Most powerful BTX form factor PC

Hi guys!

I am glad some people like me also like the BTX form factor. It was clearly superior to ATX in any way imaginable ... technical as well as optical and ergonomically.

And I got good news for BTX lovers: Fujitsu-SIEMENS (lateron just called Fujitsu) designed the best BTX systems -- they were actually engineered and produced in Germany! Not in China or Taiwan ...

Examples for the latest systems which shipped between 2009 and 2012 include the following:

- Fujitsu-SIEMENS C5730, E5730 and P5730 -- Intel Q43-based systems which support DDR2 800 and Core 2 Duo up to E8600 and Q9650 with 16 GB RAM, PCIe x16 etc. Micro, Desktop and Minitower cases of the finest quality!


- Fujitsu-SIEMENS C5731, E5731 and P5731 -- Intel Q43-based systems which support DDR3 1066 and Core 2 Duo up to E8600 and Q9650 with 16 GB RAM, PCIe x16 etc. Micro, Desktop and Minitower cases of the finest quality!

- Fujitsu-SIEMENS W280 -- Intel Q57-based workstation system which supports DDR3 1333 and Core i3, i5, i7 like Core i7 880 with 16 GB RAM, PCIe x16 etc. Bigtower cases of the finest quality!

- Fujitsu-SIEMENS W380 -- Intel 3450-based workstation system which supports DDR3 1333 and Core i3, i5, i7 and Xeon like i5 680 or Xeon X3470 with 16 GB RAM, 2 x PCIe x16 etc. Bigtower cases of the finest quality! Both DDR3 non-ECC and ECC RAM supported!

- Fujitsu-SIEMENS W480 -- Intel 3450-based workstation system which supports DDR3 1333 and Core i3, i5, i7 and Xeon like i5 680 or Xeon X3470 with 16 GB RAM, 2 x PCIe x16 etc. Bigtower cases of the finest quality! Both DDR3 non-ECC and ECC RAM supported!


Older systems include AMD Athlon 64 systems and Pentium 4 and D based systems from the same company, but also many earlier Core 2 Duo / Core 2 Quad based systems with lower specs than the most recent ones I listed above, since they are older, but with the same high build quality.

Soulblade said:

I am glad some people like me also like the BTX form factor. It was clearly superior to ATX in any way imaginable ... technical as well as optical and ergonomically.

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There is no doubt in my mind that BTX was the direction the industry still should be going. I have a Dell G254H mobo (installed in an XPS 420 case) with custom components. I also have a full Precision T3400, which has the last BTX board Dell appeared to make.

But interestingly, when I was trying to find a case for my G254H last year, I was led to believe that there were Fijitsu cases in Europe designed for BTX. Try to get one in Canada. I called their head office in Toronto and was told unceremoniously that these machines never made it to North America and if I wanted a case I'd need to have it shipped from Italy or elsewhere.

On the heels of your post above, I went to the Fijitsu site just now to view the models you list. So far I've only looked at the W480, and it does appear that while it mounts on the left side of the chassis, it is nevertheless an upside-down ATX. I could be wrong, but it appears that the CPU is not diagonal, and therefore the design would not be a BTX in the purest sense. I'd be happy to hear otherwise, and to be fair, I haven't explored the other models you mention.

guswah said:

On the heels of your post above, I went to the Fijitsu site just now to view the models you list. So far I've only looked at the W480, and it does appear that while it mounts on the left side of the chassis, it is nevertheless an upside-down ATX. I could be wrong, but it appears that the CPU is not diagonal, and therefore the design would not be a BTX in the purest sense. I'd be happy to hear otherwise, and to be fair, I haven't explored the other models you mention.

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Hi, I don't know why the CPU being diagonal would be so important for a BTX board. Both case and board are true BTX form factors as far as I can tell, and Fujitsu-SIEMENS also states in all their spec sheets that it is the BTX form factor. They also produced ATX models simultaneously, though those were for the lower end of the market, so the company should know the difference. And I built and owned several ATX PCs before (and still got them here), so I should know as well.

https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/public/ds-CELSIUS-W480.pdf

Look inside of a P5615:



I own a P5615 with an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (you can even put an X2 6400+ inside!) and a couple of P5730, E5730 and C5730 systems ... They all look alike inside, except for the W models having more space for HDDs in the side door (4 instead of 2 bays).

