Questions about case, motherboard and Power Source

In the next few months I'm planning on building a new tower and I was wondering if any of you guys had any advice or knowledge of some of the upcoming technology. First off does any of you know if the new intel boards are going to be offered in ATX or just BTX format or both? I'm referring the 915 and or 925 chipset boards and beyond. Will these boards support PCI Express? I'm looking at buying a coolermaster Wavemaster case and using an Antec True Power True550 Power supply for the newer generation video cards. I realize the longer I wait the better but am not so sure about this BTX format yet. I probably won't build anything until mid to late summer but would possibly like to start buying the case and power supply to get things going. Little at a time to make things less painful on the wallet if you know what I mean. I just don't want to go ATX and then not be able to use the newer motherboards or video cards.

i would think that the new boards from intel would be btx, but dont take that to the bank. unfortunatly, it looks to me like the next generation of intel chipsets which will have PCI EXPRESS, ddr2 and 800mhz fsb will cost a arm and a leg and perform very poorly becuase ddr2 has very high latencies and presscotts are a bust. intel may use 1066mhz fsb and ddr2 @ 533mhz however, in which case they will perform much better. back to the point, why have you not considered a hammer? AMD plans to stick with the atx standard, which means you can pick up your case and ps whenever, and in mid to late summer there will be socket 939 boards with pci-x and support for 90nm hammers. i think most people would agree that socket 939 setups are going to be the performance leader this year, and you dont have to pick up any expensive ddr2!

Any word on if we'll see BTX/PCI-E compatibility anytime soon in socket 939 boards?

Like tjr I'm going to build a comp mid/late summer, I'm wondering if it'd be safe to order my Xaser III Skull case right away. (I wanna be able to look at it in 3d so I can plan for the aesthetic stuff I wanna do to it... it'd give me something to do considering it'll be a while before I have the money saved up for the rest of the computer...)

I could just plan to buy a new case/mo-bo when I upgrade my Video card?

about BTX, Intel created the BTX standard to help cope with the heat and power problems of prescott. motherboard monufactures don't like the idea, of having to totally change layout. At the CeBit show in Germany last month, all of the motherboard makers showed off 925's and 915's in ATX, the only BTX boards where 2 engineering samples at Intels booth. I think BTX won't show up this year, more likely in mid 2005. AMD doesn't think BTX is needed.

About the power supply, BTX uses a 24 pin main connector and the 4pin 12v. the Antec 550 has enough power to use a converter (20-24). don't be surrprised to see a 24 pin on some upcoming ATX.