AMD announces SFF case standardCES 007 Say hello to DTXBy Charlie Demerjian: Wednesday 10 January 2007, 09:30AMD SAID it has an "open specification" for SFF computers called DTX. This is kind of like ATX and BTX but for much smaller machines.ATX as you know is a standard that defines things like where the mounting holes go, endplate size and location, and the card placement. Power, cabling and drives are also sort of included. ATX is the main reason most PCs are the same general size and shape, and the components are located in the same places.This allows people to build parts with the same sizes and shapes as the next guy, and that they will all fit together and work. That leads to plentiful and cheap high quality parts.There is no such standard for SFF machines, about the closest you will get is µATX but that is a board, not a complete chassis. Something needed to be done, and AMD is stepping up to the plate in the hopes to kick off a market for standard SFF components.DTX is not the successor to CTX, that was a storage standard. BTX was the dead on the vine successor to ATX, the standard that would not die. Like ATX, DTX is completely open and royalty free. It was announced today, will have specs out in mid-Q1 and products on the market by mid year or so.DTX board mockupThe reference design is a 6 litre chassis with ATX compatible mobo mounting and keepout holes. You can use a DTX board in an ATX case, but it would end up looking like Bill Gates in a turtleneck, drowning but strangely compelling anyway.When the first reference designs come out in a month or so, they will be on 4 layer boards with a 65W thermal envelope. It also has three slots, a PCIe 16x, a PCI right next to it and an express card port just to be different. There are also two RAM slots, but the rest is legacy free.Last up is manufacturing. As you can see from the shot above, the DXT boards are quite small, 200mm x 244mm. The up side to this particular size is that you can cut four of them from the same standard panel, a chunk of PCB used to make mobos. An ATX board is sized so you can two of them from every standard panel. This lessened waste will lead to much cheaper mobos.Standard Panel with 4 DTX outlinesWhat you end up with is a board that is well thought out and cheaper to make. It does all of this while enabling a whole new set of devices. The price is right, free, and that means the Taiwanese makes will be jumping all over it with far less trepidation than they did for BTX. Manufactures win, consumers win, and there are no glaring flaws. What's not to like? µ
