Brainstorming a motherboard

[yaiie]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if you would help me with choosing a motherboard.

I've always used full sized ATX. Im really thinking about going with a micro build this time I'm just nervous. Building in a more confined space plus I'm uncertain what (if any) performance hits I'd take on a smaller build.

I'm hoping to keep my mobo at 200 or under. So far I've used Asrock. They've been great to me. Their Matx is black and orange... so I'm peaking around.

I only use one gpu slot. The fans Id use a splitter or a hub (if the case has one.) I don't overclock... An Atx just seems like over kill.

My hope is to run a single monitor at 1080 with full details while live streaming. I7 / 1070 / 16GB Ram on ssds.

I do 3d modeling and video editing as well. This is my first i7 build and I want to make sure I have all of my parts catefully planned. Thank you!!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

The Little Power rig in my sig is used for moderate Photoshop/Premiere and 5760x1080 gaming without performance issues...
It's an mITX build, which supports one PCIe slot, and would fit for you if only using a GPU and no other cards.

 

[Jeff G]

If you're not overclocking, AsRock makes a matx board with wifi too. I have one running right now and it works good.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

If you're not overclocking, AsRock makes a matx board with wifi too. I have one running right now and it works good.

FWIW I'm overclocked on my mITX machine, 4.5GHz right now.

 

[Woomack]

If you're not overclocking, AsRock makes a matx board with wifi too. I have one running right now and it works good.

Actually MSI Z170 ITX boards are better than ASRock and let to OC higher. I was testing ASRock Z170 ITX Gaming board and I sent it back to the store as I simply didn't like it ( voltage limits, general design, price etc ). MSI Z170I Gaming was 30% cheaper and generally better.
As ATM said, these new ITX boards are often overclocking not worse than full ATX. I was even testing my MSI ITX board up to 5.4GHz on dry ice with RAM overclocked to 4250 ( it's better than most full ATX boards ).
However if you are planning gaming PC then I would recommend micro ATX board/case rather than ITX. Board seems bigger but when you put it into good case then you won't see big size difference. At the same time it's much easier to keep graphics cool in micro ATX case what also reduces noise. Of course you can make that in ITX case too but many of them have not enough space for good airflow when you put high performance graphics card and these with more space are not much smaller than micro ATX. Micro ATX boards are also cheaper and have additional slots like M.2 if you wish to use fast SSD.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

You definitely have to be careful in choosing an mITX case, but there are plenty out there with full length GPU support and great cooling designs.

 

[leedreamer189]

If you're not overclocking, AsRock makes a matx board with wifi too. I have one running right now and it works good.

And if you do they have the OC-Formula that just got 9.9 out of 10 in tpu. Crazy little board!

 

[Woomack]

And if you do they have the OC-Formula that just got 9.9 out of 10 in tpu. Crazy little board!

For 99.5% users it still makes no difference if they get standard board or OCF. On air/water CPU is overclocking the same and high memory clock doesn't really matter.