer will have the option of offering different system sizes and configurations to the consumer. BTX will provide a universal, flexible foundation based on standards that can be used to construct modern desktop systems. It will help in the drive towards quieter computing and will also be an excellent choice for newer technologies such as PCI Express and Serial ATA. While we may see BTX boards sometime this year, its full effect will be felt sometime next year.

Sushil Oswal