Intel called a meeting in Taipei with the mainboard and chassis manufacturers, our Willy managed to stealthfully get the gossip from the meeting and, we have some very interesting beans for all to gander upon. Interestingly enough, it's all about one of the blocks which the axe has fallen upon. When Intel was suffering with thermals (not just CPU, but also with dual 160W graphics cards) it launched a new method of chassis layout - called BTX.
Intel has now decided that it won't be supporting BTX in 2007 with new SKUs in the channel with retail products, however it will of course keep supporting SKUs which are present on the market such as the DQ965-CO. So, whilst the standards are not being ditched - Intel will no longer be supporting them directly for the channel customers, but no doubt will, if the large OEMs request offer support.
Of course, the need for BTX has not spread to the enthusiast user, but big OEMs such as HP, Dell and others have adopted BTX and have been using this in their systems for a couple of years. Some people may not be shocked with this, since Intel has recently launched Core2Duo which offers crazy performance at half the TDP of previous generation parts, however you still have hot graphics cards, and hard drives. Of course thermals will again return to being key when we see Kentsfield (Intel's Quad Core part) later this year, which will come in at 130W TDP (Dual Core2Duo), will we see BTX raised from its ashes again?
The only question to ponder is that, if Intel wishes to again propose a chassis standard, what support will the company see from the key players in Taiwan, whom have bought in to the vision and the concept? Will the other manufacturers regard Intel as a technology leader, what will this do to their reputation?
