Dear Member, Form factor refers to the physical size and shape (according to outside dimensions) of a computer device. It is most often used to describe the size of circuit boards, especially the motherboard and expansion cards. The ATX form factor is a replacement for the older AT and baby AT form factors. Invented by Intel in 1995.
The ATX motherboard rotates the orientation of the board 90 degrees than older AT type . This allows for a more efficient design, with disk drive cable connectors closer to the drive bays and the CPU closer to the power supply and cooling fan. All Intel motherboards currently produced are ATX motherboards. . The ATX form factor is the form factor of choice for both commercial mass-production systems and for home PC builders. It offers Better power supply connector and "Soft Power" support . Upcoming Standard is BTX : ATX has been around for almost a decade now, and is starting to show its age. The BTX standard takes care of the two major contributors to raising the case temperature, the processor and graphic card. The processor’s heat sink is placed in an air duct which draws cold air from outside of the case directly in. So the airflow is not hampered by any obstructions. This air duct location and size adhere to strict specifications. All other components such as the processor socket, power connector, memory and expansion slots have a set location on the motherboard, so a BTX case and motherboard are matched exactly. Because of this efficient use of space, BTX cases can be smaller than ATX cases. They make optimum use of the available space, but, due to the optimized airflow, run cooler than ATX. Whoosh . . . Sushrut Kulkarni ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.430 / Virus Database: 268.15.4/563 - Release Date: 02/12/2006 09:59 -- ______________________________________________________________________ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List: (plug-mail@plug.org.in) List Information: http://plug.org.in/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug-mail Send 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for mailing instructions.