Motherboard + Case compatibility???

[Jimcricket]

I'm trying to find out how to match a motherboard with a proper sized case.

In my instance I have a Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 that needs a home.

At the same time I would like to know how to identify the right case for any motherboard. More so in terms of proper sizing and fitting for all the additional parts, in particular the GPU, power source, and cooling system.

 

[skervy]

micro cases fit micro boards. mid and full towers fit atx and sometimes micro to. bottom mounted psu are more convenient if your wires are long enough and a must if your psu has a top fan. full towers are more likely needed for the highest end graphics cards due to their size. unless your building some extreme computer a mid tower should do fine. look at reviews on newegg and see what people say size wise about how their video cards fit and possibly find out which dont. you can pickup a decent rosewill case for 30-50$ depending on the sale price at the time.


i got a rosewill destroyer and my cousin got a challenger 35$ each on sale with free shipping and cant find a single complaint for either. im using a 5770 and hes using a 9800gtx with plenty of room to spare. they also come with 3 120mm fans preinstalled their kinda weak imo but consider em free since the price is so low personally i like mine more it has room for 6 fans the top 2 are in a removable tray plus outside of the case so more room inside. the challenger has room for 5 but the top one goes inside so less room for big cpu coolers. some complain about the hd cade on the destroyer since you have to take off the front pannel to remove it but it dont bother me 1 bit i dont plan on adding and removing drives every day plus it gets more airflow from the front

 

[Wolygon]

Hello.

There are mainly two different standards of motherboard sizes. mATX and ATX (mATX being the smaller one).
The motherboard should say what it is in the specifications. Then with cases, ATX compatible ones will also allow for mATX cases to fit but, not the other way around. Generally most cases that are on the market are made to fit ATX, the mATX cases are very small.

Your case is mATX (I think, as it is P55M), so you could go with either an ATX or a mATX case.

The PSU is always the set size "ATX", therefore do not worry about this component.

The GPU and Cooling is a bit harder one. Sometimes the manufacturer lists the max graphics card length, but often not (so first have a look for it). I find that searching in Bing something like "antec 300 5870" very fast, generally that will instantly return people asking whether they will fit. This is a quicker option.

Finally the cooling is often the hardest. You can generally do that same thing as with the case and GPU though. But often it will not work if you are buying a unknown case and cooler. Sometimes the manufacturer lists the max cooler height but this does not tell the whole story. I'd say the best way to find it is to search it like the case and GPU.

Hope that helps.