PC Motherboard Sizes as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2014-05-07
·
1,343 words · ~6 min read
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so let's kick things off with atx it stands for advanced technology extended
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and a component's compliance with the standard tells us that it will be
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physically and electrically compatible with other atx components like computer
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cases and power supplies now because most desktop computers use atx that's
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what we're going to focus on but there is other stuff out there anyway atx
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family motherboards are available in several different flavors the most common of which are standard atx micro
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atx extended atx and xl atx now i'm also
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going to include mini itx but don't worry about the different name it's
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basically interoperable and gets treated these days like an even smaller atx
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although unlike the atx standards which were developed by Intel mini itx was
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developed by vaya technologies now i'll give you more details on each in a
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moment but if you're trying to figure out compatibility and that's all you
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care about for power supplies it comes down to the connectors on your
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particular power supply and the motherboard that you want to plug them
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into just make sure that the power supply has at least as many 24-pin eight pin and
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four pin connectors as you need for cases on the other hand any case that
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accepts a motherboard equal to or larger than the motherboard that you're looking
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at will work so for example a mini itx
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board will work in a case designed for any of the standards here because
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they'll all be bigger than that whereas an atx board will not fit in a case
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designed for matx or mini itx boards but
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will work for the larger cases the exception here is xlatx check
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specifically for xlatx compatibility before buying a case for your xlatx
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motherboard so atx atx motherboards have
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a wide range of costs but tend to be more expensive than matx and less than
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the eatx they are 305 millimeters tall and 244 millimeters wide they have seven
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expansion slots allowing for up to seven single slot expansion cards or up to
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four dual slot expansion cards if installed in a case that has at least
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eight rear expansion card openings and that makes atx the minimum motherboard
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size to accommodate a three-way or four-way graphics card configuration
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with modern cards atx motherboards typically feature a 24-pin and an 8-pin
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power connector combination but performance-oriented boards may have an
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extra CPU power connector or an auxiliary connector for configurations
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with lots of graphics cards because they are physically larger they can have up
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to eight RAM slots and tend to have more SATA ports and front panel header ports
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like usb compared to micro atx boards
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micro atx boards are less expensive and are 244 millimeters squared they are
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available with merely equivalent performance and features to their bigger
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brothers with a couple of exceptions due to their size micro atx boards usually
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only have two to four memory slots and can have a maximum of four single slot
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expansion cards or two dual slot expansion cards with a single slot card
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in between that means that while a multi-core extreme edition processor can
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be installed in a compatible matx board the maximum memory and graphics card
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capacity will be about half of an atx equivalent
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they typically feature a 24-pin connector and either a 4-pin or an 8-pin
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CPU connector many itx motherboards are less expensive
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yet and are a mere 170 millimeters squared in recent years they've gone
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from lower power quiet computing oriented
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products to high performance small form factor gaming capable devices they are
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limited to desktop rather than workstation CPU platforms though and to
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a maximum of two memory slots and a maximum of one expansion card but that
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still allows them at the time of filming this to have up to a quad core CPU 16
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gigs of inexpensive RAM and a high performance dual slot graphics card all
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at the same time they have fewer SATA slots and front panel connectors than
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even matx boards due to their small size but they often have integrated extras
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such as wireless and bluetooth connectivity to compensate for their
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lack of expansion options they usually have a 24-pin connector and a 4-pin
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connector for the CPU power on to bigger and better things extended or e-atx
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motherboards are more expensive and larger than atx and at up to 305
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millimeters tall by 330 millimeters wide they are big they still have only a
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maximum of seven rear expansion slots but their width allows them to
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accommodate dual workstation or server class cpus and up to twice as much RAM
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as their atx equivalents now because they are geared towards professional or
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server use they tend to have fewer bells and whistles like uh better rear i o and
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wireless connectivity but more robust connectivity internally with
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things like sas ports replacing SATA ports that are more common on the
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desktop they need a 24 pin connector and will usually have two eight pins as well
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sometimes more xlatx motherboards are a bit of an
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oddity they don't even have a standard size but they're usually 240 more four
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millimeters wide and the size increase actually comes in the form of additional
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height it's right in the name but it's more like an extra large atx motherboard
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than anything else pricing wise they are similar to premium atx boards and when
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it comes to performance they have the same CPU and RAM and rear slot
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configurations as atx boards which is weird their extra height should allow
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them to have eight or nine expansion slots but board manufacturers typically
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have used the extra space to give more room for large beefy power delivery
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systems and cooling around the CPU socket rather than to add more expansion
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card slots what a weird standard the one good thing that did come out of it i
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think was that cases are now being delivered to market with more than seven
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slots at the back for better ventilation with multi-way graphics card
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configurations on even standard atx boards i mean honestly it's amazing to
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me that xlatx even still exists you know what's not amazing to me though
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