Gateway Plans Cooler BTX Desktop
When Gateway introduces its new desktops in September, among them will be a consumer model using a chassis design touted by Intel. Gateway executives say they expect their desktops to be among the first built using Intel's BTX reference design.
Source: PCWorldIntel has talked up the BTX (balanced technology extended) reference design at several of its Intel Developer Forum conferences over the past year. The updated chassis and motherboard design replaces the current ATX design, and allows PC manufacturers to deal with the ever-increasing amount of heat put out by modern components, says Ken Loyd, senior director of business marketing for Gateway. As the clock speeds of Intel's flagship desktop Pentium 4 processor have increased, so has the heat given off by that processor. Intel warned system designers in February that the latest version of the Pentium 4, the 90-nanometer Prescott core, consumes upward of 115 watts of power under maximum operating conditions. Advanced Micro Devices' Athlon 64 chips also consume a lot of power, up to 89 watts under certain conditions. At 90 nanometers, you can expect increased current leakage, which means that more power escapes the chip as heat than in previous designs. As Intel takes the Pentium 4 across the 4-GHz line next year, desktop builders will need to find a way to get that potentially damaging heat out of the system chassis.
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