DailyTech - AMD Releases DTX Specification

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Hardware AMD Releases DTX Specification
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - February 19, 2007 7:43 PM

23 comment(s) - last by 8steve8.. on Feb 20 at 4:17 PM

AMD makes the official DTX specifications available to partners

AMD has officially pulled the wraps off its DTX specification (PDF). The company announced the specification was under development at the Consumer Electronics Show last month. Final mechanical specifications of the DTX form factor are available on AMD’s DTXPC website.

Base DTX motherboard specifications are as follows:

Overall size

DTX – 9.60 in x 8.00 in (243.84 mm x 203.20 mm)
Mini-DTX – 6.70 in x 8.00 in (170.18 mm x 203.20 mm)

Mounting hole locations
Rear I/O dimensions and locations
PCI and/or PCI Express connector locations

Although DTX is slightly larger than VIA’s mini-ITX form factor, DTX calls for two expansion slots. Motherboard manufacturers are free to decide the configuration of the expansion slots, which can be PCI, PCIe or both. DTX motherboards will receive power via 24-pin power connector and auxiliary +12v 4-pin connector as standard ATX motherboards too.

With the specification finally published, it is up to manufacturers to build cases and motherboards based on the specification.

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Case standards

By Desslok on 2/19/2007 11:30:04 PM , Rating: 5

Hopefully this will do better than the ill fated BTX.

RE: Case standards

By lplatypus on 2/19/2007 11:44:51 PM , Rating: 2

Think about it: ATX has been very popular over a long period of time. BTX was at least available on the market. CTX was a real flop (never heard of it? exactly). There's an obvious progression here. DTX hasn't got a chance ;-)

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RE: Case standards

By Assimilator87 on 2/19/2007 11:49:05 PM , Rating: 2

DTX may make it because I think it's backwards compatible with the ATX standard, whereas BTX and VIA's standards aren't cross compatible. I don't think BTX is useless though. The point of the standard is to improve CPU cooling. Although current CPUs aren't nearly as power hungry as Prescott and its derivatives, overclocking completely cancels out the lower power/temperatures so any extra cooling helps in my opinion.

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RE: Case standards

By soydios on 2/20/2007 12:08:09 AM , Rating: 2

BTX was Intel's specification for OEM's to keep the high temperatures of Prescott in check. It never caught on in the enthusiast market.

I hope DTX succeeds. If I ever build a small-form-factor home theater PC, it should be built either on microATX or DTX, IMHO. The fact that it's backwards compatible with ATX should make its adoption tremendously easier and more likely.

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RE: Case standards

By stmok on 2/20/2007 1:10:27 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
DTX may make it because I think it's backwards compatible with the ATX standard, whereas BTX and VIA's standards aren't cross compatible.

VIA's Mini-ITX is FULLY compatible with ATX. If it weren't so, I wouldn't be able to move my little EPIA mobo around various ATX cases!

DTX and Mini-ITX are both compatible with ATX. Only BTX is the odd one out. The majority out there didn't want to retool for BTX, so it never became all that popular. It does exist mainly in OEM solutions though.

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RE: Case standards

By Viditor on 2/20/2007 3:59:33 AM , Rating: 1

quote:
Only BTX is the odd one out

Remember that BTX was designed by Intel for Intel...it has severe detriments for chips with on-die memory controllers because of the memory position.
My guess is that it won't work for Nehalem when Intel release it either...

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RE: Case standards

By Thorburn on 2/20/2007 5:43:37 AM , Rating: 2

Whats wrong with BTX for IMC's? The CPU is nice and near the memory sockets, quite similar to some of the DFI Socket 939 designs.
There also exist a BTX boards for AMD platforms, but these are generally only used by OEM's such as Dell or HP.

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RE: Case standards

By Brassbullet on 2/20/2007 1:10:29 AM , Rating: 2

I actually kind of liked BTX.

I used to work with a lot of BTX Gateway designs and found them overall to be a very pleasing design.

There were tons of cable issues if you used legacy components and they didn't play nice with dual-slot video cards (or long video cards, for that matter), but overall they felt more like openning up a G5 tower than any other PC I've worked on, and that's a good feeling.

