Which AM4 Micro-ATX?

JamesU2005

JamesU2005

JamesU2005

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Looking at building my first gaming, micro-ATX PC.

Can anyone recommend the best AM4 micro-atx board?

Not concerned about price at this stage.
 
I've looked into this myself recently, and the main concerns around AM4 mATX boards seem to focus on insufficient VRMs & VRM cooling, especially if you're using a Ryzen 7 CPU.

At the moment there are pretty slim pickings for mATX on AM4. Gigabyte do a couple of X370 mATX boards (not seen any reviews of these though), and Biostar also do one (which by most accounts is to be avoided), other than that you're looking at B350 or A320 boards.

If I were going to buy a mATX AM4 board right now I'd probably go for the Asus TUF B350M

X470 boards will be available on 19 April, so we may see more manufacturers offering mATX options now that Ryzen is more established. Other than that you could look at ITX boards, with the Asus ROG Strix X370-I the pick of the bunch.
 
Really No good M-ATX Motherboards Rel, Sound not great on them, Might be best to wait for the X400 Series in the coming weeks.

But if you need one then the Asrock be the one to go for.
Always get a sound card

Gigabyte GA-AB350M Suffers from hardware faults/Defects
Like the sound blaster Z & Bios getting corrupted.

Hopefully, Asus will Bring out a Great M-ATX on the X400 Series .
 
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Thanks guys.

I have no preference between Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX at this stage. More about performance.

Might as well wait another week to see what April 19th brings ;-)
 
JamesU2005 said:
Thanks guys.

I have no preference between Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX at this stage. More about performance.

Might as well wait another week to see what April 19th brings ;-)
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performance Wise, All AM4 motherboards around the Same & Can OC the CPU 3800/3900mhz, Best ITX AM4 is the Asus Strix B350 But don't support the Integrated Graphics APUs
otherwise
Asrock FATAL1TY AB350 GAMING-ITX/AC the one to get :)
 
Running the Gigabye Gaming for my 2400G HTPC gaming build, other than having to use my 1700 to update the BIOS, no issues and all running fine :).

Still need to OC but for a cheaper board, impressed so far.
 
Chipping in with my 2p, I find Gigabyte's AB350M Gaming 3 to be absolutely terrible :mad:

At least with X series CPUs. People without the X seem to do better with it, but for me and my 1600X it's a minefield of overvoltage, poor memory speeds, and scary bios updates. Last flash put the pc into a bootloop that it took nearly half an hour to get itself out of despite clearing CMOS. Every update has thus far made the core voltage higher and the max memory speeds worse. Overclocking is not possible because it adds 0.2v to an already too-high vcore. I don't know where the mythical p-state overclocking is; despite the bios saying it is version F22, there is simply no sign of this option. I'm too scared to flash it again after the last experience.

It also has awful m.2 positioning, putting the drive right behind your GPU heatsink where it will get hot AF. 63-65 degrees is not what I wanted for my 960 Pro. The advertised RGB doesn't exist, and is in fact 1 red LED and an RGB header.

There is a possibility that the first set of problems are just my particular unit and maybe I should have returned it for replacement, but... who can say. Does 1.39v @ stock even count as faulty? I will take great pleasure in smashing this dog's egg with a hammer once I can swap it.

If I was buying again today, I'd get the Asus TUF, but I'm waiting on the 4xx boards in the hopes that there is a truly premium mATX offering. This generation has been thoroughly underwhelming in general :/
 
doodah said:
Damn perhaps I am in for a rough ride once I start OC'ing :p.
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I don't know tbh. Not sure if my board is just plain faulty, or whether it doesn't support the X chips, or whether your CPU will be sensibly supported. Reading around looking for answers a few months ago did suggest that non-X chips are fine and it's just some poor behaviour on things with XFR. Will actually be interesting to know how it works out for you :)
 
Bare in mind I have a 2400G so not sure how that might affect things, I did buy TeamGroup 8Pack 3200 memory though so I don't have to faff about when I do OC.

Think I will have a crack at it this weekend.
 
Asrock AB350M Pro4 was the board I had and it was brilliant. 2x M.2 slots onboard and a decent BIOS. Managed to get my 1700 to 4GHz no sweat.
 
doodah said:
Bare in mind I have a 2400G so not sure how that might affect things, I did buy TeamGroup 8Pack 3200 memory though so I don't have to faff about when I do OC.

Think I will have a crack at it this weekend.
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Tbh, if the vcore shown on the first page of the bios is sensible, then I'm sure you'll be fine. Mine tends to read 1.38-1.41 at all stock and from experience that goes up by 0.2v with so much as 25mhz overclock. Reddit suggests that other X users get similarly aggressive settings, but non-X chips are sane. G could go either way :)
 
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Mean Mr Mustard said:
As expected, mATX got ignored again on X470. Guess we're stuck with the current 3xx offerings plus a couple of ITX 470 boards from Asrock and Asus.
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For goodness sake :/ I'm pretty sure a lot of the prebuilt market is made of mATX systems because Average Joe would rather have a smaller case. This is not the way to penetrate that market :(

I'll end up buying an 8700k at this rate...
 
To the MATX guys - completely feel your pain, it's only in the last couple of months X399 MIcro ATX boards have shown up! Any of you considered some of the more unconventional ATX sized cases, unusual PSU placements give you a good way to get to MATX tower sizes without to many major comprimises:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £210.18 (includes shipping: £13.20)
​
 
BongoHunter said:
To the MATX guys - completely feel your pain, it's only in the last couple of months X399 MIcro ATX boards have shown up! Any of you considered some of the more unconventional ATX sized cases, unusual PSU placements give you a good way to get to MATX tower sizes without to many major comprimises:
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Interesting thought... I'd been wondering if there was a case with radiator mount+window that would sit correctly to the left of my desk rather than the right, and the Thetis looks like exactly that. Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a ponder :) (Although I guess it does blow the PSU exhaust straight down out the bottom/front...)
 
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