Report: Big Changes Coming For PCs
Posted by malebolgia on 26 January 2004 - 23:06 · 25 comments & 749 views
The desktop PC will begin getting a makeover in the second half of 2004, with the movement creating "tumultuous transformations" in the PC industry, according to a new study. The changes, said Joe D'Elia of market-research firm iSuppli, will be driven by hardware form factor and interface improvements. "The year 2004 will bring tumultuous transformation to the market that will forever alter the nature and appearance of PCs," said D'Elia. "PC and motherboard makers [will] flood the market with a host of new products in 2004."

D'Elia, iSuppli's PC market director, said the changes will bring smaller, more-robust desktops that offer major benefits to business users, because the result will be a smaller footprint on the desktop. Combined with flat-panel screens, the new PCs will leave desks with more space. A series of developments are combining to bring about the changes, with most of them centered on the new Balanced Technology Extended interface, said D'Elia. The BTX interface specification provides a flexible standards-based form factor foundation that supports the implementation of new desktop technologies, including PCI Express and Serial ATA. In addition, a move away from the PCI and AGP buses to the single PCI Express bus will come into play, as PC interfaces among processors, memory, and drives will work more efficiently together. With its 66-MHz speed, the PCI bus performed well when PC processors were in the 100- to 200-MHz range.

News source: Yahoo News!

The list of restored specs includes:

February

  • 24x DVD reading speed
  • Improved HDD speed in SLP mode
  • 4x DVD-R writing speed
  • TIFF format image support for digital cameras
  • Playback of CD-R and MP3 music and storage of MP3 files on HDD
  • Additional recording settings
  • 15 second fast-forward flash function
  • Video title sorting
  • USB keyboard support
  • Bug fixes including automatic channel setting and dubbing from external equipment

March

  • DVD+RW recording support
  • GIF images support
  • Cybershot camera animation support
  • PlayStation 2 network gaming support

Meanwhile, electronics retailers in Japan are saying that, sales-wise, PSX has been underperforming, with the removal of many of the machine's original specs cited as a significant reason for this. Indeed, it's astonishing that gamers still won't be able to play PS2 games online with PSX until March, when the second software update is released.

PSX is due for UK release later this year, by which time the complete set of original features is expected to have been restored.


There are 25 additional comments
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Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by stezo2k on 26 Jan 2004 - 23:10
BTX eh... wonder how small that is, probably a little bigger than micro itx
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by mrk on 26 Jan 2004 - 23:44
BTX is meant to be the same as current ATX BUT backwards (the mobo is the otherway round) so the pci/agp cards fit on the other way round etc iirc?
(3 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by fishercounter on 26 Jan 2004 - 23:52
sounds good But I will wait like I always do so some other suckers fund this new technology craze.
Quote this comment #3.1 Posted by Octol on 27 Jan 2004 - 04:56
That's me! That's me!

Quote this comment #3.2 Posted by idbuythatforadollar on 27 Jan 2004 - 07:43
nope... thats me
Quote this comment #3.3 Posted by Octol on 27 Jan 2004 - 16:57
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by Garrett Socling on 27 Jan 2004 - 00:14
I barely have room to work in my Antec SX-1030 'file server' case...
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by mealbundy on 27 Jan 2004 - 00:32
Time to rebuild my deskdrawer/chassis.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #6 Posted by Yvo on 27 Jan 2004 - 00:55
The whole reason I am waiting to build a new pc is the fact that the new sockets for AMD & Intel are on the brink of coming out. Anyone building a new pc now is insane. One because when the new sockets come out, current devices will go down in prices and two for those that want the latest will have the latest.
(2 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #7 Posted by acidsex on 27 Jan 2004 - 01:10
Will PCs support more than 4 IDE drives without the need for a raid card? That would be pretty awesome to be able to stock my box full of hard drives and my DVD recorder.
Quote this comment #7.1 Posted by jasondefaoite on 27 Jan 2004 - 05:55
Might be possible with Serial ATA
Quote this comment #7.2 Posted by Octol on 27 Jan 2004 - 06:12
QUOTE
Will PCs support more than 4 IDE drives without the need for a raid card?


