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The new motherboard layout is similar to Intel's BTX, and has much the same aim: to run powerful, hot-running PC components coolly and quietly. The main design change from the current ATX form factor is that the CPU is set centrally in the motherboard. The CPU heatsink fan takes its air directly from a side panel in the DTX case and is oversized so that air is blown onto the surrounding components and heatsinks - RAM, north bridge heatsink, VRMs (Voltage Regulation Modules) and so forth.

We managed to get some shots of a DTX system is use. You can see the oversized CPU heatsink fan, and the components laid out around it.

However, the AMD presentation was packed with references to cheapness and simplicity of build - the phrases

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'low cost chassis' and 'low cost [CPU] heatsink' frequently occurred. DTX seems set for the office rather than being the replacement for your video-editing or gaming system. It will accommodate dual-core CPUs (the absence of 'and quad-core' was conspicuous) though, but again AMD's marketing material suggested a catch.

It said that DTX would support 65W CPUs, so high-end Athlon 64 X2 chips could be out. That precludes everything from the 2GHz Athlon 64 X2 3800+ upwards. The claimed noise levels of less than 30dBA and the typical CPU temperature of 25 degrees when running office applications certainly suggests that. Expect to see DTX systems at the end of this year.

To accompany the new form factor, AMD released two new energy efficient CPUs. Based on a 65nm manufacturing process, the TDP of both new dual-core Athlon 64 X2s is a low 45W. The nomenclature is interesting though, no longer are AMD following the usual Athlon 64 X2 scheme such as 4800+ as these chips are named Athlon 64 X2 BE-2300 and BE-2350 which bears some resemblance to Intel's Core 2 Duo naming scheme. Speeds and further specifications weren't revealed.

For PC Pro's coverage of the latest news from Computex 2007 see: www.pcpro.co.uk/html/computex2007