Form Factors- Specification of computer

ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended):- is a motherboard configuration

specification developed by Intel in 1997 to improve on previous de facto standards
like the AT design.

Fig1. An ATX Motherboard

Micro ATX: - microATX (sometimes referred to as ATX, mATX or uATX) is a

standard for motherboards that was introduced in December 1997.[4] The maximum
size of a microATX motherboard is 9.6 9.6 in (244 244 mm). The
standard ATX size is 25% longer, at 12 9.6 in (305 244 mm).

Fig2. Micro-ATX

ITX - Information Technology ATX

Pico ITX- It is a PC motherboard form factor announced by VIA Technologies in
January 2007 and demonstrated later the same year at CeBIT. The formfactor was
transferred over to SFF-SIG in 2008. The Pico-ITX form factor specifications call
for the board to be 10 7.2 cm (3.9 2.8 in), which is half the area of Nano-ITX.
The processor can be a VIA C7, a VIA Eden V4, a VIA Nano or any other that uses
VIA's NanoBGA2 technology for speeds up to 1.5 GHz, with 128KB L1 & L2
caches. It uses DDR2 400/533 SO-DIMMmemory, with support for up to 1GB.
Video is supplied via AGP by VIA's UniChrome Pro II GPU with built-in MPEG2, 4, and WMV9decoding acceleration. The BIOS is a 4 or 8 Mbit Award BIOS.

Fig3. Pico-ITX

Mini-ITX It is a 17 17 cm (6.7 6.7 in) motherboard, developed by VIA

Technologies in 2001.[1] They are commonly used in small-configured computer
systems. They are designed for fanless cooling with a low power consumption
architecture, which made them useful for home theatre PC systems, where fan
noise can detract from the cinema experience. The four mounting holes in a MiniITX board line up with four of the holes in ATX-specification motherboards, and
the locations of the back plate and expansion slot are the same. Mini-ITX boards
can therefore often be used in cases designed for ATX, micro-ATX and other ATX
variants if desired.

Fig4. Intel thin mini-ITX

Motherboard Expansion Slots

Fig5. Expansion slots in motherboard.

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port): -It is a high-speed point-to-point channel for

attaching a video card to a computer system, primarily to assist in the acceleration
of 3D computer graphics. It was originally designed as a successor to PCI-type
connections for video cards.
AMR (Adaptive Multi-rate audio codec): - It is an audio compression
format optimized for speech coding. AMR speech codec consists of a multirate narrowband speech codec that encodes narrowband (2003400 Hz) signals at
variable bit rates ranging from 4.75 to 12.2 Kbit/s with toll quality speech starting
at 7.4 Kbit/s.
CNR (Communication and Network Riser): - is a slot found on certain
PC motherboards and used for specialized networking, audio, and telephony
equipment. A motherboard manufacturer can choose to provide audio, networking,
or modem functionality in any combination on a CNR card. CNR slots were once
commonly found on Pentium 4-class motherboards, but have since been phased out
in favour of on-board or embedded components.
EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture): - SCSI (small computer
system interface), Network card, Video card.
ISA: - Network card, Sound card, Video card.
PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect): -Network card, SCSI, Sound card,
Video card. It is a parallel bus, synchronous to a single bus clock. Attached devices
can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard itself
(called a planar device in the PCI specification) or an expansion card that fits into a
slot.
PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express): - It is a serial expansion
bus standard for connecting a computer to one or more peripheral devices. It is a
Video card.
VESA (Video Electronics Standard Association): - It is a video card.