File Update

ATX 12V 2.0:

ATX 12V is a new type of compliant to power supplies that feature a 24-pin 
connection that jack into new motherboards which have PCI-E capabilities. PCI-
E graphic cards can consume up to 75W of power compared to the 50W maximum 
limit on AGP cards. Most motherboards dont force you to buy a new PSU to run 
your 24-pin motherboard. They allow the older 20 pin connectors to work by 
leaving 4 pins vacant.

BTX Formfactor:

BTX is a new motherboard formfactor that moves the processor to the front of 
the case, moves the chipset in order to obtain higher I/O speeds and features 
better cooling. The BTX formfactor may have been greated very well by PC 
enthusiasts but the chasis manufacturers are not too happy since they have to 
shell out the big ucks, near $50K, to retool their assembly line. AMD is not 
following INTELs footsteps since it stated to the public that it will not 
embrace this new standard unless customers ask for it. BTX has a way better 
design than its preceder, ATX, and it willdefenetively become the new standard 
soon.My guess is around 2-3 years.

DDR2 RAM:

The introduction of DDR2 has been really slow. DDR2 has improved apon DDR by 
by prefetching double the amount of data as DDR and it is designed to flo more 
than double the bandwith of DDR 3700 (400MHz). DDR2 sticks are not compatible 
with DDR at all sinceit electrically takes more power since it uses 1.8V while 
DDR used 2.5V and DDR2 is not physically fit to work dince it has 240 pins 
while DDR had 184 pins. DDR2 has not been proven to be worth it at its current 
400 and 533MHz speeds because of the increased latencies but DDR2 is comming 
out with 667 and 800MHz speeds which will be attractive.

Dual-Core CPU Support:

Two Processors will be featured on single CPU dies which will increase the 
performance for gammers but will probably have near no effect for non-gaming 
applications. Most applications will not be featuring/supporting this new 
feature any time soon but it is claimed that the users will have a "smoother" 
experience.AMD claims that all Socket 939 mobos that can run an FX-55 CPU will 
have no problem to take on the dual-core processors. On INTELs side things 
are alot more confusing since their only dual core compatible chipset is the 
945/955X. Certain vendors say that 925X chipsets workfine as well. It is 
suggested that if you are shopping or a new motherboard make sure that it is 
dual-core compatible.

High-Definition Audio:

NCQ and SATA 3GB:

SATA 3GB is a pretty simple subject to graspsince the original SATA connection 
is now doubled to 300MB/s. Todays hard drives are not in need of such high 
speeds but there is no reason why no to have it tho if you buy a new mobo. NCQ 
or nativecommand queuing is very important since it enables your hard drive 
and its controller to reorder data requests according to priority in an 
intelligent manner. This extra hard drive intelligence allows it to collect 
and write data faster than before. Even tho NCQ only gives small performance 
boosts according to the ressources that I used, it is still worth having when 
buying a new mobo.

PCI-Express:

PCI-Express has become the new motherboard standard practically overnight 
since the change happened so fast. PCI-E has proven to be faster than the 
older AGP standard but there isnt a big performance boost unless two PCI-E 
cards are paired together. PCI-E is one of the few leaders so far that have 
moved away from wide and slow interfaces with lots of pins to narrow and high-
speed interfaces. AGPs bandwith was 2GB/s but now PCI-E has brought the 
bandwith up to a great 8GB/s. PCI-E also has the greatest advantage in its 
upstream bandwith since AGP had a 133MB/s bandwith but now PCI-E has a 
bandwith of 4GB/s which is a tramendous improvement. The new x1 PCI-E 
connector is going to try to take over PCI slots since it offers 300MB/s which 
is more than double of PCIs bandwith. On todays motherboards there are 
already so many integrated parts that the more and more expansion slots are 
being left empty. However, software developpers will be soon taking advantage 
of this in the near future to my predictions.

SLI:

Sli which is also known as scalable link interface is the process of running 
to video cards together to generate an image onto one screen. SLI allows two 
GPUs, graphic processing units, to share the work load while displaying their 
content on a single monitor. To do this it requires a motherboard that has two 
x16 PCI-E slots. When buying orsetting up this configuration must customers do 
not realise that they are not going to get x16 bandwith ineach slot. Current 
boards top out at around x20. There are two possible configurations. It is 
possible to set them up so that one runs at x16 and the other at x4 or you can 
make them both run at x8 which is said to be the optimal setting. On most 
current SLI mobos a switch or pin must be turned on to enable or disable SLI 
mode. There is a catch for SLI at the current stage of the game. If you play 
current games a big performance boost wont be seen but in the near future 
those twins will become veryusefull since future games are likely to run 
faster technology.