BTX with PCI Express motherboards

[EmosOohay]

I've got to upgrade and was wondering if anyone knows about when will BTX motherboards with PCI Express be available?

TIA

 

[ronss]

from what i have read- h2 of 2004. the btx motherboards will have nothing in common with the stanard atx, excpept for the power supply. also, most will come with pci express and ati has a video adapter that will be released with the btx platforms start showing up.

 

[EmosOohay]

If you know would that be early or late in the second half?

 

[ronss]

not sure, hard to get hard facts on the release, but my quess is later 2nd half. i am waiting for the kt880 chipset asus board, they finnally got some reviews on it. should be out soon

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/via-kt880.html

personally, i will not rush into the btx form factor boards, the version 1,s are usually buggy. remember when i got the asus a7n8x deluxe, lot of problems

 

[HardWarrior]

Last I heard Intel was having problems forcing BTX down the throats of the mb OEM's. Which is just about right consider ATX isn't and the end of its cooling ability. Emos, if you've "got" to upgrade, does it really make sense to worry about bleeding edge stuff? BTX with PCI E aren't going available AND shaken-out for a year or more.

 

[EmosOohay]

My impression was that both technologies would be available sooner. Will PCI Express be introduced on the ATX form factor?

 

[HardWarrior]

For sure with ATX because, from what I understand, AMD doesn't want to have anything to do with BTX being that it's Intel's initiative. Even if PCI Express shows up tomorrow the actual video cards won't be much better than their AGP counterparts right away. It'll take even longer for game developers to start using the extra bandwidth.

 

[EmosOohay]

Isn't PCI Express replacing PCI overall? Or will it be just an AGP replacement at first?

If the new system will have a working life of at least 5 years, should I wait for BTX and/or PCI Express? I can wait 6 months or so with only a moderate amount of frustration.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

IMHO, get the best deals that you can on current stuff and hang on till around the end of next year. Then go for the whole nine yards : 3kW PSU, BTX, PCI-X, PCI-Express, liquid nitrogen cooling, etc.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: EmosOohay
Isn't PCI Express replacing PCI overall? Or will it be just an AGP replacement at first?

If the new system will have a working life of at least 5 years, should I wait for BTX and/or PCI Express? I can wait 6 months or so with only a moderate amount of frustration.

That's the idea, but don't expect the transition to be all that abrupt.

5-years??? Sorry Emos, I had assumed that you were a gamer. 5-years for any component is just this side of forever in gamer terms. If I were you and wanted some longevity in my purchase I'd wait for the second wave of PCI Express, BTX, PCI-X products, just to give the technology a while to mature. What are you running now and for what primarily?

 

[jrphoenix]

Originally posted by: EmosOohay
My impression was that both technologies would be available sooner. Will PCI Express be introduced on the ATX form factor?

Yes... it looks like AMD will be the first to have the new PCI-E motherboards... Check out this thread where Kristopher confirms: AMD First.

Looks like AMD will have PCI-E montherboards on June 1 and Intel will follow on June 16. I'm waiting to hear if the Intel version will be BTX?

 

[EmosOohay]

Dually with 2 - 850Mhz PIIIs. After I'm done the wife and kids use it, so 5 years is a minimum.

Haven't had time to play many games recently, but may have to make an exception for HL2.

Used mostly for document image management, web site development, increasing involvement with digital images and video, some games, general business apps. The current system is pretty much out of gas, especially when my work with digital images and video ramps up.

I may not want to wait for a second wave, which is the smart move, but build twice. Now and in a while.

I was waiting until the 64bit technology had time to effect the market and the 3Ghz or above was the sweet spot from a price/performance perspective, but then these BTX and PCI Express issues poped up. I'll decide when to jump on this speeding train soon.

cheers!

 

[EmosOohay]

Dually with 2 - 850Mhz PIIIs. After I'm done the wife and kids use it, so 5 years is a minimum.

Haven't had time to play many games recently, but may have to make an exception for HL2.

Used mostly for document image management, web site development, increasing involvement with digital images and video, some games, general business apps. The current system is pretty much out of gas, especially when my work with digital images and video ramps up.

I may not want to wait for a second wave, which is the smart move, but build twice. Now and in a while.

I was waiting until the 64bit technology had time to effect the market and the 3Ghz or above was the sweet spot from a price/performance perspective, but then these BTX and PCI Express issues poped up. I'll decide when to jump on this speeding train soon.

cheers!

 

[mudboy]

Originally posted by: ronss
from what i have read- h2 of 2004. the btx motherboards will have nothing in common with the stanard atx, excpept for the power supply. also, most will come with pci express and ati has a video adapter that will be released with the btx platforms start showing up.

I think the statement "nothing in common" is a bit strong, I suspect that early BTX motherboard will have a couple of standard PCI slots, plus support for DDR (not DDR2), they will use existing CPU's, etc. I think at worst if you wanted to go "full BTX" you would need to buy a new case, motherboard, and PCI-X16 video card (though I suspect there will be some BTX mobo's with AGP). Think back to the AT->ATX times and that's pretty much what happened then, it was just differents cases/power supplies, and motherboards. New memory (PC-66) and AGP slots came a while after that.

Pete

 

[clille]

I am waiting, just like you.

My setup is a dual Xeon 2.66 + Asus PP-DLW with 1 Gb reg. mem. I don't have time to play games anymore but I want a "crisp" system that launch any program as fast as possible and edit images, search the web and run all my programs at the same time - this is also why I am using SCSI 15 K harddrives

I am going to use my current system as my new home server - and then I want to get a system with BTX, PCI-E, PCI-X.

I am getting the CM Stacker cabinet now, which can be converted from ATX to BTX without extra cost.