Hardwarezone Computex Coverage

Scroll down to the second last image. I just wish these browsers would take a picture of the accompanying sign so we'd know some features.

Since no one's replied yet... thanks for the info!!

It's interesting that they placed the cpu socket nearer to the "back" of the motherboard, a la the BTX standard.

I wondered about the CPU placement when AOPEN came out with their mATX 915M board aswell. I wonder if this is just practice for BTX for the motherboard designers or if these boards are made to be easily flipped into a BTX board. It would be really interesting to see a BTX P-M board, but all of 8 people would buy it today....

I'd bet that it'd sell pretty good. Have you seen some of those "pico" (or whatever TF it's called) BTX cases that have been floating around for the past year. Some are very "MAC-Mini-ish", and others look like they'd make nice HTPCs, especially with the quiet cooling available with the P-Ms.

pico-btx is the right term i believe, (smaller than micro-BTX)

the prob with BTX from what i can tell is that it has a fan in the middle at the front, which is probably pretty good as far as cooling goes, but awful as far as asthetics are concerned, having a great big hole in the (middle of the) front of the case.

I'm aware of the airflow scheme of BTX cases, but properly designed Pentium M Systems can get away with very, very little airflow. That would mean you could use a very quiet fan at the front of the case.

I think the real concern is having a pock marked BTX system. I thought Shuttle's SB86 BTX hybrid looked alright for front intake.

hopefully this board has decent voltage and overclocking options (pci-e lock, etc) and the "low-cost" is not just relative to server boards.

looks like a contender for the next htpc build