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btx is alive

By 8steve8 on 2/20/2007 2:47:36 AM , Rating: 4

BTX is alive and well on the market

my most recent build was a pbtx intel g965 board with dvi/hdcp and an aopen pbtx case ..
intel core 2 duo e6600 and 2gb of pc6400 ddr2

very nice formfactor
allows for a very small case, with no tiny fans that have to spin faster and create more noise.

i love btx.

link me to all the news stories about it being dead that you want... but its alive and well in the market. in fact more than half of pcs shipped out today are btx... why do u guys talk about it in teh past tense.

RE: btx is alive

By Kim Leo on 2/20/2007 5:54:44 AM , Rating: 3

If it is doing so well how come intel is killing it off sooner than planned?, i haven't actually had a computer using BTX here where i work, and I do get to se a lot of computers.. Not that i have anything against BTX but i don't believe the benefits are significant.. the cool thing about DTX is that it is an open standard, and it does look nice :D, I think this has a chance because of that, and with all the focus that are on AMD it will probably be tried, and hopefully used, i would love a media center build on one of these. for BTX i would say that this qoute applies:"if it aint broken, don't fix it"

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RE: btx is alive

By 8steve8 on 2/20/2007 4:17:35 PM , Rating: 2

as for it being "killed" eventually im sure it'll disapear, as will atx and everything else we currently use... as for when I don't know... but i see no signs of its imminent death in the market.

most gateway dell and compaq new pcs are btx.

As much as I like AMD, I dont think this platform has a chance... too many options out there... especially without intel's support.

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RE: btx is alive

By Lazarus Dark on 2/20/2007 7:24:53 AM , Rating: 2

really? I am actually considering the picoBTX G965PZMKR mobo with an e6300 and 1gb ram. I'm looking to get it in the next couple weeks for the first half of my new build (my case is dual mobo- this is just the first mobo). It was between this and the asus p5b-vm. I keep leaning towards the picoBTX due in large part to the complete lack of legacy, no pci, no parallel, no ide, not even ps/2 ports (a real rarity thus as far as I can tell). Ive even already bought a sata dvd burner in preperation, along with a couple ide to sata converters for my old dvd drives.

Could you tell me how you like the mobo? I can't find any info on it aside from basic specs. Any problems or anything its lacking? Have you found any use for the minipcie slot? Any problems with drivers or with windows and sata? I have a 1080p lcd I'll be hooking it up to, does the x3000 provide much, if any, help decoding 1080p trailers or playing high def/upscaled sd? How about gaming? I don't expect much but what should I expect?

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RE: btx is alive

By 8steve8 on 2/20/2007 1:54:55 PM , Rating: 2

I have an intel 802.11 abg card in the minipcie slot.

i use vista x64, all drivers are good. except for the bios upgrade exe from intel doesnt seem to work on vistax64.... I'm sure they will fix that in future builds.

i watch lots of hd and non-hd content, on a 1600x1200 lcd, upscaled and native.. everything is fine.

audio is great.

network is great *intel gb pci-e*

the x3000 handles vista aero very well... i havnt gamed with it.

sleep and hybernation in vista just works.

all in all best non-OC board ive ever experienced

make sure u get 1.8v ddr2 ram. pc6400 preferably

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I guess this is good for

By Regs on 2/19/2007 11:16:00 PM , Rating: 2

What exactly?

RE: I guess this is good for

By Goty on 2/19/2007 11:27:45 PM , Rating: 3

It's good for smaller than mini- and micro-atx SFF PCs that need more power than any of the ITX solutions can provide.

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vid card is most important

By ElJefe69 on 2/20/2007 10:38:25 AM , Rating: 1

Right now, for enthusiasts, the cpu could use just about any heatsink and fan combo and run cool. cpu's are also care the least about heat. motherboard parts like chipsets vrms and such really want to be cooled down. Any amount of air blown on them though in a case with positive pressure, i.e., a case with a front fan and open front vents, can produce enough air to keep parts cool.

the only one that currently has no asistance is the pci-16 slot. r600 is going to be a nuclear reactor. 8800's produce a lot of heat themselves. in total I think the gfx cards produce more heat than the entire system combined.

