TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

The desktop PC will begin getting a makeover in the second half of 2004, with the movement creating "tumultuous transformations" in the PC industry, according to a new study.

A series of developments are combining to bring about the changes, with most of them centered on the new Balanced Technology Extended interface, said D'Elia. The BTX interface specification provides a flexible standards-based form factor foundation that supports the implementation of new desktop technologies, including PCI Express and Serial ATA.

In addition, a move away from the PCI and AGP buses to the single PCI Express bus will come into play, as PC interfaces among processors, memory, and drives will work more efficiently together.

Read more: Yahoo News.

Sweet, I have lots of time to save until these are fully developed Maybe we'll get a faster SATA too ala ATA200 maybe?

Can't wait....

I thought BTX would show up in in the mainstream later than in 2004? Well even betr if it is in 2004. I guess it's a good idea to introduce all these new innovations in one year, instead of in different years. Anyone know exact upcoming dates for pi express to hit the market, specifically for the 32-bit motherboards for AMD?

All a tech hype fuelled by PR departments spamming the hell out of everyone.

It took 4 years for the PCI standard to kick in and another 5 to actually get rid of ISA slots on motherboards.. And everyone remembers all that data corruption stuff with the first SATA controllers. The year of change will actually be 2005.

SATA II will operate at 300 MB/s (in theory anyway)