Dell Q965 Micro-BTX Motherboard Teardown

Main Features / Overview

Dell MicroBTX Motherboard is a motherboard from one of their desktop series - it appears that this comes from the Optiplex series - judging from the rear panel which seems to be the 'thumbprint' for their PC models. The board analyzed did not include processor or memory modules. This motherboard comes with Intel latest LGA775 CPU socket, Intel Q965 Northbridge / 82801HB Southbridge Chipset, 4 DDR2 DIMM sockets - 2 PCI expansions slots, 1 PCI-Express x16 Slot, 1 PCI-Express x1 slot.

Dell Q965 Micro-BTX Motherboard Main Image

Chipset pricing is included in our motherboard pricing - and represents a large percentage of total cost, or about 60% of total motherboard pricing, making it 'in line' with other motherboards analyzed. However that pricing tends to 'swamp' the view of the other components and their costs.

The other 'big' items that are driving the costs here are: the heatsink - at $12.87 (mechanical category) was quite huge and special, and the PCB itself (in the 'electro-mechanical category) are other major notable cost drivers within the figures below.

Dell Q965 Micro-BTX Motherboard Cost Analysis

Cost Breakout

Intel Q965 Chipset - North/Southbridge

All other IC Content

Mechanical (Heat sink primarily!)

Electro-Mechanical (PCB = ~50%)

Passive

Discrete Semiconductor

Battery

Other

Materials and Manufacturing* $82.48

* - The total materials and manufacturing costs reported in this analysis reflect ONLY the direct materials cost (from component vendors and assorted EMS providers), AND manufacturing and test. Not included in this analysis are costs above and beyond the material manufacture of the core device itself - cost of intellectual property, software, software loading and test, licensing, shipping, logistics marketing and other channel costs including not only EMS provider and the OEM's margin, but that of other resellers. Our cost analysis is meant to focus on those costs incurred in the manufacture of the core device and exceptionally in some circumstances the packaging and literature as well

Dell Q965 Micro-BTX Motherboard - Top View - Functional Areas

Country of Origin / EMS Provider

It is assumed that this motherboard was assembled in China. Our manufacturing costs incorporate this assumption, keeping in mind that the famously low labor rates in China do not have a direct correlation to savings on a board which is largely populated using modern surface mount production lines, where capital equipment have a more important effect on cost of such an assembly.

Design for Manufacturing / Device Complexity

Motherboards are inherently complex in that they simply have a great number of discrete components on them, which ultimately has an effect on manufacturing and test costs. This Dell board has a total component count of 1253 components. It is in line with other motherboards recently analyzed.

Component counts have a direct bearing on the overall manufacturing cycle times and costs, and also can increase or decrease overall yields and re-work. Our calculations of manufacturing costs factor the country of origin, but also the type and number of components for the board being populated, but factors less the more qualitative complexities in the design. The cost of manufacturing is also, to some extent, decreased in this case because of assumed labor rate applied for China vis--vis higher applied loaded labor rates for other countries.

Design Notes

Motherboard

CPU

• No CPU Included

Northbridge

• Intel - 82Q965 GMCH - Graphics and Memory Controller Hub

Southbridge

• Intel - 82801HB - I/O Controller Hub 8

I/O & interface

• I/O Controller - Super I/O Device - SMSC - SCH5514D-NS
• Ethernet Controller - Broadcom - BCM5754 - Single Chip Solution, Integrated 10/100/1000Base-T Transceiver & MAC, PCI Interface
• Trusted Platform Module - Atmel - AT97SC3203 - Hardware Asymmetric Crypto Engine
• Codec - Analog Devices - AD1983JCPZ - HD Audio SoundMax, 2 ADC/DAC Channels

Memory

• 4x DIMM DDR2 Socket
• Spansion - S25FL008A - CMOS - 8-Megabit, 3V Flash Memory, w/ 50MHz SPI Bus
• Flash - Atmel - AT45DB011B - DataFlash, 1Mb, 2.7V

Clock

• IDT - IDTCV174CPAG - Programmable Clock for P4 Processor, Compliant w/ Intel CK505, 3 PLL's

Dell Q965 Micro-BTX Motherboard - Top View