Yet, look at btx. they are on the top where heat rises, still crammed in tight slot configurations. atx, on the bottom, needing a 2nd slot to be open for air. Both really lame. dtxbtxatx whatever are designed for shitty office computers from dell and gateway. they have not gfx power and the psu's sound like jet engines, get full of dust from being a major puller of air, die early and who cares as big business is wealthy and upgrades often. I havent seen a setup that addresses the vid card. dont mention that retarded riser btx thing, doesnt fit in almost any situation and a heavy heatsink on the card wouldnt work right.

dtx is just way to address how micro-atx isnt small enough yet it is making sure it gets 2 slots as 1 slot for a micro is lame.

RE: vid card is most important

By Obujuwami on 2/20/2007 3:44:28 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
...whatever are designed for s***ty office computers from dell and gateway.

This is only a half true and half intelligent statement at best. DTX would be great for places where you need a small form factor PC and I highly doubt that any real enthusiast is going to use anything smaller than a mid-tower to make a decent gaming computer. Your example is great for people whose lives consist of working at the [fill in the menial job here] by day and gaming by night, but the application of this motherboard is more for home users and business users that want a small computer that will do office, internet, and maybe solitaire.

I am an enthusiast at heart and believe me when I say that I loved my shuttle but it was never a real gaming machine. It didn’t have the power or space for the components to dissipate heat efficiently and because of that I went back to mid-towers. I recently built a new computer for my wife that registers at about 34db (at full load), it has a 250mm fan on the side, and it’s rather quiet compared to my friends water cooled box. (to be completely honest, he replaced a lot of fans on his water cooling kit with more powerful ones.)

So, in conclusion, DTX is good for regular people and bad for enthusiasts. You want a small form factor for gaming get a shuttle and mod the case, that’s what I eventually had to do and it was not worth it.

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RE: vid card is most important

By Obujuwami on 2/20/2007 3:46:19 PM , Rating: 2

oops, forgot to close the quote

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This is...

By Murst on 2/20/2007 12:02:13 AM , Rating: 1

about as exciting as AMDs dual dual core competition to Intel's quad core. Hopefully AMD will stop with this crap and produce some competition to C2D / C2Q. I'm looking forward to the 3rd quarter.

RE: This is...

By soydios on 2/20/2007 12:09:50 AM , Rating: 2

K8L is coming, but only benchmarks will tell how it fares against Core2 processors.

If I were to build a SFF home theater system today, I would still use AMD processors, because they're cheaper and the EE models use less power than Core2.

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DTX a welcome alternative to Micro-ATX

By johnsonx on 2/20/2007 1:27:54 AM , Rating: 2

I surely hope this catches on, as for most applications Micro-ATX is needlessly large. There's nothing Micro- about it.

Most of the systems I deliver have nothing but empty space where the expansion slots are; reducing that wasted capacity by 50% would be most welcome. DTX does it without eliminating the possibility of future upgrades.

The problems

By Targon on 2/20/2007 7:53:47 AM , Rating: 2

BTX failed because Intel tried to push it out while AMD was gaining market share at a good rate and while AMD had the better processor. BTX also failed because while it had certain advantages, it required that certain components be in places that they just should not be on an AMD based machine due to HyperTransport and the locations for various components on an Athlon 64 motherboard.

If DTX doesn't specify where components should be on the motherboard, it will probably do better because it would work for both AMD as well as Intel based machines. Integrated sound these days is far better on average these days than what we saw when BTX was first released, so the need for an add-in sound card has gone down.

The real question is if we really NEED another form factor at this point, or if the various ATX form factors satisfy the demands of enough people to limit adoption of DTX.

Is there anything wrong with ATX and mini-ATX ?

By 13Gigatons on 2/20/2007 4:12:03 PM , Rating: 2

They seem to work just fine and they have been a good standard for a long time. I prefer full ATX board because it has more PCI slots.

Mini-ATX is fine for HomeTheater PC's.

No reason to change a Standard until we actually need it.