RAM | Reseller Advocate Magazine: Issue 54

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by William Van Winkle

The BTX Factor

Few industry-wide changes have met as much opposition as the Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) form factor. Originally slated to replace ATX by the end of 2004, BTX addresses three key areas. Foremost, BTX creates a sort of wind tunnel running through the system, with the PC's hottest components sitting right in that air path. This allows for more efficient and quieter system cooling. BTX has a redesigned set of chassis mounting points and devices that allow for some of the heavier add-ons that strain current ATX boards. (Try hefting a 773g Zalman Cu-7000 heatsink, for example. ATX motherboards are only rated for a maximum 450g CPU cooler.) Not least of all, BTX allows for a lower profile backplane, which benefits both SFF consumer PCs as well as enterprise servers.

Thus, of the four vectors targeted by SFF, BTX addresses the first two: smaller size and lower noise. Said differently, mobile-on-desktop is about low wattage; BTX is a component cooling methodology. BTX was designed at a time when Intel was waist-deep in Prescott core thermal woes. The path to Conroe was still uncharted, so BTX was devised in part as a work-around. If you can't cool the inside of the chip, do a better job of cooling the outside.

There are three primary BTX formats: regular BTX (up to 12.8" x 10.5"), microBTX (up to 10.4" x 10.5"), and pico-BTX (8.0" x 10.5). The picoBTX design can accommodate one slot and has only four mounting holes. MicroBTX supports up to four slots, and BTX handles up to seven. There are two types of BTX backplanes. Type I is 3.98" high, accommodates full-height cards, and is designed for a 12.9-liter chassis. Type II is only 3.0" high, takes low-profile cards, and facilitates a 6.9-liter design.

In July of 2005, the nanoBTX form factor was added to the lineup. This specifies a maximum board width of 223.52 mm versus picoBTX's 203.20 mm. The advantage of nanoBTX is that you get two slots instead of one—a good thing if you need to add tuners or other upgrades.

The problem with BTX is the perennial chicken and egg dilemma. In theory, it's cheaper to build BTX than ATX. But because there's no volume yet, BTX remains more expensive. And now with low-power CPU designs coming on b, manufacturers see less need than ever for BTX in the mainstream. Antec only just recently announced its first BTX tower, and other channel heavyweights like Foxconn and Enlight still have yet to make a b BTX showing in distribution. Talk to the case vendors and they'll tell you that they're waiting for better BTX motherboard availability. Talk to the motherboard vendors and you'll find they're waiting for cases. And without an urgent need in the market, odds are we'll all keep on waiting. "We know Intel is squeezing the channel to move," says Antec senior vice president Scott Richards. "They've pulled out a lot of their ATX motherboards, so Intel-loyal resellers need better availability on BTX chassis. Now, this is speculation, but even though AMD has been known for running cooler, it's not going to be that long before AMD crosses that thermal bridge, too. And even though the company is a lot further along than it was a few years ago, it still doesn't have the prominence in the market to throw up its own form factor. So when AMD gets there, it'll probably have to back BTX, too.

And there's the rub. While the low-power revamp has saved ATX in 2006 and probably 2007, the trend toward multi-core processors has its own logical conclusion. The thermal demons will eventually return, and we're still going to need BTX by the end of this decade.

"The reality is that we think BTX is a more stable, long-term solution for the future," says Intel desktop boards marketing manager Brian Jarvis. "BTX systems simply have better acoustics and thermal advantages. With the next generation of processors, we'll have a thermal advantage, but how long that will last as we develop multi-core remains to be seen. The bottom line is that heat is going to remain a concern for PCs, and BTX will help deal with that better than any other broad form factor standard."

If Conroe truly does presage the future, then it seems likely that SFF will once again be the first to feel the inevitable heat squeeze. Smaller cases mean less airflow and smaller heatsinks—no way around it. Intel sees SFF dominating the coming market, and the company tends to lead the industry to new spaces rather than react defensively. (Yes, critics can find plenty of exceptions.) But if small is the trend and SFF processors are only going to get hotter, then Intel's desire to make BTX the standard for SFF systems makes perfect sense from both market growth and end-user cost perspectives. Standards always help promote higher volume.

