Intel shows pint-size server motherboard

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But what form factor??

This is a good move by Intel. They have obviously seen the successes that Via has made with their ITX boards. With everything but the kitchen sink built in to the chipsets these days, and the fact Core-based chips are not the raging Intel space heaters we got used to, It makes sense to support more minaturization. It will be intersting to see what other motherboard manufacturers follow suite, the variety of options that will be available in the motherboards, if they will stop at just Xeon-based boards, and if AMD will follow suite. I was considering putting an ITX system together, using either the Via C7 or Pentium M processor, and now there are more choices.

Of course, this article left a few glaring questions. For one, what form factor will they use? Will it be a micro-ATX, a new ATX or BTX varient, license and use the ITX form factor, or come up with some new form factor that will raise prices because of obscurity and retooling of the plants. I feel they should at least use an ATX varient to make the transition for manufacturers easier, though licensing the ITX format is even better since there are already cases out for that format, including a 1U rackmount that houses two boards.

The other sticky point will be price. Being a Xeon system, they will obviously charge a premium, and Enterprises will pay it. But if it is too high, it will slow adoption to a crawl, which is opposite of what they want for this "low end" setup.

A quick look at mini-itx.com shows the most expensive C7 based system (motherboard with processor soldered on) at $196, a dual-processor Eden at $448, and an AOpen ITX motherboard that has a socket 479 for Intel Core chips going for $322. The dual-system rackmount case was $304. As long as Intel keeps the motherboard under $500 at this point, it should take off. They will probably have to lower the price as other manufacturers jump on the mini-*TX wagon. Hopefully they do use the ITX format, as the cases are there already.

Posted by: jheine   Posted on: 09/27/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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