Patent Application
20060184704
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a motherboard assembly, more S particularly to a motherboard assembly that complies with a small Balanced Technology Extended specification.
2. Description of the Related Art
Those skilled in the art of computer-related fields are aware that there are two dominant specifications for computer motherboards: one is Advanced Technology Extended (ATX) specification; the other is Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) specification. Whether it is an ATX motherboard or a main-stream BTX motherboard, the conventional computer motherboard suffers from a drawback: the dimensions of the board body thereof are relatively large, and hence the size of a computer housing to enclose the same is difficult to be minimized. Motherboards complying with the BTX specification can be further subcategorized according to dimensions: the first type is a BTX motherboard, which has a size of 10.5 inches×12.8 inches, and up to 7 expansion slots that comply with the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) specification; the second type is a micro-BTX (μBTX) motherboard, which has a size of 10.5 inches×10.4 inches, and up to 4 expansion slots that comply with the PCI specification; the third type is a pico-BTX motherboard, which has a size of 10.5 inches×8 inches, and only one expansion slot that complies with the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE) specification. Although the aforesaid pico-BTX motherboard has the S smallest dimensions, the pico-BTX motherboard only has one expansion slot that complies with the PCIE specification. As such, it can only be used for a special-purpose computer with a small-size computer housing, and cannot be used for a general-purpose computer.
Moreover, the μBTX motherboard in general includes only one PCIE×16 expansion slot and up to 3 PCI or PCIE expansion slots, wherein the PCIE×16 expansion slot is specially designed for a graphics card that complies with a new generation of PCIE specification. Referring to
As described in the foregoing, since the μBTX motherboard 1 is designed to have up to four expansion slots complying with the PCI-associated specifications, a size of 10.5 inches×10.4 inches for the board body 11 is required, which has an adverse affect to miniaturization of the computer housing.
Therefore, the main object of the present invention is to provide a motherboard assembly that comply with the Balanced Technology Extended specification, and that can overcome the aforesaid drawbacks associated with the prior art.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) motherboard assembly that comprises a motherboard, a first expansion slot and a second expansion slot.
The motherboard complies with the Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) specification.
The first expansion slot complies with the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE) specification, is provided on the motherboard, and is adapted to be connected to a graphics card.
The second expansion slot complies with the PCIE specification, and is provided on the motherboard.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a BTX motherboard assembly that comprises: a motherboard complying with the Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) specification; a first expansion slot complying with the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE) specification, provided on the motherboard, and adapted to be connected to a graphics card; a second expansion slot complying with the PCIE specification and provided on the motherboard; and a riser card connected removably to the second expansion slot and formed with a plurality of expansion slots that comply with PCI-associated specifications.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment with reference to the accompanying drawings, of which:
Referring to
Since the I/O interface 24, the I/O controller 25, the graphic memory controller 26 and the central processing unit 27 are well known to those skilled in the art, and since the improvement of this invention is not directed to the same, so they will not be detailed further for the sake of brevity.
The first expansion slot 22 is provided on the motherboard 21, is adapted to be connected to a graphics card (not shown), and complies with the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE) specification, such as the PCIE×16 specification.
The second expansion slot 23 is provided on the motherboard 21, also complies with the PCIE specification, such as the PCIE×16 specification, and is adapted for connection to the riser card 3.
Referring again to
The first expansion slots 31, 32 of the riser card 3 are formed on the board body 30, and comply with the PCI specification.
The second expansion slot 33 is formed on the board body 30, and complies with the PCIE specification, which can be PCIE×1, PCIE×4, or PCIE×8 specification.
The goldfinger unit 34 is formed on the board body 30, is formed with a plurality of conductive traces, and is adapted to be inserted into the second expansion slot 23 of the motherboard 2.
Although the motherboard 21 is provided with only two expansion slots, i.e., the first and second expansion slots 22, 23, the motherboard 21 can be connected to a plurality of interface cards that comply with specifications, including PCI, and PCIE×1, PCIE×4, or PCIE×8 specifications, through insertion of the riser card 3 into the second expansion slot 23 on the motherboard 21.
Since the motherboard 21 only has the first and second expansion slots 22, 23 that comply with the PCIE specification, the size of the motherboard 21 can be reduced significantly when compared with the conventional μBTX motherboard 1. As shown in
In sum, the motherboard assembly 2 of this invention has a significant reduction in size when compared with the conventional μBTX motherboard 1, while maintaining flexibility of interface expansion by virtue of the riser card 3.
While the present invention has been described in connection with what is considered the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is understood that this invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiment but is intended to cover various arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent arrangements.
