Micro motherboards pro or cons

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Stigma311

Stigma311

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Oct 22, 2014
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So working on budget build for last year or so. Wor king off and on. From who has clue to what he is doing. Big question is what Micro motherboard what are there pro and con.

Also is better then full size ATX motherboard or not? ?
 
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B
There is nothing wrong with micro atx.
Micro boards naturally have less ports due to their smaller size and due to their more "budget" status they do not have as many high end enthusiest bells and whistles.
If neither of those 2 factors are an issue then there is absolutly zero problem with getting a Micro board.
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There is nothing wrong with micro atx.
Micro boards naturally have less ports due to their smaller size and due to their more "budget" status they do not have as many high end enthusiest bells and whistles.
If neither of those 2 factors are an issue then there is absolutly zero problem with getting a Micro board.
 
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Solution
MiniITX boards which are REALLY tiny only have 2 ram slots, MicroATX boards usually have 4 slots. Usually the only difference with them is shorter length than ATX so less PCIe slots, but allows for a smaller more compact case without any other compromises. There are plenty of higher-end MicroATX boards out there.
 
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A wire of a given size has a larger voltage drop and more heat as the length of the wire increases. Going to a larger and more expensive wire can solve this problem, or using a shorter wire.

Basically this is like using a 18 gauge 6' extension cord vs. 25' cord. Going with a 14gauge 25' cord will have the same voltage drop as the lighter gauge 6' one. This costs more money as the $1.99 cord is much cheaper than the 14 gauge 25' one. (THIS IS ALSO WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER PLUG EXTENSION CORDS TOGETHER TO RUN A HIGH LOAD ITEM LIKE A HEATER, PUMP OR COMPRESSOR AS THE CORD CAN MELT AND CATCH ON FIRE)

Why does this matter you ask? It applies to all electronics not just a extension cord. In the board there are traces that carry the power to various chips and the cpu. It's cheaper to make a smaller micro-atx board. They can skimp on the board traces saving expensive copper or even make a cheaper board with less layers that is thinner.

The big con is micro-atx boards are crammed if you run more than just a video card on it.
-A con for ATX boards is some budget ones sometimes have issues with a sata or usb port not working right due to the longer data wires and are more likely to have interference troubles. The Realtek onboard lan not working right can be fixed by trying older drivers or other revisions, that is a fairly common issue with cheap ATX boards. I have seen this with budget msi, ecs and asusrock boards.

-If you plan on running a single graphics card and onboard sound or a usb one, a larger board is mostly a waste of cash.

-Micro-atx boards tend to be a bit faster because they have shorter data wires and usually get higher fsb or blck overclocks.

Likely you can get a Z170 matx board for the same price as a ATX H110 board. So you can opt for the i5-6600K instead of the i5-6500.
Gigabyte is the best brand for cheap matx boards.
 
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This post is anecdotal at best, and outright fabrication at worst.

MicroATX motherboard traces are not smaller in diameter just length, and only in length to the extra slots that would be added to a fullsize ATX board.

ATX and MicroATX are dimensionally IDENTICAL in width and literally the ONLY difference is the length and hence less slots on the board.

MicroATX boards are not made thinner, smaller, or cheaper due to their form factor, in fact there are many high performance MicroATX boards out there.

Your comments about ports and overclocking, as I said absolute and complete fabrications.
 
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For ATX and Micro-ATX form factors, the number of RAM slots has more to do with the chipset than the board. For example, the H81 chipset supports one DIMM per channel; which for most CPUs means there will only be two DIMM slots, regardless of the size of the board. Mini-ITX boards are so small that they will only have room for two DIMM slots, even if the chipset used supports two per channel. There are some Micro-ATX boards with only two DIMM slots even though the chipset supports two per channel (most CPUs have at least dual channel memory controllers), but personally I would avoid those unless RAM expansion will "never" (careful with that word) be needed, or the board in question has some particular combination of features that you really want (I can't think of any myself).
 
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when i heard that, made me think of a shotgun shells.never knew that gauge is the correct measurement for the diameter of a wire, coming from a person that has no working back ground in electronics. I apologize for anything may have said. didnt mean to sound odd
 
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No problem, it can be confusing if you have never heard the terminology before. It would be best to just ignore that post as I said its mostly completely incorrect info.
 
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I stuck with the same brand that is also the current price leader for comparison.

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/7cTrxr/asrock-motherboard-h110mdgs
$47.99 ASRock H110M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
If you look the board is smaller ultra-mATX (smaller than mATX) It's ok since the H110 is locked so there is no overclocking.

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/N4nG3C/asrock-motherboard-z170mpro4s
$96.99 ASRock Z170M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151
Totally different board and full sized mATX. At least it's a real z170 board as it's similar to the sli version below.

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/6JfmP6/asrock-motherboard-z170mextreme4
$118.99 ASRock Z170M Extreme4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
SLI version.

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/9GL7YJ/asrock-motherboard-z170ax1
$91.99 ASRock Z170A-X1 ATX LGA1151
Based on the H170 board below. Note: so this means this board was not really made for overclocking as the
H170 version is a locked chipset.

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/8RTrxr/asrock-motherboard-h170ax1
$76.99 ASRock H170A-X1 ATX LGA1151

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/gmrcCJ/asrock-motherboard-z170professionalgamingi7
$169.99 ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 ATX LGA1151
Notice the extra bank of VRM? Gold caps and way more of them? Larger heatsinks and sli support?
This is the real Z170 board not the other one.

So instead of the past when they "stretched" the budget mATX board, ASrock is instead using the locked H170 ATX board and just swapping out the chipset for a Z170 one on the budget price leader ATX board.

You can see the real z170 board it totally different right? and that the mATX z170 board is a real z170 board.

This is common they often skimp on stuff to give you a larger ATX board when it's the price leader so be careful.
The h170 board with the z170 chipset will have lighter traces and less layers and as you can see it's missing a whole bank of VRM's. I am 100% sure that will hurt your overclocking and even possibly shorten the lifespan of the board.
 
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Oddly the smaller the wire gauge the thicker the wire. So are shotgun shells so that is correct. A 12 gauge is larger than a 18 gauge shell. 10 gauge is the largest. However they could repair some locked celerons and cards like the HD-3450. A "new" fps put all the slow cards into a skeet machine and shoot at them.
1st. HD-3450, 8300gt, P4 Celeron+oem board.
 
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