Soulblade said:

Hi, I don't know why the CPU being diagonal would be so important for a BTX board. Both case and board are true BTX form factors as far as I can tell, and Fujitsu-SIEMENS also states in all their spec sheets that it is the BTX form factor. They also produced ATX models simultaneously, though those were for the lower end of the market, so the company should know the difference. And I built and owned several ATX PCs before (and still got them here), so I should know as well.

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Yeah, that definitely looks BTX-ish, and I hadn't seen that photo. I did look at the mobo schematic which shows the CPU in the "normal" position. If they actually state that it's BTX, then it must be so. But of course the diagonal CPU is important because part of the form factor spec involves the placement of the four holes that provide anchorage for the heatsink. Those holes obviously surround the CPU and are therefore created diagonally. Furthermore, the mounts or backing plates that hold the CPU apparatus for any BTX form factor are part of this scheme, and to change to a perpendicular orientation would stray from the meaning of BTX, wouldn't it?

guswah said:

Yeah, that definitely looks BTX-ish, and I hadn't seen that photo. I did look at the mobo schematic which shows the CPU in the "normal" position. If they actually state that it's BTX, then it must be so. But of course the diagonal CPU is important because part of the form factor spec involves the placement of the four holes that provide anchorage for the heatsink. Those holes obviously surround the CPU and are therefore created diagonally. Furthermore, the mounts or backing plates that hold the CPU apparatus for any BTX form factor are part of this scheme, and to change to a perpendicular orientation would stray from the meaning of BTX, wouldn't it?

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It sounds funny if this would be a requirement. Never heard about it. Diagonal or not, it doesn't matter. There are ATX-boards with diagonally installed CPUs, I guess. All Fujitsu-SIEMENS BTX boards got the CPU socket aligned to the sides of the board, not diagonally, and the heatsink is locked with four screws to the chassis of the PC (not to the board! Mounting it to the chassis of the PC is a far superior option).

The board of the P5615 with integrated GeForce 6150 LE graphics:



By the way, a diagonally mounted CPU socket would not go well with the case fan being the CPU fan at the same time. Far better to place the socket aligned to the montherboard's edges to have an easy airstream and simple construction and manufacturing process, like shown on this DELL BTX board as well (DELL Dimension E520):



But I googled it now and found a BTX board made by IBM with a diagonal socket, so you might have seen this before and the idea stuck with you:



Hmmm ... looking at the IBM board I think I could mount it in my Fujitsu-SIEMENS BTX cases, too! I always thought there was some proprietary interpretation to the BTX factor by SIEMENS, but it now looks pretty standardized to me and the screw mounts seem to be in the right places. But the question is what is the latest and most powerful standard BTX board on the market? For 2nd or 3rd gen. Core i3/5/7 series maybe?

Soulblade said:

It sounds funny if this would be a requirement. Never heard about it. Diagonal or not, it doesn't matter. There are ATX-boards with diagonally installed CPUs, I guess. All Fujitsu-SIEMENS BTX boards got the CPU socket aligned to the sides of the board, not diagonally, and the heatsink is locked with four screws to the chassis of the PC (not to the board! Mounting it to the chassis of the PC is a far superior option).

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Actually Wikipedia describes the evolution quite well. It states, "In the first months of production the ATX and BTX motherboards were so similar that moving a BTX motherboard to an ATX case was possible and vice versa. This was possible because the first BTX motherboards were ATX motherboards turned upside down, except for the component location that really were BTX positioning."

Soulblade said:

By the way, a diagonally mounted CPU socket would not go well with the case fan being the CPU fan at the same time. Far better to place the socket aligned to the montherboard's edges to have an easy airstream and simple construction and manufacturing process, like shown on this DELL BTX board as well (DELL Dimension E520):

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Actually I think you're mistaken. The idea in having a diagonally mounted CPU was that the airstream would catch two sides of the apparatus, not just one. You see, the BTX was very cleverly planned. What happened before it reached its fullest potential is that newer, better CPUs required less power and gave off less heat, thus removing the need for an evolving industry to give a damn about such things as strategic air flow.

Soulblade said:

But I googled it now and found a BTX board made by IBM with a diagonal socket, so you might have seen this before and the idea stuck with you.

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No, the idea didn't just stick with me because I noticed a one-off motherboard with a diagonal CPU. There were probably millions made that way, and they defined the state of the art for BTX as the future for all motherboards during that era. Intel versions were fairly inferior, at least when compared to the last few Dells. As I mentioned in an earlier reply, I have two of Dell's finest, and I only wish they had more advanced chipsets, DDR3 capability, and newer socket configs.