They already do. The Gigabyte GA-8KNXP 875P motherboard (which I guess is something of an extreme example) has onboard ports for 12 ATA devices:

2 standard ATA/100 IDE ports (IDE 1 & 2) = 4 PATA devices;
2 ATA/133 ports (IDE 3 & 4) on GigaRAID IT8212F controller = 4 PATA devices;
2 SATA ports on ICH5R controller = 2 SATA devices;
2 SATA ports on SiI3112 controller = 2 SATA devices.

Although if memory serves, the specs indicate support for "only" 10 devices. In any case, it will definitely support 8 drives—even without using the SATA controllers.

In one system at work I have six hard drives (2 SATA, 4 PATA), one DVD-ROM, and an LS-120 drive all plugged into onboard ports. Most of my PCI slots are empty.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #8 Posted by Gary_Player on 27 Jan 2004 - 01:13
Only for those of us who can afford new stuff
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #9 Posted by SMG on 27 Jan 2004 - 01:39
I can't wait for 64-bit.... every x86 pc for at least the last 10 years has been 32-bit..... now it's being doubled to 64, so that should set me up for the next 10 years
Quote this comment #9.1 Posted by idbuythatforadollar on 27 Jan 2004 - 07:44
my 64 bit machine is coming this morning!
(2 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #10 Posted by mlauzon on 27 Jan 2004 - 02:08
Where can we see the specs on BTX, I keep hearing about it...but yet no one shows what it may or may not look like?!


Michael Lauzon, Founder
The Quill Society
http://www.quillsociety.org/
mlauzon@quillsociety.org
Quote this comment #10.1 Posted by Ciderx on 27 Jan 2004 - 02:21
If you want the incredibly weighty spec, its here:

BTX Specification
Quote this comment #10.2 Posted by mezz on 27 Jan 2004 - 02:28
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1876
(3 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #11 Posted by DrunkenMaster on 27 Jan 2004 - 02:30
1) I hope some BTX boards will keep AGP ports.

2) I hope we can see some case designs like the G5 with the fan 'blowholes' from top to bottom of the case. Cooling is quiter, more efficient. They're already planning to do something similar with the RAM and CPU .... why not the entire case? Its easy for OEMs, but I'd like to see it for custom computers too.
Quote this comment #11.1 Posted by ~Greeno~ on 27 Jan 2004 - 12:33
Why AGP? PCI Express my boy!
Quote this comment #11.2 Posted by Tager on 27 Jan 2004 - 14:42
why AGP? some of us can't afford to buy the latest and greatest card and some of us still like to use older cards.
Quote this comment #11.3 Posted by Jstphish on 27 Jan 2004 - 16:21
If you can't afford the latest and greatest why buy a BTX motherboard and chassis, etc. Wait until you can afford a PCI-X card and then get the whole shabang.

Anandtech quote "For those of you heavily invested in your ATX motherboard and AGP graphics card, there's no reason for panic. It will take quite a while before the death of ATX; and although we've done a lot to get rid of the "beige box" with the latest generation of ATX cases and the advent of small form factor systems, the final nail in the coffin of boring computers will be driven by BTX."

Last edited by 11680 on 27 Jan 2004 - 16:28
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #12 Posted by Mav Phoenix on 27 Jan 2004 - 03:40
New cooling techniques too I'm sure.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #13 Posted by rbanksy on 27 Jan 2004 - 10:11
Detailed Review and Pics here.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1876


[URL=
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1876]BTX Review[/URL]
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #14 Posted by Jstphish on 27 Jan 2004 - 16:25
I'm excited about the BTX spec. It's about time they changed the whole thing.
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