Thinking Small
One of the big stories for 2004 will be the rise of BTX, or the Balanced Technology eXtended form factor, which will complement today’s ATX form factor (sometimes). Previously code named Bigwater, BTX is Intel’s attempt to standardize the small form factor space. In the process, BTX aims to fix several ATX problems. Slots have been moved to the other side of the motherboard and oriented such that the hot air blowing off the GPU blows into rather than away from the cool air stream sweeping through the chassis. The CPU is positioned by a vent next to an exterior grille. All told, the BTX form factor remedies many of the thermal shortsights found in the various ATX designs, some of which keep designs such as FlexATX from efficiently running processors much over 2.4 GHz.

BTX will come in three sizes: standard BTX (up to 12.8” x 10.5”), microBTX (up to 10.4 x 10.5”), and picoBTX (8.0” x 10.5”). Based on its similar size, standard BTX looks likely to send ATX the way of the AT form factor, although it’s interesting to note that ATX power supplies are full-size BTX-compatible. Industry pundits expect that microBTX will become the dominant format, with picoBTX opening up the field of SFF and set-top PCs even beyond what VIA’s mini-ITX has enabled.
“This is going to happen,” says CasEdge’s Ed Leckliter. “The channel will conclude that one way to reduce cost to the customer and manage their needs is provide more microATX-type chasses. Walk the aisles of your local superstore, and what do you see? MicroATX. Small chasses. And one of the reasons is that everything is integrated into the motherboard now.

“Other than the video card, I might have one other card in the system, and there’s three PCI slots sitting next to it. Any reason I need two more beyond that since I don’t have anything to put in the three already? The channel is going to realize that most people don’t need a full-size board, and when that happens the case sizes will come down. Large cases impact everyone in the channel. If the chassis is larger, the box is larger. The foam is larger. I get less on the palette. I get less on the rack. Storing is a cost, whether it’s at the warehouse or the store. Does it cost more or less to ship a smaller, lighter case to your customer? And is there any value in all that? No.”
Obviously, this is a good news/bad news scenario for resellers. Lower ASPs and costs of doing business help everyone. On the other hand, the move toward ultra-integrated motherboards and less expandable chasses means that system builders have fewer opportunities to sell high-margin add-on cards. This will put more burden on the reseller to create customized application solutions in which the chassis plays a part.

Not everyone is jumping with joy over BTX, though. First off, while the new form factor is expected to reach the market in 2004, the broader question of mass availability and acceptance remains.

Resellers catering to consumers are always asked whether it’s better to leave systems running 24/7 or turn them off at night. Almost always, this comes down to a matter of personal preference and superstition, but there are a few technical criteria you can use on which to base an educated judgment.
First off, let’s take the leave it on argument. Many people believe that there is an electrical shock, much like a power surge, that runs through PCs when the system power is turned off or on. In most cases, this isn’t true. The real problem results from thermal changes. Perhaps you’ve noticed with CRTs the occasional pops that emerge from inside the monitor during use or after a power-down. This is a result of the expansion and contraction of components due to heating and cooling. Some components can change temperature by over 100 degrees between being off at room temperature and running under a full load for a prolonged period.
As with roads, rocks, and most other things, this process of expansion and contraction breaks down the integrity of materials over time. Processor die casings can crack, wires break, thermal grease wears down, pins contacting sockets and slots can shift out of position, and more. Ideally, a system should stay at a constant temperature ad infinitum, so the answer you’d derive is that systems should always be left on.
Now the inverse argument. Even well-maintained parts fail over time. Usually, the event goes unnoticed until the system becomes unstable or simply goes dark. Every once in a rare while, though, failures can be more violent. Cheap power supplies have been known to catch on fire in the face of a voltage surge, and CRTs can sometimes die in a blaze (literally) of infamy. The less time a system is on, the less chance there is for a major disaster to strike.
Then there is the cost of all that extra power used. Obviously, rates vary according to region, season, taxes, and other factors, but figure an average price of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity. If a system chews through 300 watts—an increasingly conservative guess heading into 2004—that’s 3.0 cents per hour. With 168 hours in a week, it would cost $5.04 per week to keep that box running 24/7, or about $262 annually. Now, if the system is only run, say, 10 hours per day every day, that’s 70 hours, or $2.10 per week, $109 per year. A customer can save about $150 per year by powering down at the end of the day. This may not be a huge deal for consumers, but for an office running 30 PCs, the $4,500 saved annually may be significant.
Turning off at night also presents a security benefit since the only remotely hack-proof PC is one that’s either offline or powered down. Now, when the real world intercedes and the employer finds that employees forget to turn off at night or start complaining about boot times in the morning, that’s when you get to move in with upsell opportunities for energy efficient hardware and/or service visits to fine-tune power profiles in the OS and BIOS.