 Intel's two year BTX adoption forecast
Remember BTX? It's more prevalent than you might think
On
November 15, 2004, Intel officially announced the launch of BTX with the
promise the new form factor would provide a scalable efficient motherboard layout design
while reducing overall costs. 18 months later Intel put out an internal
forecast detailing the adoption rate forecasts for Balanced Technology Extended
form factor, or BTX.
Intel's forecast for BTX on Intel-based PCs is set at 36% by the end of next
year. Intel already projects the adoption rate of BTX for the first half
of 2006 to be at 24%. The answer for this is very simple, simple builders
are using BTX and en masse. The channel availability of retail BTX
motherboards does not even register on Intel's 1H'06 forecast, but the document
does claim BTX will account for 5% of new system DIY builds by the end of this year
using retail and channel components.
The same BTX adoption forecast puts system builder adoption of BTX as high as
21% for Intel-based PCs. 92% of Dell desktops, 98% Gateway Intel
desktops, and 65% of Lenovo desktops are using BTX form factors. The
document goes on to detail that HP is also adopting BTX for its Intel PC lineup; the
company's business BTX line will launch later this year while the consumer Intel PC line has differed
the BTX conversion decision until 2007. Regardless, three of the
top four US system builders are using BTX at least in majority.
Although 24% seems a tad high for the BTX adoption rate, it's no secret that
channel sales of BTX are less than spectacular. There are four flavors of
BTX: BTX, MicroBTX, NanoBTX and PicoBTX. The BTX form factor allows
for smaller BTX motherboards to be compatible with chassis designed for larger
flavors; thus a NanoBTX motherboard is compatible with a MicroBTX chassis.
However, with slow adoption on large BTX cases, almost all motherboards
geared for the retail channel are PicoBTX. This assures compatibility with the most cases, but in effect also assures that any new channel BTX motherboards
will have only the most basic of features. Unfortunately, when compared
with mature FlexATX and MicroATX motherboards, PicoBTX falls short on features
and maturity.
Along with ATX, BTX has another format competitor: proprietary design.
Intel does not only accept proprietary designs, the
company actually encourages them for projects like the Mobile on
DeskTop (MODT) initiative. Intel's documentation claims custom designed
motherboards are limited to only the smallest of PCs, and should not compete
with PicoBTX. However there is virtually no advantage for a motherboard manufacturer
like Shuttle or Biostar to adopt BTX over a custom design for a SFF -- assuring
the non-standard designs from ever entering the retail marketplace.
There is one thing that is very clear for 2007: there will be no Intel-branded
SFF motherboards if we are to believe internal Intel roadmaps. Since the majority of motherboard manufacturers use
Intel reference designs to engineer channel motherboards, without ATX reference
designs many may simply adopt BTX only.
BTX is still a chicken-egg problem. There are a few
BTX supporting chassis, but channel motherboards are relatively modest and
offer virtually no advantage over ATX designs at this point. The system
builders have been quick to adopt BTX, which accounts for such a high adoption
forecast. Unfortunately, with a rift between OEM and channel adoption,
motherboard manufacturers are forced down two separate design paths -- a cost
us consumers later burden.
"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired." -- North Korean Supreme Commander Kim Jong-il
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