Soulblade said:

Hmmm ... looking at the IBM board I think I could mount it in my Fujitsu-SIEMENS BTX cases, too! I always thought there was some proprietary interpretation to the BTX factor by SIEMENS, but it now looks pretty standardized to me and the screw mounts seem to be in the right places. But the question is what is the latest and most powerful standard BTX board on the market? For 2nd or 3rd gen. Core i3/5/7 series maybe?

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Well, now you've come back to the crux of this entire thread. If you'll read the first two or three pages you will see that this was precisely the query made by misternumberone and later answered in detail by Retrorockit. If you're like me, you will enjoy their wisdom. It does appear there are no true BTXs with LGA 1155/1156 sockets, but the QX9770 chip for socket 775 is said to be close in performance to the i7. My eyes lit up when you stated the Fijitsus were traditional BTXs that accommodate the Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs, but for the moment I'm not yet convinced these are true BTXs as opposed to upside-down ATXs. I'd like to explore that further and appreciate whatever info you uncover.

It does not matter at all whether the CPU socket is diagonally placed or not. What does matter is that it is where it is located, i.e. on the front of the case so the cooler gets its air fresh from the outside via the case fan, which doubles as the CPU fan too.

And all Fujitsu-Siemens boards in the PCs I mentioned are true BTX boards. Not flip-ATX or proprietary variations. The latest ones feature sockets 775, 1156 and 1366, all with DDR3 RAM etc. so i guess they are the fastest boards ever made in BTX.

The pity is only that they cannot be overclocked easily or maybe not at all, unless there is some software OC tool around, cause the BIOS won't do it.

I found this interesting thread while on a quest to see if there might be any better micro BTX boards available. For a while, all I turned up were LGA775 ones, maxing at 1033 FSB and using DDR2. I have a couple of Optiplex 700 series SFF units with those specs. Transplanting boards from those black Optiplex cases would not be an easy task due to some proprietary features like the power and diagnostic LED board.

Further digging led me to the HP 8100 Elite. It's another SFF but the board appears to be a bog standard BTX made by ECS. Socket 1156 and up to 16 gig DDR3, supporting up to quad core i7 CPUs. That's practically modern!

Question is, do I really want to obtain a HP Elite 8100 just to transplant its innards to an MPC ClientPro 385 case? The sole reason for that would be to be able to use full height cards.

Yesterday I spent some time updating the 385's BIOS (last version from Intel, 6100, flashes and doesn't replace the MPC boot logo, plus unlocks a few options MPC hid) installing Win 7 Ultimate, a dumpster rescue Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Music, creaky olde Radeon HD 2600 Pro and a nearly 16 year old Leadtek WinFast TV2000 XP. With 8 gig plugged in it runs pretty decent, should serve well for digitizing VHS tapes from a Super VHS VCR. That's why the antique Leadtek card, it's a model that ignores copy protection, won't false positive on it on camcorder tapes either. It also no-way, no-how works with Windows newer than 7. (I did get Dscaler to use it with 10 but that's a PITA to use for digitizing.)

Update: I just found out that you can overclock the Fujitsu-SIEMENS PCs -- at least the ones with socket 775, no idea about the more modern BTX systems with socket 1156 or 1366 for Core i3, i5, i7 or Xeon processors -- with a software tool called SetFSB ...

But you need good RAM for it. The best idea is to get a CPU which does not max. out the FSB at 1333 MHz, but rather uses 800 or 1066 MHz FSB. E.g. a Core 2 Duo E7600 ... and then you need a piece of DDR 800 RAM. You take it and rewrite its SPD to make it appear like a DDR 667 or even DDR 533 RAM to your PC's BIOS.

Then you got plenty of headroom for overclocking without straining the RAM (you start at 533 MHz e.g. and then "overclocking" up to 800 MHz is possible without going over the original specs!) nor the mainboard (as it supports 1333 MHz FSB, but you start at 800 or 1066 and overclock from there all the way up to 1333 MHz!

The Wolfdale cores support easy overclocking without raising the voltage ... so a Core 2 Duo E7600 should OC easily from its stock 3,06 GHz up to 3,5 or even 3,75 GHz without voltage adjustments.