Which BTX form factor will become most popular in the SFF space? It's too early to tell. The larger microATX clearly trounced FlexATX, which allowed for sizes from 6.8" x 6.8" to 9.0" x 7.5". PicoBTX seems to be gaining fans in the ultra-small category, but the new nanoBTX design is already taking root among the tier-ones. If the set-top/ePC approach does prove most popular with consumers, microBTX would seem a likely winner. Today, though, it's anybody's call, and the difference between small and really small may not even matter in the end. "Interestingly, the market research I got right before CeBIT showed that people don't really care if a system is low profile or not," says Carsten Berger, technical product manager for Sapphire. "They just want to have it silent. It should be beautiful, but as long as it's not huge, microATX is fine."

Intel's objective for BTX in 2006 is primarily to get the channel used to the concept. By third quarter, almost 40% of motherboards will be BTX. Tier-one OEMs are approaching that percentage already. Like it or not, the future seems inevitable, and the sooner the channel helps ramp BTX volume, the sooner system builders will have access to competitive products.

Today's Brightest Plays

The small form factor and mobile-on-desktop spaces are not tiny niches in their infancy. A surprisingly large number of products exist today, and many, many more will be arriving in the coming months. Obviously, we can't catalog the entire range of today's SFF and MoDT offerings, but we can give you a sampler plate to get you thinking about the kinds of SKUs and vendors you can target in order to start creating unique solutions for your customers.

Antec's Aria and Minuet 300

At a time when the market was first starting to become disillusioned with proprietary SFF designs, Antec released the Aria case, a cube enclosure built on the microATX standard. A bit larger than most proprietary cubes (7.9" x 10.6" x 13.2"), the Aria had the tremendous advantage of fitting up to four expansion slots. While not quite as sexy and sturdy as other models in Antec's LifeStyle line, the Aria's single 120 mm fan puts out only 25 dB(A), making it virtually silent.

"The Aria has really picked up in popularity over the last year or so," notes Antec's Scott Richards. "It was never a really huge seller, but as the non-standard cube cases—like the Shuttle, where there's no interchangeable standard motherboard—have declined, we've seen a rise in sales in our standardized products. Frankly, I think people want standardization. And they're looking for small form factor cases for things media centers but also things like small footprint on the desktop. Also, these days people know what they need computers to do. If you're doing MS Office, you don't need a smokin' 3.6 GHz machine. Something like mobile-on-desktop is a great way to go for a user like that, so you can use a small case that doesn't need to move a lot of heat."

Such thinking is sort of a prerequisite for the Aria today since the case is only rated to handle Pentium 4 chips up to the Northwood core. With Prescott and Presler, you take your chances on overheating. A MoDT board is a far more attractive play.

With this in mind, Antec is queuing up for a second Aria version. The integrated card reader will disappear, which was largely unwanted in the system builder market and added unnecessary cost. The 1394 port will vanish for the same reasons. Antec will keep the excellent three-layer aluminum-plastic-aluminum exterior for sound dampening but switch to a steel interior for ber build quality. The company will also take care to market the case for low-power CPUs to help minimize thermal problems.

For those who want a slim design rather than a cube, Antec's "piano black" Minuet line has done very well over the last three years. The newest addition to this family, the Minuet 300, steps up to a 300W power supply from the Minuet II's 220W unit. In all other ways, the case design remains unchanged. The microATX chassis is low profile with 3.8" x 12.75" x 16.8" dimensions. With three drive bays (two external), front I/O ports, a flip-up drive cage for easier building, and four expansion slots, this sexy chrome-on-black unit blends in tastefully to a wide range of environments.

AOpen miniPC Duo

The miniPC Duo is shaping up to be the unofficial SFF flagship for the first half of 2006. The original miniPC arrived last December as the first PC follow-up to Apple's Mac Mini. According to Jacky Lin, product manager for miniPC, Intel wanted a SFF design on the market that would appeal to classrooms and approached AOpen to help come up with a solution. The result was a remarkably compact, 1.36-liter design that mirrored Apple's minimalist aesthetic while delivering Pentium M performance.

