Did you know, Intel has a free tool called Embedded Board Planner? Through a web interface, you can for example design your own Intel Atom based processor board.
It will even generate a schematic for you!
Intel Embedded Board planner (screenshot)
I have never used it, so I am not sure how good it is, but certainly it is an interesting idea. The link is: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/intelligent-systems/embedded-design-tools/board-planner.html
Have a fun! 🙂
Welldone Blog 
Hello Most x86 motherboards today are designed using Cadence Allegro. AMD and Intel reference designs available under NDA are also done in Cadence Tools. Typically you will find the schematics are done in Orcad Capture and the boards are designed in Allegro.
As a PCB designer I find it interesting you are using Altium to do x86 Motherboard design. Best of luck with your course, content looks good.
Thanks John
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Hello John, exactly as you described. Most of these designs are in Orcad + Cadence Allegro. I used to design in Allegro, but after I set up my own company I use Altium because of its price. Cadence Allegro is an expensive tool. You can import Cadence files into Altium.
Thank you very much for your feedback about courses 🙂
– Robert
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Hello, I just stumbled into this thread and have, if you permit me, another kind of question.
Would you be able and willing to design a motherboard for me that is only meant for audio playback?
It would keep in mind to habeas little as possible high frequency pick up, thick pcb lines and rids of all not necessary for audio playback only.
Please contact me at dcd_gaston@hotmail.com
I am only interested in audio, not commercially.
Thanx! Gaston
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Where do I design the board? The link sends me to an Intel page but there isn’t any design tool available like shown in the screenshot. I want to design a small board with a core m to build a mini portable gaming machine.
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You are right. It looks like, they moved it somewhere else 😦
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Robert,
If I wanted to buy 400 motherboards, what do you think the design costs would be for those mobos? I just need the board to have an Intel Celeron processor and some PCIe slots — let me know your thoughts
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Customization of x86 may easily cost around 100k USD and take around 12 months to have ready to sale product. It may be easier/cheaper/faster to try to find a commercial board which is going to fit your needs.
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It has moved to the following link:
http://trgcqcontent.cps.intel.com/content/www/xr/en/embedded/design-tools/board-planner.html
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I know what a resistor is, what is a transistor is etc etc and how they work, have built many DIY PCBs (simple stuff, sirens, LED lights, FM transmitters, sound amplifiers etc) when I was a kid, I love electronics .. never have used arduino or thinker boards which are computer related, but, now I wanna learn how to make my own arduino board (Single board computer) because I aim to build a tablet PC which will have a touch screen and a stylus. I wanna use INTEL processor such as apollo lake for the board. Pico ITX form factor. Do you have courses which will lead me to my aim? what are your recommendations?
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Maybe have a look at COM Express boards. That could help you.
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i am asking a bit weird question does any know some who can help me with my project actually i am trying launch my first product an all in one pc and i need a custom motherboard for that ( specifically a motherboard with a custom form factor and maybe with sxm2 or maybe mxm3 ) so i will need some who can design the pcb for me and does any knows how much it really cost in the pre production stage
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This is my old post, but it can give you an idea how much it can cost (cheaper is build your initial product around an existing board e.g. COM Express): https://www.fedevel.com/welldoneblog/2012/11/how-much-a-custom-motherboard-design-development-costs/
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what is COM Express ???
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It’s a standard and there are many processor boards what people use for their systems: https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-express/
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i dont think that the motherboard can use that form factor but is it possible get the main silicon ( the gpu ) from nvidia or amd and use that in a mazzanine or com express form factor ???
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Since the price of designing a motherboard is way too expensive, I was wondering what sites sell SFF motherboards that are made for laptops, since designing the rest of the laptop would be cheaper (i assume)
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have a look at COM Express
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I was interested to see they had an online board planner. Do you know if amd has anything simular to this?
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I do not know. Even this Intel board planner – they somehow buried it somewhere. I wanted to use it a few weeks ago and could not find it – just error pages.
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Is there a tool like this but for higher end mobile chips, like those in the Core series of processors? Does AMD have something similar?
I’m eventually going to need to replace my current laptop, but what I’m looking for in a laptop doesn’t seem to exist, yet what does exist comes with compromises that are complete deal breakers. Maybe when USB 4 and PCIe 4.0 or later are common standards, what I’m wanting will exist, but I’m not going to keep my hopes up.
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