Looking for a mATX OC'n MB
 

Been staring at the Aspire X-Qpack case over at Xoxide and was thinking it would make a super SFF WC HTPC. A 120mm size rad with 2 fans (push/pull) on the back and reverse flow. There is a place for an 80mm fan on the front to pull out the hot air and cool the HD. Looks like a natural for a small 12v pump, 3/8 ID tubing, and a T joint with a DD fillport on top. Maybe even enough room for a water block to the vid card. Oh yea, it comes with a 420 watt PS. So my question is what mATX MB? :shrug:

It needs to be able to OC well (I hate paying high prices for CPU's), support Socket 939, PCI-X vid card and hopefully take 4 sticks of DDR RAM.

It will replace my current HTPC, which is a Athlon 2500 on a Chaintech mATX NForce2 MB that doesn't OC worth a flip (1.964 MHz is the best it will do due to NO voltage adjustment). Case is an old ATX desktop that uses the extra space for a Thermaltake (yea, I know but it was my first WC project) AquariusII WC kit. Sound is a great Terratec 7.1 sound card which will go in the new HTPC.

you wont have any luck with uATX boards, at most they will have an adjustable fsb but thats about it from my experience.

Can you solder? If so you could solder in dipswitches or a pot on vrm for vcore adjustment. And NTune will adjust fsb from within windows right?

I just got one of these and there is No place to put an 80mm fan in front. You could put a bunch of fans in the 3 windows. You only have the 1,120 in back. Nice case though with a removable M/B tray.

I can't think of such a motherboard. Your only options for ocing a mATX board would be what pH suggested. Even then you would not be able to achieve very high clock speeds as the power regulation system on such boards is barely adequate. Two or three stages of voltage regulation, weak caps.... just give up. It's not worth the effort. Instead try to be creative with slim desktop ATX cases. Silverstone makes a nice one here: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16811163006

I giving up on mATX MB's for now
 

I thought there might a nice OC MB with the ATI chipset since ATI has been touting its overclockability and it's first boards were mATX. But it seems none of the board makers have decided to implement tose features. I hate it but I guess I'll just continue with the older setup I have until someone makes what I want.

Thanks Guys for the input.

The hitch with such a motherboard would be the power regulation, not necessarily the chipset. There are many mATX boards with great chipsets for OCing (875, NF2,3,4 etc.) but mATX boards are made to be cheap. Thus they have limited features and lower quality components.

Wait a second there is one. It would be called the MSI RS480M2-IL.

It uses the ATI XPRESS 200 chipset. Maybe thats your best one :P

EDIT: It supports 1X PCI-E, has 4 slots of ram, and other features that you already wanted. Not sure about its OCing abilities. It should have plenty considering its chipset.

Chipset doesn't necessarily equate to overclocking prowess. A lot has to do with how the MB is built and what is enabled in the BIOS.

Just checked out that particular MB. No, OCing features. Sorry.