I have ordered a new desk top!

[grumbler]

I hate micro-ATX.  You need to be a surgeon to ever get anything done inside the case, and you'll probably need to sooner or later.  It also limits you severely in your choice of video cards, should you want to upgrade down the road.

x2

Avoid like the plague.

[Caliga]

x3

[Vricklund]

x3

-1

I have the tremmors of an 80-year-old and mATX boards are just fine. Sure they can be a little cramped sometimes but it's worth it if you can fit it all in a sleeker case.

Americans and their sausage fingers...   

[Grey Fox]

back to x3.

I don't have a problem perse with micro atx mobo. I have a problem with small cases.

[DontSayBanana]

I hate micro-ATX.  You need to be a surgeon to ever get anything done inside the case, and you'll probably need to sooner or later.  It also limits you severely in your choice of video cards, should you want to upgrade down the road.

I think that more depends on your case and placement configuration; my Radeon X1650 Pro fit pretty easily into my uATX Compaq, since it's a flipped board where you put expansions in topside-down.

[DontSayBanana]

I hate micro-ATX.  You need to be a surgeon to ever get anything done inside the case, and you'll probably need to sooner or later.  It also limits you severely in your choice of video cards, should you want to upgrade down the road.

x2

Avoid like the plague.

Where's all the uATX hate coming from?  If I were to complain about uATX, it'd be about the limited availabity of mobos with sockets for more powerful processors; they're not that hard to get into and work around, and I've got some pretty thick bear paws for hands.

[Iormlund]

The memory wasn't that bad for price.  It was $200 for the extra 8GB.

Must have been a pretty good deal. They were really expensive at Dell. Although there's always the 1$ = 1€ factor.

[crazy canuck]

back to x3.

I don't have a problem perse with micro atx mobo. I have a problem with small cases.

You know what they say, Large case small ......

[Grey Fox]

back to x3.

I don't have a problem perse with micro atx mobo. I have a problem with small cases.

You know what they say, Large case small ......

well? what? Raid Array? Memory speed? what? tell me!

[crazy canuck]

back to x3.

I don't have a problem perse with micro atx mobo. I have a problem with small cases.

You know what they say, Large case small ......

well? what? Raid Array? Memory speed? what? tell me!

small amount of frustration.  What did you think I was talking about?

[grumbler]

Where's all the uATX hate coming from?  If I were to complain about uATX, it'd be about the limited availabity of mobos with sockets for more powerful processors; they're not that hard to get into and work around, and I've got some pretty thick bear paws for hands.

Where is it coming from?

1.  Heat.  The closer the components, the more heat from one affects another.
2.  Blockage.  Components can block the user from using adjacent slots simply because everything is so close together than one cannot fit the two components in the available space.
3.  Difficulty working on the components.  The closer everything is together, the more difficult it is to work on one component without impacting on another.

There seems to be no reason to actually go with uATX unless one's case simply won't fit a full ATX board.  The argument that cables are easier to arrange if one is using a uATX board has never been compelling for me, and generally prices are really no better for the uATX than an equivelent ATX board.

[DontSayBanana]

Where is it coming from?

1.  Heat.  The closer the components, the more heat from one affects another.
2.  Blockage.  Components can block the user from using adjacent slots simply because everything is so close together than one cannot fit the two components in the available space.
3.  Difficulty working on the components.  The closer everything is together, the more difficult it is to work on one component without impacting on another.

There seems to be no reason to actually go with uATX unless one's case simply won't fit a full ATX board.  The argument that cables are easier to arrange if one is using a uATX board has never been compelling for me, and generally prices are really no better for the uATX than an equivelent ATX board.

I'll grant the price concerns; for my own purposes, I guess I simply discount full-ATX as too large to fit anywhere in my apartment.  Heat... I've seen some cool uATX systems, and I've seen crappily-designed ATX cases that roasted boards- I think you'll find heat is more of a manufacturer issue than a standards issue.

Also, as far as size, I think you guys with the ATX hard-ons need to take a step back and mess with ISA slots in 386es and then tell me about cramped.  It's all what you're used to.

[DGuller]

I'll grant the price concerns; for my own purposes, I guess I simply discount full-ATX as too large to fit anywhere in my apartment.  Heat... I've seen some cool uATX systems, and I've seen crappily-designed ATX cases that roasted boards- I think you'll find heat is more of a manufacturer issue than a standards issue.

Also, as far as size, I think you guys with the ATX hard-ons need to take a step back and mess with ISA slots in 386es and then tell me about cramped.  It's all what you're used to.

I've been messing around with computers ever since the 486 days, and I've never seen one as tightly packed as my uATX HP DOA.  It was like an electronic device that was not meant to be opened.  The older computers had plenty of other uber-annoying physical and logical things about them, but lack of space wasn't an issue.

[DontSayBanana]

I've been messing around with computers ever since the 486 days, and I've never seen one as tightly packed as my uATX HP DOA.  It was like an electronic device that was not meant to be opened.  The older computers had plenty of other uber-annoying physical and logical things about them, but lack of space wasn't an issue.

Well, what you need to remember is that Dell and HP were pretty bad about "tweaking" the uATX spec with things to make working the computers "easier" that just took up unnecessary space and nonstandard connectors that frustrated the hell out of techs.  Dell in particular has an amazing ability to waste any amount of space- I've got a full-ATX Dell Optiplex gathering dust in the office that has this obnoxious "lever removal system" that they had to split the motherboard and flip around expansion slots to fit in the computer.

[grumbler]

I don't understand the uATX fanboyism.  I have worked on hundreds of computers, and have never seen a uATX rig that was easier to work on than an ATX equivelent.  The fact that the worse ATX rig is worse than the best uATX rig says nothing whatever about averages.  I think common sense should tell everyone that having more space for airflow will make the average ATX system cooler than the equivalent uATX system in the same case, so I don't think fanboyism is going to change anyone's mind, but it puzzles me.