Time to ditch ATX?

[Crashman]

Notice that CPU voltages are getting lower as a result of smaller die processes? I think it would be MUCH CHEAPER overall to have a 1.5v line lead into the board than to use resistor packs to kick down the voltage. So that would mean a NEW POWER SUPPLY TYPE. Heck, and what's with this ATX12v connector? We could ditch that too, and integrate it into a new connector!

Now I know you guys are thinking "great, I just spent $100 on a top notch ATX 2.1 power supply and now you want me to buy another". Well guess what, you wouldn't have a choice! You see, manufacturers make these decisions not based on YOUR finances, but on theirs!

And as long as we're changing the power supply, we might as well change the CASE as well! A lot of you sissies like the itty bitty Micro ITX form factor because you don't know what REAL hardware is. Anyway, I have a solution! Remember the NLX form factor? I suggest shortening THAT and comming up with a new "MicroNLX" form factor, with the CPU where the AGP slot used to be. That would place the CPU at the BOTTOM of a tower case, BTW, where the air is cooler!

So where would the AGP slot go? ON the riser card! If someone simply developed a COMPLETELY standard...standard, you could order a case and get a riser card with the appropriate number of slots included. And to clean up cabling, I suggest that the power supply leads connect to the riser card as well. Heck, we wouldn't even need lead wires to the board, the back of the riser card could be designed to plug directly into the power supply!

So with this proposed form factor, you could have any number of slots you wanted, depending on case size. You could even have a case with a horizontal board such as these micro ITX boards, with a 2-slot riser, etc. And I could have my 5-6PCI slots in a midtower. OEM's could save money and still have an upgradable architecture. In the end, everyone wins.

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[Quetzacoatl]

not a bad idea, but it would most like benefit microsystem and minitowers more than full blown ATX size systems. Afterall, you look at the $$ overhead involved, it's almost more practical to just have the varying sizes of ATX motherboards now and the matching cases. Overall, I doubt any of the manufacturers would collaberate for such a divergant change in the industry

Soon enough, Intel will make the i845s...imagine dual channel Sdram...*shudder*

 

[Guest]

Wazzup Crashman,

You might be suprised at how efficient buck regulator circuits can be these days. Im thinking in the nineties percent range. Ie there is no need to worry about stepping down voltages, very little power is wasted doing it. It's nothing near as horrible as dumping power in a voltage divider circuit would be.

But anyway, yeah PC physical layout could be better.

Heres one for ya. Maybe the whole motherboard could be seen as modular backplane bus interface kind of thing with tons of different sockets/slots all over it. There could be modular chipsets, CPUs, RAM, bus types, etc., etc. The goal would be never needing to replace a functioning motherboard. A person would then be able to just restuff it with different modules when they needed something better, or some module broke. It would be hard to make it work well compared to these relatively single purpose motherboards we have now, but useful if you did (assuming manufacturers cooperated and developed these modules).

 

[Crashman]

NLX was done because it was considered practical at the time. But ATX became so common that it's now cheaper simply due to volume.

The reason that it would be much cheaper than having different size motherboards is that, if properly implemented, all boards would fit all cases. The riser card wouldn't become outdated like the rest of the board does, so companies could keep a single case/riser card indefinately.

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[Crashman]

LOL, the NLX idea is just the gemetric reversal of the backplane idea, serves the same purpose. Just call the riser card a backplane and the cardedge connector a CPU board slot, doesn't change the design...

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