Pc's Latest Motherboards

BTX Formfactor Motherboard

PCI Express Technology Motherboard

PCI Express technology is the successor to today's PCI bus and AGP graphic architectures. The serial PCI Express architecture offers scalable bandwidth from 2.5 to 80 Gigabits per second and advanced features that meet the I/O needs of next-generation systems like 10 GHz-plus CPU speeds, faster memory, higher-speed graphics, and support for highspeed GigaBit Ethernet networking.
With the demands of emerging computing models exceeding the capabilities of the traditional PCI bus, there is a need for much greater internal system bandwidth for the next decade. PCI Express was designed to meet the requirements of the growing number of high-bandwidth applications, such as high-quality digital photography, multimedia, advanced computer-aided design and digital video editing. The image to the left shows two PCI Express connectors (the dark connectors) next to two PCI connectors (the light connectors) that are used on motherboards today.

BTX is a new motherboard formfactor that moves the processor to the front of the case, moves the chipset in order to obtain higher I/O speeds and features better cooling. The BTX formfactor may have been greated very well by PC enthusiasts but the chasis manufacturers are not too happy since they have to shell out the big ucks, near $50K, to retool their assembly line. AMD is not following INTEL's footsteps since it stated to the public that it will not embrace this new standard unless customers ask for it. BTX has a way better design than its preceder, ATX, and it willdefenetively become the new standard soon.