Legit Reviews

okay so Ken piqued my interest when he mentioned a cheap mATX board with integrated GFX as a solution for a cheap PC over here: http://forums.legitreviews.com/viewtopic.php?t=10059

got me wondering about these boards, as i'm looking to build a new family computer here in a few weeks.
seeing that post got me thinking and now i'm searching wikipedia and newegg to research them.

thoughts: i'm guessing that due to it's smaller form factor, it is less bound to produce a lot of heat? another guess is that i'd be limited by how many PCI slots there could be, right? would it fit in a regular old run of the mill PC case? any advantages or disadvantages to these guys?

feel free to voice any and all opinions here!

Yes a MATX motherboard will fit fine in most standard ATX cases. Most have at least one PCI-e x16 slots, a PCI-e x4, and 2 pci slots.
Their big selling point is the small size which allows them to fit in MATX HTPC cases.

All my stuff is mATX, went that way for the fact that I'm tight on room. The draw back to the mATX shows its head when you go to add stuff to them. Your not going to get an 88XX card in a mATX case, a 79XX card is snug in my case. I'll snap you a pic of my setup tonight to show how snug a mATX case can get.

But if its going to be the community whipping post for the family to do email and such then your most likely not going to go all to high end.

They can be cheap (even cheaper if you use the on-board gfx) and as Bubba mentioned, they are essential when you want a small pc.
They produce the same amount of heat as a ATX board, but if you don't add a gfx card, you have less heat overall.

bubba wrote:All my stuff is mATX, went that way for the fact that I'm tight on room. The draw back to the mATX shows its head when you go to add stuff to them. Your not going to get an 88XX card in a mATX case, a 79XX card is snug in my case. I'll snap you a pic of my setup tonight to show how snug a mATX case can get.

But if its going to be the community whipping post for the family to do email and such then your most likely not going to go all to high end.

sounds good, i'm gonna familiarize myself with the layout, and consider it for the family. i'll post what i have right now in the current family pc, and i'm lookin forward to those pics, they'll help me visualize what i'll be able to shove in the new one

Here ya go, the case is a Centurion 541 mATX case, the cooler is a Zalman 9700 LED (I know I need an 120 intake and exhaust fan, its on the to-do list)



The case comes with a lower drive cage for the hard drives, I didn't use it due to the fact it's to close to the ram for my liking. I just put the drive up in the 3.5 bay.

coolness! thanks Bubba! interesting how they'd put the harddrives down at the bottom of the case... anyhow i pitched the idea to my dad, and he's pumped at the notion of saving some money AND getting a new pc who wouldnt be?

i'm going to do some snooping on newegg and see if i can't throw together an inexpensive replacement to the one running now.

btw i like how the size of the case/board makes the HSF look HUGE lol

I put in mATX board for all my computers at work, their all Biostar T-Force board they are Socket 939, use Nforce 4 410 chipsets with Geforce 6100 IGPs. Haven't had a single problem with them. I put newer mATX AM2 boards in my dad and step dad's computers and they have both worked flawlessly as well.

possible to install 120mm fans on the Centurion 541?

one on the front for intake, the two on the back are 80's

This pic shows the mount spots real good.

hmmmm my brothers pushing for enough room to pack in a good video card, i'm wondering if i couldnt just put the mATX mobo that i chose: ASUS P5L-VM 1394 LGA 775 Intel 945G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard into a COOLER MASTER Centurion RC-534-KKR5 Black Aluminum & Mesh bezel, SECC chassis ATX Mid Tower


mATX mobo in an ATX case to make room for an 8800 or 8600? can i do it?

and one more thing, one review stated:

Cons: LAN shuts down around 320fsb which severely limits OC'ing. WinXP Standby/Hibernation were intermittently inhibited due to using PCI video since BIOS does not completely disable onboard video.

i'm planning on getting the E6420, what could i expect to OC to with that limited FSB?

lol i wouldn't get a mATX board for oc'ing. usually you cant alter the ht link or the voltage. epox offers a 939 board with sli mATX form factor, i thought that was interesting

yeah most, if not all mATX are not meant to be overclocked, here is the review of the board I have and how far they were able to push it.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/419/10/

everything should fit in that case, the thing that will cause issue with the 88xx card in the case is the clearance to the drive bays, you may have to loose the middle section to allow the length of the card like http://forums.legitreviews.com/viewtopic.php?t=7942

my mini boards LAN flakes out when you start to overclock as well. Simple solution... I added a PCI gigabit NIC card for $20.

I have mine in a "plain" ATX case, with an E6400 and a Thermaltake Big Typhoon cooler. I can't really get the side panel on with it there (limited air flow) but one of these days I'll cut a breather hole in the side.