The new Duo version, the MP945-VX, will launch during Intel's Spring 2006 Channel Conference (ICC), and AOpen will put on a SFF/MoDT boot camp in 11 of the 33 cities. (You may also be interested to know that, for 2006 at least, AOpen will only sell the Duo as a barebones unit within channel distribution.) The 65W unit is Viiv-ready and uses the 945GME chipset. The 1.4-liter MP945-VX's design displays its cleverness from the moment you pick up your screwdriver. The four case screws are hidden behind each corner of the thick rubber square that covers most of the PC's bottom. The chassis separates into two halves, with the slimline ODD and 2.5" hard drive mounted in the top piece. The CPU and chipset are buried under a quiet heatsink fan that fills most of the motherboard's right half. A SO-DIMM slot and single Mini PCI slot adorn the left. Strangely, a mini parallel ATA connector is on the motherboard, and this connects with a SATA-to-PATA adapter attached to the hard drive. We can only assume this was done as a better alternative to managing a SATA cable. Three 1/8" analog audio, two USB, one six-wire 1394a, one Gigabit Ethernet, S-Video, DVI, and DC power jacks fill the backplane.

All in all, AOpen's design is clever and effective. We felt the only hiccups were lack of SPDIF output and the use of a single RAM slot—a shame given the platform's dual-channel capabilities. That aside, the MP945-VX is virtually silent thanks to its decent ventilation, quiet CPU fan, and use of an external power brick. The brushed aluminum exterior is thick and rugged, assembly from the barebones takes under 10 minutes, and there are even different color options for the plastic top plate. Nice work.

"This second generation will also be targeting the commercial market," says AOpen's Lin. "For the first vertical, we'll be working with Intel and aiming into education. You've got low power consumption and low total cost of ownership. I even have the formula that can convert the power savings into dollars."

Naturally, there are plenty of other suitable verticals. Lin notes that some resellers have even adapted the miniPC for tanks and aircraft. As the public increasingly learns about SFF, expect more installation openings to appear within your customer base.

ASUS N4L-DH and Pundit Series

Unlike some other vendors, ASUS only has one MoDT board out and doesn't plan on releasing any others in the near future. Vice president of marketing Raymond Chen figures that given the N4L-VM DH's broad feature bed and high reseller demand, "it's probably quite adequate to fit all of the market in the short-term."

The ASUS board doesn't sport all of the cost-adding extras of, say, the AiLife series. Instead, it focuses on only what is essential to a solid microATX entertainment PC. For example, there are only two 3 Gbps SATA ports since SFF boxes are unlikely to accommodate more drives, but ASUS plants an eSATA port alongside the six-wire 1394a and four USB ports on the backplane. HD Audio output via analog as well as coax and optical SPDIF are present, VGA is obviously integrated, ASUS opts for Intel's Gigabit LAN chip, plus there's a TV out header on the motherboard. Two DDR2 slots are present for dual-channel running, PCI and PCI Express slots are onboard, and, as mentioned above, ASUS bundles in an essentially silent heatsink. Enthusiasts will even find some overclocking features to keep themselves busy. With an estimated street price around $155, this is probably the best MoDT microATX board we've seen to date.

Thus far, ASUS hasn't shown any pursuit of ultra-small form factor designs. Whereas the consumer-oriented S-Presso was a stinging disappointment for the company and the set-top-style Digimatrix is currently in dry dock, the old Pundit family of upright book PCs continues to do well in the corporate space.

The Pundit P1-PH1 runs up to 3.8 GHz Pentium 4 chips but doesn't support dual-core because of its use of the 915G chipset (which subsequently morphed into the ATI Xpress 200, which does support dual-core, but apparently not here). The PH1 is a proprietary design smaller than microATX—only 3.58" wide and 10.83" deep. There is no built-in wireless, but there are two PCI expansion slots, a stealthed card reader and I/O array up front, and both VGA and DVI on the backplane.

For those who want a more standardized approach, the Pundit-PH3 is a slim upright microATX design only slightly wider (3.74") than the PH1. The PH3 is based on the Intel 915G chipset and is rated for CPUs up to the 3.6 GHz Prescott. All four expansion slots (1 x16 PCIe, 1 x1 PCIe, 2 PCI) are low profile. We like the ID of the PH1 better, but knowing you're on a standard form factor has its own appeal.

"Many of our customers use the Pundit for vertical market sales," says ASUS' Chen. "Small form factor can clearly be a business play. And let's be frank. It's hard to use these solutions to come up with a Viiv-compatible system, but it's easy to customize a solution for multimedia. The opportunity for resellers is to use our basic platform and source the tuner card, add the wireless connection, and make it an attractive solution for like the student market, for a DYI kit solution, or for selling as a multimedia system entirely under their own brand."

Chen sees the SFF arena opening up much more to the Viiv initiative as add-in board vendors increasingly push for low profile SKUs.

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