micro ATX motherboard drawbacks?

[wjgollatz]

As I understand, micro ATX motherboards can be used in ATX cases. Are there any drawbacks to the smaller size of the motherboard itself? Are there problems installing cooling fans, or problems that limit the selection of cooling fans? Are longer SATA cables needed (I am reading of instances where SATA extensions are required but it seems to be a design issue of the case itself).

I plan on using a ATX case, but do not want to needlessly limit what motherboards I can use. Thanks in advance.

 

[techmanc]

You buy a motherboard based on its features unless you need it smaller for space requirements.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: wjgollatz
Are there any drawbacks to the smaller size of the motherboard itself?

There are zero drawbacks to the actual micro ATX form factor, besides being smaller than ATX by three slots.

Whether or not you can find a micro ATX board with everything you want on it is another matter. The reason is that many manufacturers feel that micro ATX is meant for small/cheap, so that's how they make it. Of course "enthusiasts" don't help in that they mistakenly believe that micro ATX = not enthusiast. That isn't strictly true, only that it is a chicken/egg problem of no enthusiast demand = not manufactured = no enthusiast demand = not manufactured...

Some manufacturers have made decent micro ATX boards. For instance, for years Biostar has made micro ATX boards that are nearly as feature-filled as their ATX boards. However, Biostar isn't considered top tier for enthusiasts.

DFI recently has targeted micro ATX for enthusiasts. We're talking about motherboards with just about anything any normal ATX board has... minus three slots. This is what micro ATX is capable of, but which no company made until now. We're even talking about SLI and Crossfire support!

If overclocking and multi-GPU doesn't make it "enthusiast" then I don't know what does.

The trick of course is finding a micro ATX board that has exactly what you want at the price you want. Hey, that's just like shopping for an ATX board, but with only 1/2 the choices.

 

[AmberClad]

Weren't the P5E-VM and P5Q-EM fairly decent as well?

 

[Skott]

The P5Q-EM has some problems associated with it. Video problems I think it is. The P5E-VM HDMI is a great mobo however.

 

[techmanc]

ah wrong thread

 

[jedihobbit]

General rule of thumb for me is ATX for a "full size" case and mATX when you have to. And this is from a guy that has four mATX systems running! If you have the case get an ATX board as they are usually more "feature rich" and you may limit yourself later down the road it you want SLI/Crossfire and "serious" overclocking.

I may be doing a build using a smallish full sized case with a mATX mobo, but that is because I already have the mobo.

 

[nerp]

Sometimes a mATX board is harder to work with, but I haven't experienced any limitations due to the smaller form factor. In fact, I've enjoyed working with mATX boards more than regular ATX because it has opened a whole new world of sleek, small form factor cases that I can use. I'm personally sick of big towers and hulking midtowers with lots of extra space I don't need.

 

[Heidfirst]

the other drawback that you can run up against from an enthusiast point of view is that many companies mATX offerings often don't have as many BIOS settings available as their ATX brothers.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
the other drawback that you can run up against from an enthusiast point of view is that many companies mATX offerings often don't have as many BIOS settings available as their ATX brothers.

Right, however that lack is purely synthetic. Companies like DFI are proving that micro ATX can have as many features & BIOS settings as any ATX board.

 

[jedihobbit]

Originally posted by: Zap.....Right, however that lack is purely synthetic. Companies like DFI are proving that micro ATX can have as many features & BIOS settings as any ATX board.

Agree as the mATX builders have started noticing the "performance" market and I've managed reasonablly oc'ed builds....3 x Biostar, 2 x Abit brokenheart: so long abit!), and Asus.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: jedihobbit
Agree as the mATX builders have started noticing the "performance" market and I've managed reasonablly oc'ed builds....3 x Biostar, 2 x Abit brokenheart: so long abit!), and Asus.

Abit... I had an NF-M2 nView micro ATX board that I was able to hit around 380MHz HTT with. Good times!

 

[jedihobbit]

Originally posted by: Zap

Abit... I had an NF-M2 nView micro ATX board that I was able to hit around 380MHz HTT with. Good times!

Running two of them now with Opty 1210s!! One is running at 3.2GHz...on air! :thumbsup:

 

[Dadofamunky]

This is a very good idea for a thread.

Given my druthers, I think I'd probably not go uATX again. I think there's just not quite the same massive amount of headroom for OCing that there is in the better ATX boards for S775. I am happy with the way things turned out with my P5E-VM HDMI, all in all. Most uATX boards hardly allow for OCing at all, till quite recently. So things have definitely turned around in that area.

I think my biggest difficulty with the P5E-VM is that I have FSB holes everywhere no matter what multipliers I use. I did find a rock solid setting on the 9X multi, thank God, but I could not get the system stable at 4 GHz on either the 10x or 9.5x multis on the G35 chipset. I was fortunate to find a place at 460 FSB (but both the CPU and the NB need significantly increased voltages). Sure enough, if I tweak it just to 461, much less 462-465 or more, I start getting computation errors in OCCT and Prime. 460? Runs like a tank. I may try the 8.5 multi one of these days if I'm feeling experimental, but I think I've found my absolute max on this setup.

I don't see why you would put a uATX board in an ATX case, however. Makes little sense to me, since the best uATX boards are fairly comparable in price to the most established ATX boards. Doing so does allow you to use the better cooling gizmos, however.

 

[jedihobbit]

Originally posted by: Dadofamunky
This is a very good idea for a thread.

Given my druthers, I think I'd probably not go uATX again. I think there's just not quite the same massive amount of headroom for OCing that there is in the better ATX boards for S775..... I don't see why you would put a uATX board in an ATX case, however. Makes little sense to me, since the best uATX boards are fairly comparable in price to the most established ATX boards. Doing so does allow you to use the better cooling gizmos, however.

I have owned several small - mid sized towers over time and really think they must have been thinking mATX when they were made. And yes it does free up space for water cooling if that is your thing. As far as oc limits don't have an opinion on the "dark side" as I've only done the amd thing and for the most part done well. mATX is usually limited on what you can do because originally they were for oems to build small dirt cheap "general use" systems and now have grown to cover the HTPC industry. Again a group that usually doesn't go for performance. On one occasion I did miss not having an additional pci slot.

Speaking of the "dark side".....I've almost given in a couple of times because that would be the only way to go SLI/Crossfire in mATX!
:Q

 

[exar333]

Going mATX gives you some good boards with great IGPs (as far as IGPs go...). This is especially true of the mATX AMD boards. I have built some really great basic machines with these IGPs for people with lower graphic needs.