stop recommending mATX boards
Stop recommending these boards. Smaller boards have fewer features and it becomes cramped to build with them, especially when you recommend (laughably) that I should purchase dual video cards. Please stop this nonsense, or at least have it a bit more configurable. Add in selectable options for "Only use ATX (motherboard + case)" and maybe some brand preferences. This site is a great idea but you can easily mislead people who are new to the build experience. Having built PCs for the last ~13 years, I have completed most of my builds with ATX parts since the mATX parts tend to get cramped quickly. A very decent gaming machine can be built for $700, but using a mATX board and mATX case will only cause more problems than it solves by saving a few dollars.
Hi Scott,
The mATX boards at the chipsets where I am recommending them barely have any less features than their full sized equivalents, bar a copious number PCIe ports which are lane starved anyway on the ATX boards due to the chipset limitations. Sometimes they can lack a few SATA ports but that really depends on the individual motherboard rather than the form factor.
Dual cards are never recommending with an mATX board due to slot spacing – if there is a place where this happens I would appreciate it being reported as this is not intended behavior.
I completely disagree with you about things getting cramped in an mATX form factor. I might agree with you if you said mITX where space is at a premium however the only difference in size between ATX and mATX is slightly less vertical space which really only limits PCIe slots. There is just as much space for a graphics card horizontally, and an absurd number of HDDs in most mATX cases are supported anyway.
There are really no significant disadvantages with going with mATX, and there is the advantage of saving money off the price of an ATX rig which is quite hard to ignore when the difference to the next graphics card upgrade is often very small at the lower budget range. It mostly comes down to personal preference.
However that being said, form factor selection is something I am looking at implementing at some time in the future.
Thanks,
Mark