- Joined
- Jan 17, 2012
- Location
- Texas
WARNING: IF YOU ARE JUST HERE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT MY HARDWARE BEING OLD OR TO BE A MORON IN SOME SIMILAR FASHION, LEAVE NOW PLEASE.
I really like the BTX form factor, but it's a shame that no component or whole PC manufacturers use it anymore. For this reason, for my new PC, I have bought and assembled it from the most recent balanced technology extended form factor compliant case, motherboard and heatsink (ATX PSUs are compatible with BTX). Unfortunately, almost all of the BTX motherboards I could find used the Intel 915G chipset, which only supports up to pentium Ds. It so happened that I was actually looking to upgrade from a pentium D 960. However, I'd heard that OEM manufacturers like HP and Dell had continued using the BTX form factor, not just reversed ATX MoBo tray in "BTX" style, but actually BTX-shape compliant cases and motherboards. So, I looked into Dell. Turns out they actually kept using BTX through early 2009 in their XPS 430. I looked into it further, and discovered that the XPS 430 motherboard actually has the X48 chipset, and the DDR3 version no less! I am a big fan of socket LGA775, and the best chipset with the socket is great. therefore, I set aside the obvious risks of trying to build a system on an OEM board, especially from Dell, and bought it along with an XPS 430 case, which is the coolest-looking BTX case I could find (the 2007 XPS 420 case looks the same with the addition of a nice XPS logo on the side, but I don't want a dumb screen on top). I did have several very major problems resulting from the OEM board, and some receiving of broken components that had to be returned and replaced, but after six months and the consequential slight drop of LGA775 ever closer to obsolete-ness, it's finally done. What I'd like to know from you guys is if any of you know of a better B.T.X. form factor solution i. e. newer and more powerful, like X58 or something. So, here are my specs:
Dell XPS 430 motherboard(X48 chipset DDR3 version, PCIe 2.0 x16 + x8 + x1 + x1, 5 SATA II 3Gbps ports, BTX form factor)
Dell XPS 430 case (2 Tool-less internal 3.5" bays, 2 front 5.25" bays, one front 3.5" bay, one front/internal 3.5" bay, no cable management to speak of, basically all rivets no screws, BTX form factor)
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650(Would've gone for QX9770 for the FSB, but it was too expensive)
4 x 2GB DDR3-1333 (DDR3-1600 would have been better, but I had this lying around, and why buy more RAM when you have some perfectly good sticks ready?)
Dell CAB-200 basically all-card-reader with BlueTooth
Sony Optiaric DVD-RW SATA drive
Intel 320 series 80GB SSD SATA II
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 7200RPM 160GB HDD SATA(I'm going to upgrade to a 500GB one soon!)
surprisingly big and nice Dell XPS 400 series/Dimension 9000 series BTX 3-pipe heatsink and what I think is a 140mm fan(haven't actually measured it LOL)
XFX AMD ati radeon HD 4890 1GB version (1GB GDDR5, DX10.1, OCed with CCC to 900Mhz core and 1000Mhz memory clock [Is stable @950Mhz in most stuff but GTA IV doesn't like it!])
XFX PRO 550 Watt Core Edition Full Wired PSU(again, ATX PSU is good with BTX case!)
So, does anyone know of or possible have a better BTX build I might have gotten instead?
I really like the BTX form factor, but it's a shame that no component or whole PC manufacturers use it anymore. For this reason, for my new PC, I have bought and assembled it from the most recent balanced technology extended form factor compliant case, motherboard and heatsink (ATX PSUs are compatible with BTX). Unfortunately, almost all of the BTX motherboards I could find used the Intel 915G chipset, which only supports up to pentium Ds. It so happened that I was actually looking to upgrade from a pentium D 960. However, I'd heard that OEM manufacturers like HP and Dell had continued using the BTX form factor, not just reversed ATX MoBo tray in "BTX" style, but actually BTX-shape compliant cases and motherboards. So, I looked into Dell. Turns out they actually kept using BTX through early 2009 in their XPS 430. I looked into it further, and discovered that the XPS 430 motherboard actually has the X48 chipset, and the DDR3 version no less! I am a big fan of socket LGA775, and the best chipset with the socket is great. therefore, I set aside the obvious risks of trying to build a system on an OEM board, especially from Dell, and bought it along with an XPS 430 case, which is the coolest-looking BTX case I could find (the 2007 XPS 420 case looks the same with the addition of a nice XPS logo on the side, but I don't want a dumb screen on top). I did have several very major problems resulting from the OEM board, and some receiving of broken components that had to be returned and replaced, but after six months and the consequential slight drop of LGA775 ever closer to obsolete-ness, it's finally done. What I'd like to know from you guys is if any of you know of a better B.T.X. form factor solution i. e. newer and more powerful, like X58 or something. So, here are my specs:
Dell XPS 430 motherboard(X48 chipset DDR3 version, PCIe 2.0 x16 + x8 + x1 + x1, 5 SATA II 3Gbps ports, BTX form factor)
Dell XPS 430 case (2 Tool-less internal 3.5" bays, 2 front 5.25" bays, one front 3.5" bay, one front/internal 3.5" bay, no cable management to speak of, basically all rivets no screws, BTX form factor)
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9650(Would've gone for QX9770 for the FSB, but it was too expensive)
4 x 2GB DDR3-1333 (DDR3-1600 would have been better, but I had this lying around, and why buy more RAM when you have some perfectly good sticks ready?)
Dell CAB-200 basically all-card-reader with BlueTooth
Sony Optiaric DVD-RW SATA drive
Intel 320 series 80GB SSD SATA II
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 7200RPM 160GB HDD SATA(I'm going to upgrade to a 500GB one soon!)
surprisingly big and nice Dell XPS 400 series/Dimension 9000 series BTX 3-pipe heatsink and what I think is a 140mm fan(haven't actually measured it LOL)
XFX AMD ati radeon HD 4890 1GB version (1GB GDDR5, DX10.1, OCed with CCC to 900Mhz core and 1000Mhz memory clock [Is stable @950Mhz in most stuff but GTA IV doesn't like it!])
XFX PRO 550 Watt Core Edition Full Wired PSU(again, ATX PSU is good with BTX case!)
So, does anyone know of or possible have a better BTX build I might have gotten instead?