What is the ATX motherboard and what is the Micro motherboard? What is the difference between them? If you want to find the answers, then you are in the right place. MiniTool has introduced much information about ATX vs Micro ATX motherboard.
If you want to purchase a new motherboard for your computer, but don’t know which one is more suitable for you between ATX and Micro ATX motherboard, then this post is what you need. You can get detailed information about ATX vs Micro ATX.
Before we talk about ATX vs Micro ATX, let’s get some information about ATX and Micro ATX motherboard.
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What Are ATX and Micro ATX Motherboards?
ATX is short for Advanced Technology eXtended, which is the most common motherboard design. ATX motherboard is developed by Intel in 1995 to improve previous de facto standards (such as AT design). The full size of the ATX motherboard is 12 × 9.6 in (305 × 244 mm).
Micro ATX motherboard sometimes can also be called μATX, uATX, or mATX. It was released in December 1997 and the maximum size of Micro ATX motherboard is 9.6 × 9.6 in (244 × 244 mm).
ATX VS Micro ATX
This part is mainly talking about ATX vs Micro ATX motherboard, so you can know the differences between them and which one is better for you.
RAM Slots
RAM slot is the first thing that needs to compare when talking about ATX vs Micro ATX motherboard. ATX motherboard supports up to 4 RAM slots and each of them can accommodate RAM cards of up to 32 GB, while most Micro ATX only supports 2 RAM slots and each of them can accommodate RAM cards of up to 32 GB.
Both ATX and Micro ATX motherboards can provide enough additional memory space to run most games, while ATX motherboard can provide larger memory space.
PCIe Slots
Speaking of Micro ATX vs ATX, there is a difference between PCIe slots. ATX motherboard possesses about 7 PCIe slots so that you can use them to add other devices (such as video cards, and modems) to your computer. What’s better, some of the ATX PCIe slots can hold other SSD and HDD.
However, Micro ATX only supports up to 4 PCIe slots, but you can also use them to add video cards, sound cards, and so on to improve your games’ basic features.
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Price
When referring to the price, the price of ATX motherboards is relatively high compared to other motherboards such as Mini ITX and Micro ATX. This is because ATX motherboards have high-end features and are designed to provide better performance than other motherboards. And it can be used as an excellent gaming motherboard because it can handle the most demanding games. In addition, ATX motherboards can also be used to handle high-end and demanding office computer programs.
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Bottom Line
After reading this post, you should know that both ATX and Micro ATX motherboards are suitable for high-quality games because most games require a RAM of 16 GB to play properly. But ATX motherboard provides more RAM slots and PCIe slots, therefore, its price is higher than Micro ATX motherboard.