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Pico-ITX - A Brief History |
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Written by Stew
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Thursday, 06 September 2007 |
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Page 1 of 2
 VIA announced the Pico-ITX form factor earlier this year. The first Pico-ITX boards are starting to appear. But what is it? What does ITX mean? Introducing....
A Brief History of Form Factors.
A form factor is basically a design specification for motherboards that helps PC component manufacturers agree on certain standards and sizes. Motherboards, by the way, are the biggest piece of any PC and essentially connect all the other parts together. One of the first and most significant form factors for the mainstream PC was the ATX standard of 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm. Designed in 1996 by Intel the ATX (and its slightly smaller, squarer brother, the Micro-ITX measuring 24.4 cm x 24.4 cm and released the same year) became the industry standard for most modern desktop PCs. Mini-ATX followed shortly after and was a bit longer, or more rectangular.
Hot Air.
These form factors went a long way to determining the size of the traditional desktop PC. Today most desktop PCs still use these same specifications, and as a result, are quite large, bulky pieces of hardware. The reason that most PCs were designed to be this size is that they had to allow enough space for ventilation. Most CPUs require a heat sink and fan to keep them from burning up and malfunctioning. Ventilation from outside the case provides cool air-flow within, so that the fan can then blow cool air at the heat sink and CPU rather than just blowing hot air around the interior of the PC.
Cool Innovation
Back in 2001 VIA brought us the Mini-ITX form factor. It measured just or 17 cm x 17 cm. This was possible because VIA silicon did not reach anywhere near the same temperatures of other mainstream CPUs. This kind of innovation in form factor meant that PC designers had the opportunity to produce much smaller PCs. These PCs were said to have a smaller footprint, meaning that they actually took up less space on your desk.
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