Gateway brings BTX design to business desktops

Gateway Inc. is expected to announce on Monday a new lineup of business desktops based on a new PC chassis design that removes heat from the system and can help extend the life of a PC, according to the company.

The BTX (balanced technology extended) chassis design was developed by Intel Corp., and is the blueprint for Gateway’s new lineup of E-Series PCs. Gateway introduced the BTX design to its consumers earlier this year.

It’s getting hot inside modern desktop PCs. Intel’s latest Pentium 4 processors consume as much as 115 watts of power running under the heaviest workload, dissipating a lot of heat into a closed desktop chassis, said Marc DeMars, director of product planning for Gateway’s Professional desktops. That heat can have a negative effect on hard drives and expansion cards. It also requires a series of heat sinks and cooling fans to remove the heat from the PC, he said.

The BTX design changes the placement of the motherboard and cooling fans in order to direct a stream of air over the hottest parts of a PC. Two fans are used in BTX chassis, one at each end of the PC. These fans direct air over the processor, which is now located at the front of the motherboard, and help remove heat given off by powerful graphics processors as well, DeMars said.

A pleasant side effect of the cooler design is that the PC runs much quieter than did older designs based on the ATX (advanced technology extended) standard, DeMars said. Because the system cools more efficiently, the fans don’t have to work as hard. This should appeal to users in libraries, medical laboratories and regular offices who are fed up with noisy fans, he said.

All that heat also tends to wear out components within the PC, such as hard drives, DeMars said. Gateway measured the temperature of a BTX PC and a regular PC using the same components and found the inside of a BTX PC was about 39 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) warmer than the room temperature, whereas a conventional design was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) warmer, he said.

A BTX chassis costs a little more than an ATX design, but Gateway believes the reliability and quieter operation of the new E-Series desktops makes up for the slight increase in cost, DeMars said.

ATX has been the predominant PC design for about 10 years. As processors grow faster and hotter, Intel and the chip industry are expected to adopt more power-friendly designs such as the Pentium M architecture for desktop as well as mobile systems.

The E-6300 is the most powerful desktop in the new lineup. It comes with Intel’s Pentium 4 520 processor at 2.8GHz, 512MB of DDR2 (double data rate 2) SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM), an 80GB hard drive, and a CD-RW drive for a starting price of $989.

The E-4300 costs $789 with the Pentium 4 520 processor, 512MB of DDR2 SDRAM memory, a 40GB hard drive, and a CD-RW drive. The E-2300 is available for $599 with Intel’s Celeron D 330 processor at 2.66GHz, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a CD-ROM drive.

All three desktops can be configured through Gateway’s Web site or sales representatives. The E-4300 and E-2300 will be available on Thursday to U.S. customers, and the E-6300 is available for preorder on Thursday with general availability a week later, a Gateway spokesman said. Gateway’s consumer business has restarted operations in Europe after the acquisition of eMachines Inc. earlier this year, but the Professional group has yet to expand outside of the U.S., he said.

Gateway also plans to introduce a 14.1-inch widescreen notebook on Thursday. The Gateway M210 weighs 5.24 pounds (2.36 kilograms) and is designed for business travelers and students. It will be available Nov. 24 for about $1,099, depending on the configuration, the company said.