ATX or mATX mobo?

grated parmesan · Jan 8, 2017

I plan on purchasing an i5 6500, but I am having trouble picking out a mobo. I am on a budget so I want something cheap. I have a midtower case and I think I will stick to midtowers and maybe even do SLI down the line. But I don't want to cheap out on the motherboard I just want something with good enough features and looks good. I just think that a matx board might look funny in my case. My color theme is black and red. And my gpu is a gtx 760 (which I will most likely upgrade to a 1060 in the future).

Dark Lord of Tech · Jan 8, 2017

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: Asus Z170 PRO GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($149.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $149.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-08 17:21 EST-0500

yourilevoye · Jan 8, 2017

If your planning to do SLI I would take the full size ATX board. You are sure you have enough space and stuff with ATX board. But make sure your board actually supports SLI then.

yourilevoye · Jan 8, 2017

I have that Motherboard xD Great board for it's price. Also the leds are cool for red and black builds.

The Paladin · Jan 8, 2017

Buying a Z board for a 6500 non K is kinda pointless isnt it ? and waste of cash I would say.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: Asus H170 PRO GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($112.88 @ OutletPC)
Total: $112.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-08 17:27 EST-0500

Ambular · Jan 8, 2017

There are a handful of LGA1151 mATX boards on the market that do support 2-way SLI, but they're not necessarily going to be any cheaper than a full-size ATX board.

geofelt · Jan 8, 2017

The reason to buy a Z170 based motherboard for a I5-6500 is that you are planning on a future upgrade to an overclockable K cpu.
Considering that a I5-6500 @3.2 costs $205 I would think that it would be worth it to just go ahead and pay $240 for a i5-6600k in the first place.

Similarly, just how many expansion slots does one need today?
No longer do we need expansion slots for Ethernet adapters, sound cards, device attachments.
All we really need is a pcie x16 slot for a discrete graphics card. If you are not a gamer, not even that.

Planning for dual cards is not a good strategy unless you are planning on fast action gaming at 4k resolution.
Anything less, and you will be satisfied with a good single graphics card.

M-ATX and even ITX is a big advantage if you are looking for a smaller case.

grated parmesan · Jan 8, 2017

geofelt :

I plan on sticking with a mid tower and the next case will also be a mid tower. I want a good cheap board around $100 or less would be perfect, matx or atx. I'm just worried about cheaping out and regretting it later. I most likely will not do SLI so that doesn't really matter either. I just want it to be cheap, functioning, and look good.

Ambular · Jan 8, 2017

MSI H110M Gaming: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/rLs8TW/msi-motherboard-h110mgaming

Best I could find under $100 in black and red. There's nothing wrong with putting an mATX board in an ATX case, they're just a little shorter than a full-size ATX board.

yourilevoye · Jan 9, 2017

For Overclocking I would go with a Z170 board. Those aren't that expensive comapred to some other matx boards.

grated parmesan · Jan 9, 2017

yourilevoye :

I plan on getting a i5 6500 so I don't need a z170.

The Paladin · Jan 9, 2017

grated parmesan :

Then this will do you just fine Asus H170 PRO GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

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