Galane said:

I found this interesting thread while on a quest to see if there might be any better micro BTX boards available. For a while, all I turned up were LGA775 ones, maxing at 1033 FSB and using DDR2. I have a couple of Optiplex 700 series SFF units with those specs. Transplanting boards from those black Optiplex cases would not be an easy task due to some proprietary features like the power and diagnostic LED board.

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Oops, the Optiplex 700 series runs 1333 FSB while the ClientPro 385 is 1066 FSB - thus no CPU swap from the Dell to MPC.

Galane said:

Oops, the Optiplex 700 series runs 1333 FSB while the ClientPro 385 is 1066 FSB - thus no CPU swap from the Dell to MPC.

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Depends on the CPU - many CPU options in the DELL run on 800 or 1066 MHz FSB, too.

E7000 series Intel ® Core™2 Duo 3M, 1066 FSB
E2000 series Intel ® Pentium ® Dual Core 1M, 800 FSB
E1000 series Intel ® Celeron ® Dual Core 512K, 800 FSB
400 series Intel ® Celeron ® 512K, 800 FSB

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But why would you want to swap from a superior PC to an inferior one?

I found another DELL Optiplex 760 in the trash the other day ... Actually I got many of my PCs from the trash for free, all in perfect working order, only required some cleaning out the dust and new OS installation etc.

http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/optix/Optiplex_brochure_760_isen.pdf

The Intel DQ965CO in the ClientPro 385 tops out at 1066 FSB. That's why I was looking to see if there were any better BTX boards. Looks like the best of them are LGA 1156 or Socket AM3. Would be interesting to know if any of the AM3 ones happen to be AM3+ capable so FX CPUs can be used.

Galane said:

The Intel DQ965CO in the ClientPro 385 tops out at 1066 FSB. That's why I was looking to see if there were any better BTX boards. Looks like the best of them are LGA 1156 or Socket AM3. Would be interesting to know if any of the AM3 ones happen to be AM3+ capable so FX CPUs can be used.

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The latest ones use socket 1156 or AM3, correct. But you can use an AM3+ CPU in it without any issues, only a few unimportant functions of the CPU may not be supported in this case, like the latest SSE version or **** like that. That is the beauty of AMD-PCs, they are always cross-compatible with their sockets ever since AM2 came out.

Take e.g. the Fujitsu ESPRIMO P5645 Midi Tower with AM3 and 16GB of DDR3 ...

https://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/Publications/public/ds-ESPRIMO-P5645-EStar5.pdf

The box I'm using right now has an ATX Asrock 770 Extreme3. Only their final beta release of the BIOS supports AM3+. The 6 core FX CPU I ordered is apparently being delivered on a stand up paddleboard from South Korea.

AM3 CPUs will work in many boards with an AM2 socket because the CPUs have both DDR2 and DDR3 memory controllers. An AM2 CPU won't go the other way because the pin configuration won't allow it. When AM3 was first introduced, some computer magazine tried cutting off the pin on an AM2 CPU (a 'redundant' power or ground) and put it into one of the few early AM3 boards with DDR2 RAM slots. Didn't work. IIRC the CPU still worked in an AM2 board.

Hey, boys, I like reading all this stuff, but isn't this supposed to be a thread about BTXs?

BTW, I have all three of my BTXs humming like songbirds. Let's hope they last a long time -- kind of like restoring an Edsel and hoping you never blow the engine.

guswah said:

Hey, boys, I like reading all this stuff, but isn't this supposed to be a thread about BTXs?

BTW, I have all three of my BTXs humming like songbirds. Let's hope they last a long time -- kind of like restoring an Edsel and hoping you never blow the engine.

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I only write about BTX here. Mine are running fine, too ... I got about 13 or 14 BTX-PCs, 10 of them being largely identical. Just upgraded some more to Core 2 Duo E8300. I paid like $4 for each of these CPUs.

Might buy a newer BTX-PC with Core i7 (socket 1156) or Phenom II X6 1065T (socket AM3) soon. Yes, that latter one is a hexa-core BTX-PC!!! And I will stuff it with 16GB of DDR3 RAM. And a current mid-range graphics card.

Soulblade said:

Might buy a newer BTX-PC with Core i7 (socket 1156) or Phenom II X6 1065T (socket AM3) soon. Yes, that latter one is a hexa-core BTX-PC!!! And I will stuff it with 16GB of DDR3 RAM. And a current mid-range graphics card.

