Is there any point to full ATX for a gaming build?
- Thread starter Quartz
- Start date
-
- Tags
- atx matx motherboard
Soldato
All the high end features and focus seems to be on ATX boards. If mATX had the same love I would've easily picked it over ATX. Back on my old Sandy Bridge build there was at least a couple of decent choices, but for Ryzen there was hardly any.
Associate
- Joined
- 29 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 698
I used an MSI Mortar Matx for my recent 6600k build, and find it perfect for my needs. I'd only ever consider ATX if there was no other choice now, it's a simple waste of real estate as the case etc needs to be bigger to house them...
I went from a eatx board in a Corsair 900d case. Even though I had two gpu's and h115 to cool the CPU it was a collassal waste of space. So I built my current pc which is an itx which has been amazing with just one card and I can still fit a h115 to cool the CPU. No regrets apart from probably not enjoying the right build as I have a aio for the CPU and an aio GPU, but it has no affects on performance.
Associate
I think it can be summarised by features and aesthetics.
Features:
SLI and CF are still around and there are some who see great benefit to them. Some games support them in DX12 very well, others not so well. It is an area that needs further direct input from the developers. But some features like double M.2 slots or 6x Sata or similar are equally important to some people and tend to only be available on larger boards. I prefer the larger boards for the wider range of features available. As mentioned above, the better features like excellent VRM solutions as well as
Aesthetic
I've owned some large cases (TJ07 & 900D) so I do understand the real estate problem some people describe. I use the larger cases for the water cooling space. A mini ITX or mATX board in a large tower looks odd especially when it is dwarfed by a full length gpu and two 480mm radiators. Is the board required to be ATX, no. Do I require the space, yes because I need the extra space for silent fan profiles. Do I like the look of a mini ITX board in a full tower case, no. So that is why I will go for ATX as long as I am able to.
I do love the look of some of the ITX boards however and a mini powerhouse under my tv is something I'll do in the future for sure.
Features:
SLI and CF are still around and there are some who see great benefit to them. Some games support them in DX12 very well, others not so well. It is an area that needs further direct input from the developers. But some features like double M.2 slots or 6x Sata or similar are equally important to some people and tend to only be available on larger boards. I prefer the larger boards for the wider range of features available. As mentioned above, the better features like excellent VRM solutions as well as
Aesthetic
I've owned some large cases (TJ07 & 900D) so I do understand the real estate problem some people describe. I use the larger cases for the water cooling space. A mini ITX or mATX board in a large tower looks odd especially when it is dwarfed by a full length gpu and two 480mm radiators. Is the board required to be ATX, no. Do I require the space, yes because I need the extra space for silent fan profiles. Do I like the look of a mini ITX board in a full tower case, no. So that is why I will go for ATX as long as I am able to.
I do love the look of some of the ITX boards however and a mini powerhouse under my tv is something I'll do in the future for sure.
Soldato
I'm almost exclusively ITX now. Onboard sound is pretty good these days (at least for my broken ears), I only use 1 graphics card and I have no need to move beyond 1Gb networking. Even some of the Z370 and X470 ITX boards have chunky VRMs for overclocking. For me there's no need to go bigger, unless I'm planning a show piece which I could never afford to build.
I have an external soundcard that I plug my headphones in and I think it's great.
1 card is my choice now, used to have 2 but one high end card is still plenty.
Associate
I personally prefer full ATX, just more real estate for expansion options and easier to work with.
I've got an mATX at the moment, and with a massive graphics card (used to have a palit GTX1070), some of the SATA ports were inaccessible without the card removed.
I've got an mATX at the moment, and with a massive graphics card (used to have a palit GTX1070), some of the SATA ports were inaccessible without the card removed.
Soldato
But that's more poor board design rather than a failing with the form factor as a whole. But still, we all have our preferences which don't invalidate our little niggles.
Soldato
I've just put a Gigabyte ITX z370 board with a 8600k into a mid tower atx case. InWIn 303C.
I thought it'd look daft, but doesn't really. Gives the graphics card a lot a breathing space. Cable management is a lot easier.
All the features I need are on the mb. Sound is good. Board has got two M.2 slots and the main one has a heatsink on to keep the temps down.
It's lacking in the vrm department though, as you'd probably expect. I've kept volts at stock and overclocked to 4.9. Reason being that the vrm tems are very high - 90s to 100.
I could probably push it a few hundred megahertz higher with a better equipped vrm section that I'd more likely find on a bigger board.
usb 3.1 front panel connector would be nice to have as well since my case supports it but it's not a big deal.
I thought it'd look daft, but doesn't really. Gives the graphics card a lot a breathing space. Cable management is a lot easier.
All the features I need are on the mb. Sound is good. Board has got two M.2 slots and the main one has a heatsink on to keep the temps down.
It's lacking in the vrm department though, as you'd probably expect. I've kept volts at stock and overclocked to 4.9. Reason being that the vrm tems are very high - 90s to 100.
I could probably push it a few hundred megahertz higher with a better equipped vrm section that I'd more likely find on a bigger board.
usb 3.1 front panel connector would be nice to have as well since my case supports it but it's not a big deal.
OcUK Staff
No point for gaming build at all. MATX or ITX is many instances are totally fine.
Soldato
More engineering goes into them because of the size. There's enough similarity between ATX and Micro ATX for the latter to draw much of the same engineering, but Mini ITX is totally different and therefore you start designing from fresh.
Soldato
No. Not these days at any rate. Intel CPUs have no upgrade path so you need a new mobo every generation. Multi GPU for gaming is practically dead and onboard sound these days is so good you're unlikely to get a dedicated soundcard later if you're already happy with onboard.
You may one day decide "I'm gonna RAID a bunch of M.2 SSDs so will need a riser card" or "actually, I could do with 10Gb ethernet" in which case if you don't have a free 4x PCI-E slot already you're scuppered, but I see these as fringe cases with a sufficient price tag attached to it you'd probably have no qualms about just getting a new mobo anyway.
mITX tends to be a bit restricted when it comes to memory slots and I/O ports compared to ATX & mATX. But if you don’t need so many, then there are some good quality boards. mATX does also have the option of running SLI/Crossfire, but that is not so sought after now and might explain why the choice of mATX boards has reduced.
What I need for a gaming pc is one big SSD, support to have 16gb-32gb ram and PCI express x16 to run one graphics card. Itx can do that that just as good as eatx boards. I currently have a itx build in an phantek evolve itx case that has room for my h115 aio and my 1080 hybrid. Really can't argue with that.