Welcome
BTX Form Factor Info (www.btxformfactor.com) was developed to do exactly what the name implies... Provide a central location for information regarding the new form factor developed by Intel.

Pertinent news, reviews, and other items of interested related to the BTX form factor will be posted here to help eliminate the confusion surrounding this exciting development in personal computing. The site will be continually updated with new links as the information becomes available.

Latest Content Latest content from The BTX... USB - Past, Present & Future USB - or Universal Serial Bus technology has become a widespread, simple, cheap way of connecting all kinds of devices. The Article - The Forum Discussion Deconstructing an OCZ XTC Heatspreader This article takes a look at the composition of an OCZ Technology XTC heatspreader installed on a dual channel DDR2 kit to see if it really does anything useful. The Article - The Forum Discussion Windows Vista Top 10 Tips and Tricks Here you can find how to change power button default action, hide desktop icon text, enable Aurora the hidden BootScreen, fix for COM Surrogate error and many more cool tips and tricks. The Article - The Forum Discussion Improving Your Google Searches While Google is a great search engine, you've probably noticed that when you do a search, Google usually returns more results that you can comfortably chew. But how can you limit Google's search results? The Guide - The Forum Discussion Top Ten Reasons to Upgrade to Windows Vista Windows Vista is scheduled for release in January 30, 2007. An interesting fact here is that it has been five years since the release of its predecessor, Windows XP, making it the longest time span between major releases of Windows. The Article - The Forum Discussion Articles: Articles :: Guides :: Overviews Reviews: Cases :: Coolers :: Other

News
The News page at BTX Form Factor Info (www.btxformfactor.com) will be maintained with current links to information related to BTX form factor technology, general product development, press releases, and other topics not specifically related to a single product.

Please visit the BTX News page to see the latest on the BTX form factor.

Please visit the Web News page to see the latest regarding tech news of all kinds.

About the BTX Form Factor
"Intel has collaborated with the Desktop Computing industry to create an evolutionary step in the desktop computer form factor. Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) integrates cost-effective engineering and design strategies for power dissipation, structural integrity, acoustic performance, and motherboard design into a scalable form factor. The BTX specification was introduced at Intel Developer Forum in Fall, 2003. Intel and others in the desktop computing industry plan to start offering products based on this innovative new form factor starting in Q4, 2004.

Here you will find information about the form factor, why it was developed, and what new ingredients are needed, as well as links to valuable BTX-related content, including product information, enabling collateral, tested hardware lists, and training resources." - source, intel.com

"The BTX form factor specification gives developers options to balance thermal management, acoustics, system performance, and size in the system form factors and stylish designs that are desired in today's products. The BTX form factor is a clear break from previous ATX form factor layouts and was developed with emerging technologies such as Serial ATA, USB 2.0, and PCI Express.

Thermal improvements come primarily from taking advantage of in-line airflow. The BTX defined in-line airflow layout allows many of the main board components (i.e.: processor, chipset, and graphics controller) to utilize the same primary fan airflow, thereby reducing the need for, and noise from, additional system fans. In some cases this also allows fewer and/or less expensive heat sinks to be used when compared to ATX solutions. The system level acoustics are also improved by the reduced air turbulence within the in-line airflow system. The BTX layout supports better component placement for back panel I/O controllers – important as the signal speed of external devices continues to increase. In addition to smaller than microATX system sizes, BTX was designed to scale up to tower size systems using the same core layout by increasing the number of system slots included." - source, formfactors.org

Links to Specifications (PDFs)
BTX Interface Specification Revision 1.0b
BTX System Design Guide Revision 1.0
BTX Interface Specification Errata A Revision 1.0
BTX Entertainment PC Case Study Revision 1.0