BTX MoBoard Form Factor
 

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/graph...201p094-4b.jpg

Ah yes... there it is. Looks so much more efficient than ATX. 2004 should be an awesome year for computers. We will see the P5 with speeds of 5ghz to 7ghz, smaller hard drives, improved PCI Express interface, and this new BTX layout. What are your opinions on it? Supposably they will be introduced in Mid 2004, I can't wait.

That's all dandy and all, but it also means that an entirely new set of cases will have to be made. Every single PC case that has been constructed so far will not work with this new motherboard model. That's really the only disadvantage...I like how that fan blows directly onto the CPU, even though a lot of cases already have that feature.

-Lasereth

i'm hoping for twin AGP, AGP 8x AFAIK is capable of at least two slots, but i'm guessing they are looking to simplify the design

actually, AGP is inferior to PCI Express. PCI Express transfers at 60 gigs/sec and AGP 8x at 2 gigs/sec, i don't think the numbers are too accurate, but it's something with a huge gap favoring this new PCI bus.

indeed, i glossed over your original message apologies.
pci express looks very interesting, it will also be interesting to see if the oems take on pci-express when pci-x is very capable and a lot easier and cheaper to upgrade motherboards too.

its a very interesting design, especially with the newcard technology too, finally laptops with real expansion capabilities

thanks for the heads up

Intel has predicted speeds in the 4ghz range for 2004. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

In what time period do we see CPU core speeds increase by a factor of two? Certainly not in one year...