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Okay ... where do you get a Core i7 BTX? Or do you mean the Fujitsu-Siemens? And if so, where is it available?

guswah said:

Okay ... where do you get a Core i7 BTX? Or do you mean the Fujitsu-Siemens? And if so, where is it available?

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HP Elite 8000 series have Socket 1156 BTX boards which support i7 CPUs. The small form factor boards fit 4 slot cases, look like they should fit regular tower BTX cases. Looks like BTX isn't quite dead. I'm tempted to buy an 8100 just to get the board to go into one of the four MPC ClientPro 385's I have. I have a dead Optiplex 620, but that hack would be difficult due to the Dell's power button and diagnostic LED board on the front.

guswah said:

Okay ... where do you get a Core i7 BTX? Or do you mean the Fujitsu-Siemens? And if so, where is it available?

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Fujitsu-SIEMENS produced several PCs in BTX format with socket 1156 ... actually they are Workstations, but no bigger than a normal PC, either. You can put Celeron, Pentium, Core i3/5/7 and even Xeon CPUs into them.

- Fujitsu-SIEMENS W280 -- Intel Q57-based workstation system which supports DDR3 1333 and Core i3, i5, i7 like Core i7 880 with 16 GB RAM, PCIe x16 etc. Bigtower cases of the finest quality!

- Fujitsu-SIEMENS W380 -- Intel 3450-based workstation system which supports DDR3 1333 and Core i3, i5, i7 and Xeon like i5 680 or Xeon X3470 with 16 GB RAM, 2 x PCIe x16 etc. Bigtower cases of the finest quality! Both DDR3 non-ECC and ECC RAM supported!

- Fujitsu-SIEMENS W480 -- Intel 3450-based workstation system which supports DDR3 1333 and Core i3, i5, i7 and Xeon like i5 680 or Xeon X3470 with 16 GB RAM, 2 x PCIe x16 etc. Bigtower cases of the finest quality! Both DDR3 non-ECC and ECC RAM supported!

You can simply order them via ebay from Europe. Shipping from EU to USA is even cheaper than shipping from continental USA within USA!

Actually most are just labelled Fujitsu cause at the time SIEMENS stupidly sold its 50% stake in the joint venture ... but these PCs were still designed and made by SIEMENS in Germany. And it shows in the quality of manufacture and design. Shortly afterwards Fujitsu closed the plants in Germany and switched back to ATX.

I've been away from this forum for a while, but I'm glad to see there's still some interest in this.
Here are some BTX computer and CPU combos you might like.
Dell T3400 workstation. LGA775 X38 chipset. Hidden support for 400FSB, 16GB DDR2 1066 (as fast as DDR3 1333) 2x PCIe 16x slots. Will go 4.2 GHz with QX9650 and Throttlestop software O/C. Pure BTX mid tower.
If you have a 1366 BTX MB the i7-990x, or unlocked Xeon W3680/W3690 should O/C the same way. Throttlestop 8.xx gives control of voltage , and multiplier. Also displays Temp.,FSB and multiplier up to 12 threads. Dell T3500 while not a pure BTX is very similar in cooling layout.
The big BTX adavantage, and reason for the 45*CPU is shorter traces to the chipset for faster clocked LGA775 Pentium 4, and Pentium D CPUs (up to 3.73GHz) and forced air cooling of the VRM chips for these 130W chips. With integrated chipsets the need for the twisted socket went away. The BTX form was devised by Intel to support the old Netbusrt architecture and therefore mostly came and went with LGA775.. So I doubt if there are any true AMD BTXs. The aftermarket never adopted BTX so HP ,and Dell took it over and with their locked BIOS and proprietary I/O schemes used it to make their business computers harder to modify. A legitimate concern when you are warranteeing fleet of thousands of computers run by any employee anywhere.
Almost all of the 1333fsb LGA775s Dells except workstations have a 95W CPU limit, so no QX**** CPUs. the Old 65nm BTXs that support PentiumD AND Core2 chips can O/C a QX6800 SLACP nicely.

http://valid.x86.fr/top-cpu/496e746...d652043505520513638303020204020322e393347487a
0WG864 is a dell Dimension E520 BTX MB from 2005./6 using a BTX workstaion cooler, and 2 motor Delta Fan.

I posted a Tutorial Overclocking Dell BTX Computers at Tomshardware.