Sidney

REPORT claimed that the BTX form factor is only likely to account for a tiny fraction of machines shipping during 2005.
BTX stands for Balanced Technology Extended - its own web site here, says that it is considering offering type II BTX modules this year. It has some BTX boxed desktop boards available, but will only say that it "is considering" offering additional boards this year.

It has two reference designs to demonstrate the shape of PCs using BTX - a 12.9 litre slim tower and a 6.9 litre ultra small system. These designs are just to validate the concept, it says on its web site.

Taiwanese magazine Digitimes quoted Shuttle executive Ken Huang as saying that the firm will introduce three so-called "pico" BTX based machines during 2005. But only five per cent of the XPCs Shuttle will sell this year will use the BTX factor - heavily promoted by Intel.

However, BTX may become a factor in PCs next year, although the inherent price of making machines using the form factor militates against its widespread adoption by system manufacturers.

Intel was pretty low key about BTX at its recent Developer Forum in San Francisco, although it did lay out a booth in the exhibition area promoting it as a factor. The "Smithfield" dual core systems it showed off then used the ever popular ATX form factor.

Its own motherboard maps, seen by the INQ recently, show that Intel itself is still not ready to push BTX in a big way except in a minority of own built motherboards. Next year is a different litre of fish.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22117

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