Thinking about going ITX or mATX and smaller. Any unforeseen drawbacks?

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I don't like multi-GPU solutions so don't need the slots for that.

I also generally prefer more "mid size" GPUs for various reasons.

The only add in boards I've used have been taken over by onboard solutions (eg. NIC, audio, wifi if ITX) or have external options.

I wouldn't ever use more then 6 internal drives, I actually want to pare that down to 3 or less.

I only do mild OCes and never explore the limit (eg. e6750 to 3.2ghz at stock voltage).

At the same I'm not really space constrained currently so I don't particularly have a reason to go SFF but the neato factor and maybe moving around in the future.

Some draw backs include motherboard oddities like the Asus Pro Gaming ITX not having USB Type C while the ATX verison does.

But I'm wondering for those that transition if there are things you maybe miss about the larger size.
 
The only thing I missed was storage space so I built a server that fixed that issue and the only other issue was air flow and heat but it's getting better and better with every generation using less power and producing less heat, I went to ITX and I can fit everything I need in that I'll never go bigger again.
 
As for videocards seems the nvidia side AIB guys have adopted the 'lets make our cards wide as fuck' approach. Gigabyte thankfully has avoided this but.. yeah. If you're a gamer and like something such as the ncase, blower style is your best bet and more noisy. Heat is your ITX enemy.
 
Storage/expansion space, heat and limited airflow are usually the main drawbacks to the smaller rigs
 
If you think about going lower than mATX, price and mobo-selection becomes an issue. Also, mini-ITX-boards seem more liable towards minor ailments.
Aside from performance seeming to be a mixed bag, and bugs over bugs at least in ASrock's budget line, I just heard about there being an exclusive limitation for some Asus mini-ITX boards, the expensive Z-chips, that cuts the 16 lanes of the PCIe slot down to 8 if you use the M.2 parallelly. This doesn't even apply to cheaper H110 chips, and of course to no bigger boards (afaik), and seems to be some compromise they have come up with due to size-issues.
(For reference, look in the Asus Z170i video by Edge Up (official Asus) around the 12:36 mark. Some say this is already in some manuals of the previous generation, which I don't know.)
 
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I went to MATX in my personal systems for several years. It was awesome - the motherboards are cheaper, but still work really well. My conclusion was that, unless you're doing something especially exotic, like my hyperspectral aerial photography system, you don't even notice the difference, and in the case of my aerial photo system, that machine actually had an MATX board anyway.

Hyperspectral system, so you know what I'm talking about.
"Phoenix" - Rebuilding a unique airborne sensor package

My point here being that even a system that needs MANY add-in cards and five SATA channels these days doesn't actually need a full ATX board.

ITX is a little different, IMHO, because you actually do start to sacrifice some features you might want in the name of size, and the cases that can use a real power supply aren't really that small anyway. You might as well just go MATX and enjoy all the really great inexpensive that exist in that form factor.
 
Something others haven't mentioned yet: Memory expansion. ITX boards have two memory slots and that's it. Micro ATX Can have four as I recall though.

The other downside on the ITX side: Expandability, you only have a x16 slot for the video card so no addon network or sound cards.

Other than that, it's rather nice having a tiny system.(i've got a ITX system in a Ncase M1)
 
I've got a min-itx PC, coming from mostly full towers and I'm glad I made the move. I have it in a Fractal Node 304 case which is big enough for a Tri-X 290x, 750w full size power supply, and 4 SSDs in it, along with 2x8gb DDR3. I like having the case on my desk, and it takes up quite a small foot print. I just have a NAS for my main storage/backup needs, with an external drive as well I sync once a week. The NAS does DLNA, and I have some streaming boxes setup on the TVs.

Working in it is a bitch though for the most part. I'm getting a nearly free i7 to drop in mine which means pulling the graphics card out (which is not terribly easy), then carefully pulling heatsink out, swapping procs and putting it back together. It's about a 30min process, vs normally 5mins. Id still keep my mini-itx case though.
 
If I end up travelling a lot, a tiny mITX system would be the bizzo for me.
But for serious desktop, I'll need more ram than that platform can support.

Having built an mATX recently for my father, storage connections/space is the main issue for anyone who does photo/video/heavy data work. I'm using most of the sata ports and all the onboard USBs (cheaper ASUS board), had to get an extension header.
Works great though.
 
I have a mATX build and I love it. Use it at work, as my desk space is limited and didn't want a huge tower there. Only complaint is I got a Radeon R380 in it, and while the card performs well for the $, it does get loud and hot due to case volume size etc.... I'll put a 120 exhaust fan near it and see if that helps. If not I'll have to pull card and buy a Nvidia lower watt card :(
 
My main rig is the following:

Asus Maximus Impact VII
I7-4790K
16GB Crucial Ballistix
GeForce GTX 970i
Samsung 950 Pro 512GB
Western Digital Enterprise 4TB HDD
Corsair AX850 PSU
Corsair Obsidian 250D case

Heat is the enemy, but with good cooling, you shouldnt have any issues. Mine idles at 33c and max temp is 78c. I dont game as much anymore, so my needs have changed. The size of the machine reflects my current needs. I wanted to have some power still but i dont need to be cutting edge.
 
Obsidian 250D, Define S Nano, Evolv ITX would be my go to cases for a mini ITX build if a discrete GPU would be used, if relying on the IGP alone something like Antec ISK300-150.
 
^ Great casing suggestions. I think those itx casings have the least compromise for the volume.

One thing to add - do not obsess over the internal volume so much. I did that at first and many itx casings seemed way too large considering the internal volume. But this is necessary to accommodate many build configs. The ones with the least volume usually tend to have too many restrictions on what you can do inside it.. which is fine if you can live with it i guess.
 
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