Why is it hard to make a solid OC/gaming uATX board?

[GPett]

Overclockers and gamers use max of 3 cards. Why do we need 7 card slots on a motherboard? If you wanted a high performance motherboard wouldnt you want to cut out all the unnecessary stuff?

Loose the PS/2, serial, parallel, raid, and ATA ports. As long as you have USB, SATA, LAN, and a high quality onboard sound (what happened to the onboard soundstorm from nvidia?), and possibly firewire, the OC and gamer market would be happy. Personally, I could care less for firewire, but it does seem like a popular feature so that one is debatable. Software raid functionality has been shown to be poor compared to discrete solutions so loose it if it makes it easier to make a quality overclocking and performance board. Loose everything that is not essential to overclocking o gaming on the micro atx platform.

The first company to make a purely entusiast/gamer/overclocking micro atx motherboard ill revolutionise the instustry. It will be THE board to have. Smaller board would mean less timing issues to run connections over the big PCB. I see no reason that micro atx presents a challenge for a quality enthusiast board that he ATX form factor dosn't have.

If you know anyone with pull please tell them that there is a desire for a OC/gaming mobo in the micro atx form factor.

Besides, we have all dreamed of a tiny lanbox that packs equal power as the big monsterous watercooled, 20 led fan having uber towers of doom.

P.S> I would kill for a GIGABYTE DS3 type board in a micro atx format. Bring it on! Its to late to design for current chips. But, a penryn based board with the above features would absolutely take the enthusiast market by storm.

 

[Skott]

I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate here a bit so dont take this personally.

For every person that doesnt like IEEE and RAID setups there is at least one person that does like and want it. So those two things will be supported because most people still want them even though you dont.

"Besides, we have all dreamed of a tiny lanbox that packs equal power as the big monsterous watercooled, 20 led fan having uber towers of doom."

Actually thats not true. Traditionally more people like and use full size ATX than mATX. mATX and SFF setups are still the minority. Perhaps it would grow bigger if the manufacturers catered more to it but for whatever reason the manufacturers believe the market isnt as large and its still not enough profit in it for them.

Unfortunately you are in the minority as to the things you want. At least the manufacturers think/believe you to be in the minority. Which is the problem. The upside is that manufacturers are slowly...very slowly... starting to look at the minority of users like yourself and making availble some of the things you want.

Dont take this as a personal attack upon your person. Its not meant to be. I actually agree with you on some of your points.

 

[Aluvus]

It isn't hard, manufacturers simply choose not to do it. They have opted to market microATX as a "value" form factor, and so it remains. There's a thread about this here.

 

[GPett]

@Skott
Yeah, I understand not everyone wants the same features (or lack thereof) that I do. Thats why there are a lot of different products out there. I am just hoping for a product more tailored to what I want.

@Aluvus
Thanks for the link, that is an informative thread.

 

[Skott]

There may be an alternate solution for some who want smaller than current ATX setups. What if they made a case that housed ATX mobos, power supplies, 8800GTX video cards, etc.? Mountain Mods has the Twice7 case. This case is 14"x14"x14". Now think for a moment and picture it. Its smaller than a full tower ATX case in many ways. So it is a little bit easier to carry in some respects.

Okay, you dont like how big it is and you want something thats like a SFF cube case where the mobo lies horizontal instead of vertical. Well, apparently Mountain Mods has plans to offer a case between the size of their Bob Slay (14.59 x 11.11 x 12.21 inches L x W x H)) and their Twice7 and it will have the mobo laying horizontal like a SFF cube and house all ATX components. I suspect its pricing will be somehwere between the Bob Slay and the Twice7.

Here's the thread where I mentioned it to VinDSL earlier today after MM emailed me back.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=37&threadid=2037516&enterthread=y

I havent phoned them yet to get more details. I didnt have time today to do so. But you could call them if you like and see what they have to say if you'd like. I'll try and call them in the next day or so and see if they got anymore detailed info.

Here's the linky to their web site

http://www.mountainmods.com/

 

[GPett]

Thanks for the link but I prefer desktop cases to cubes. I like small desktop cases that you can set your monitor on top of. There used to be a large selection of cases like that. Now they all look like audio/video equipment.

A perfect case for me would have 1 5" external drive bay.
No external 3" drive bays.
1 internal 3" drive bay.
USB2.0 and audio jacks up front.
No doors or covers covering the buttons, ports, or drive.
Enough room for an 8800 inside.
Decent airflow.
Looks like a computer not a stereo.

Closest I can find is the Silverstone LC-10.

It is almost perfect, but I would prefer larger front intake and rear exhaust fans. I have seen some cases that have 120mm intake with 2X80mm rear exhaust. But those looked like silly htpc audio video equipment cases.

Thats why I want a micro AXT board for overclocking and gaming. I only use 1 video card,1 hard drive, and 1 optical drive. Thats it. If thats all I need for overclocking and gaming why do I need an ATX size mobo for overclocking and gaming? Oh well.. hopefully the microATX boards become more quality in the future.