Micro ATX vs ATX Motherboards?

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Whatdoido

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Jun 27, 2014
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i was wondering if there is any benefit to going full atx rather than micro atx. I'm asking because i'm looking for a motherboard, and i found a micro atx with all the features i need. It cost about 25 dollars less then an atx with seemingly the same capabilities.

So the question is does the atx board have any advantage? I can't see any immediate advantages but do you guys know any?

Both boards i'm looking at support 2 way sli/crossfire, 32gb of ram up to 3200mhz, and 6 sata ports, but only 4 on the full atx bored.Yet the micro is cheaper. The only disadvantage i see (but doesn't affect me at all as i only have 1600mhz) is that the full atx can support 3200mhz ram where as the micro can do 3000mhz.

micro board: MSI Z87M GAMING

Normal board: Asus Z97-A
 
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owismail
First of all, it depends on your case, some cases can support MICRO ATX, some cases support both MICRO ATX and ATX, i would choose the MICRO ATX one because it's small, easy to install.
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owismail

owismail

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May 31, 2014
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First of all, it depends on your case, some cases can support MICRO ATX, some cases support both MICRO ATX and ATX, i would choose the MICRO ATX one because it's small, easy to install.
 
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Whatdoido

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Jun 27, 2014
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thanks, well the case i have currently and the one i might get have support for micro atx.

Edit: realized the micro has less pci slots lol. that'd be why it's cheaper. It still has two 3.0 x16 pci-e slots for sli though.
 
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spdragoo

spdragoo

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Oct 17, 2011
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It's a size issue. ATX boards are larger than micro-ATX boards, and can therefore fit more: more expansion slots, more hard drive slots, (usually) more RAM slots, etc. If you only plan on a couple of physical drives (1 hard drive, 1 DVD/Blu-Ray, for example), then you don't need as many drive bays. If you're looking at a couple of drives (2 HDD, or HDD plus SSD), separate DVD-RW and BR-Writer drives, then a larger case is what you'll need. You also need to consider air flow & cooling. A larger case has more room if you plan on installing liquid cooling solutions, or even just allowing for greater air flow through the case.

The biggest question is the case you're going to use, which depends on the space you have for it. If you have only limited space, & plan on using a "desktop" or mini-tower case, then you're pretty much stuck using a micro-ATX board (or possibly an ITX board). If you can fit a mid-tower or even full-tower case into your "man cave", then consider getting an ATX board to maximize the use of the case volume.
 
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