I am building a pc

[Reyer]

What are the pros and cons of MicroATX motherboards?

[progbuddy]

Pros and cons speak for themselves:
CONS:
Micros tend to have less processing power than a full mobo.
They hold less RAM and have less expansive capabilities.

PROS:
Smaller in size.
Easier to cool off.
Use less power.

[Reyer]

which would you recomend

[Slug Toy]

depends on what you want to do. do you want to game with this computer, or is it going to be for word processing or internet use?

for gaming, you want a nice big atx motherboard. all the high quality ones are atx.

for anything else, you dont need anything heavy duty, so you could get away with a micro.

[Reyer]

I found another motherboard, i have been looking at this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131568

[Reyer]

Im trying to build an affordable pc for gaming and music.
Its for my senior project
its guna be sweet

im also using it for video editing so im going to need some processing power

[Razors Edge]

Well truth is...they don't make ANY difference.

I can play Doom 3 with a ATX and with a MICRO-ATX and I won't notice a difference. If you're so cought up in the BEST of the BEST, Then get what any other crazy gamer tells you to get.

BUT If you're someone like me, A person who just enjoys a nice Friday Night LAN, then it doesn't matter. My gaming machine plays all my music, Plays ANY game I feed into it, and does anything else. Its not top of the line, hell no, its accually very far away from top of the line, and OVERCLOCKED 3.2 Ghz of Celeron D, with a Ge-force 7800. I paid less then $400 for all of it. Yet it plays oblivion on HIGHEST settings.

--------------------------

My point is, You shouldn't go out and spend extra bucks for a motherboard that is bigger, As for me, It doesn't make any difference.

[progbuddy]

When you want the biggest bang for the buck, get Biostar or Asus. Just look at the stats carefully. Usually, the bigger you go, the more it can do .Space is a very limiting factor, and usually the Micros tend to have less PCI's.

[DaveW]

Well truth is...they don't make ANY difference.

Spot on. If you were talking Nano or something, there would be an issue.

Theoretically, you can have more addressable memory on a Micro ATX because there's less expansion slots (PCI, etc.) on the system bus. However, in practice, they tend to stick on lots of extra case pin headers and use up those slots anyway, equalling things out again.

End of the day, there's pretty much no difference but the size. You'll lose some PCI slots, chances of running SLI or crossfire diminish to pretty much zero, but you get a smaller motherboard, which can mean a smaller case. You'll know if this is an advantage to you.

Hope that helps.

-Dave

[Reyer]

Thanks

[Reyer]

This is the case i am going to use http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/albinogary/11-144-114-09.jpg

[Reyer]

I made a model of what i want to build. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/albinogary/PCwithcolor.png

[stalkier]

I totally understand about being on a budget for building a PC. Personally I do music, games, and 3D graphics. My PC has the following:

AMD Athlon XP 2.08GHz CPU with Sythe Cooler
1Gig DDR 400MHrz
80 Gig IDE HDD with dual fan HDD cooler
40 Gig IDE HDD (slave) with dual fan HDD cooler
64Mb NVidea TNT2 MMX Vid Card with VGA Cooler
DVD-Rom
DVD+R (dual layer)
Ultra digital fan controller

For a budget PC for your project I would go with a SLI-ready ATX motherboard. Dual-core CPU, 2 gig minimum DDR, and run SATA hard drives. I would also go with a 256Mb NVidea graphics card (at least). Check out www.tigerdirect.com for some good barebones for the MB/CPU combo. Right now they have a dual-core barebone for $300 something dollars. Pretty good deal. Good luck with your project.