Will ATX and larger boards become obsolete?

gillmanjr

Member
I was thinking about this the other night and wanted to see if anyone else has any thoughts about it. It seems to me like the larger sized MOBOs may soon become obsolete, along with larger case sizes. I started thinking about this last night while reading about the new RTX 3000 series GPUs. I am thinking about upgrading to a 3080 when they release (depending on the benchmarks) but then I considered adding a second 2080 to my rig, my PSU will support it. However, after reading about NVLink/SLI support it really seems like multi GPU setups are very quickly becoming obsolete. As soon as there is no more support for multi GPUs, what will the purpose of an ATX motherboard be? I mean seriously, how many people use PCIe peripherals anymore? I remember the days when I had PCIe wifi adapters, cable adapters, etc, etc. But now with USB 3.0/3.1, who really buys PCIe add-on cards anymore? It just seems to me like the need for multiple PCIe slots is slowly being phased out, just like disc drives were. I'm already at the point where I'm 90% sure that my next new build is going to be mATX or possibly ITX. What do you think?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Multi GPU isn't the only reason to build an ATX board, I mean it's been around since 1995.

Whatever approach floats your boat though for your personal preference my dude.
 

strollin

Well-Known Member
Eventually our smart phones (or something similar) will become our desktop computers. They will be more powerful and capable yet more compact.
 

gillmanjr

Member
Multi GPU isn't the only reason to build an ATX board, I mean it's been around since 1995.

Whatever approach floats your boat though for your personal preference my dude.

OK so whats another reason? A PCIe SSD? Last I checked those are still WAY more expensive than NVMe and not that popular or necessary. Why else do you really need multiple PCIe slots at this point? I can understand wanting to build in a larger CASE - more fans/cooling capability, more drives, larger GPU, etc. But what reason do you really need an ATX board at this point? Both of my last two builds (Z97 and now Z390) have been ATX and I only ended up using a single PCIe slot for the life of both machines. Even when I got around to considering a multi GPU install (which I did with both builds) I quickly realized that it wasn't worth it and ended up just replacing the GPU altogether, which is exactly what I am going to do again. I just don't see the need anymore.

Eventually our smart phones (or something similar) will become our desktop computers. They will be more powerful and capable yet more compact.

Maybe but not in the near future. Top shelf GPUs alone are ten times the size of a smart phone. Its going to be decades before an entire gaming rig can be packed into that space. Cooling is one of the biggest challenges with making that happen. I'm talking about the very near future ...like right NOW.
 

gillmanjr

Member
# of expansion slots required. There are things other than video cards that you can put in there.

Did you read my full posts? I know there are other PCI add-on cards that exist, I've been building PCs for more than half of my 38 years and have owned numerous PCI cards (cable/coax adapter, wifi adapter, USB expansion, and others). But who needs PCI expansion cards NOW? Given the specs of a modern Z390 or Z490 MOBO, what PCI card would you possibly need? Keep in mind I am talking about home use here...gaming, video/photo editing, etc. I'm not talking about servers or business PCs.

Lets do this another way...who on this forum has a newer home desktop computer for gaming, editing, home theater use, etc and has multiple PCIe slots populated with cards other than graphics cards? For those that do, what cards do you have and why do you need them?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
what PCI card would you possibly need?
Just because -you- don't have a use case for it, doesn't mean that others do not.

I don't really see your angle here other than indicating that matx or itx work fine for your use. That's great and all, but clearly there's enough sales volume to facilitate making the boards, as opposed to stopping production based on one user's opinion.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Did you read my full posts? I know there are other PCI add-on cards that exist, I've been building PCs for more than half of my 38 years and have owned numerous PCI cards (cable/coax adapter, wifi adapter, USB expansion, and others). But who needs PCI expansion cards NOW? Given the specs of a modern Z390 or Z490 MOBO, what PCI card would you possibly need? Keep in mind I am talking about home use here...gaming, video/photo editing, etc. I'm not talking about servers or business PCs.

Lets do this another way...who on this forum has a newer home desktop computer for gaming, editing, home theater use, etc and has multiple PCIe slots populated with cards other than graphics cards? For those that do, what cards do you have and why do you need them?
Ever heard of the onboard network port going bad? I have many of times.
Ever heard of wanting to add extra storage but not enough Sata ports? I have.
How about onboard usb controller going out? Lots of uses. They still build ATX boards for expansion purposes.
 

gillmanjr

Member
Just because -you- don't have a use case for it, doesn't mean that others do not.

I don't really see your angle here other than indicating that matx or itx work fine for your use. That's great and all, but clearly there's enough sales volume to facilitate making the boards, as opposed to stopping production based on one user's opinion.

Which is precisely why I asked people to post if they have a newer home PC and actually have PCI slots populated with something other than graphics cards. So far no responses...

I'm not claiming that anyone should stop production, why would I do that? I'm predicting that ATX motherboards MIGHT start to be phased out in the next few years, or at least that smaller MOBOs start to become more popular/main stream. I guess no one else agrees so far, but we'll find out. A lot of things have been phased out of the PC world, and it usually happens pretty quickly.

Ever heard of the onboard network port going bad? I have many of times.
Ever heard of wanting to add extra storage but not enough Sata ports? I have.
How about onboard usb controller going out? Lots of uses. They still build ATX boards for expansion purposes.

Sure, but if I had either my onboard network port or my USB controller crap out, I would probably replace my motherboard, not buy a PCI card. SATA port expansion I can see, but then again, considering that a 4TB HDD is less than $100, not really.
 

Cromewell

Administrator
Staff member
As beers said, your argument seems to be matx is fine for you. That's great. I need 12 sata ports, I can't get that without expansion cards. My entire media library is digital, a 4TB drive isn't even close to big enough. There are also a lot of people who use their old gear for a media center and 4-6 sata ports just doesn't cut it for that.

There are lots of other reasons to need an sata controller. If you have both m2 ports full, that cuts 2 sata ports from use. And if you are still using an optical drive, that's another port gone.
Sure, but if I had either my onboard network port or my USB controller crap out, I would probably replace my motherboard, not buy a PCI card. SATA port expansion I can see, but then again, considering that a 4TB HDD is less than $100, not really.
If the rest of the board was functional I probably wouldn't replace the whole board, especially if its several years old and you're now looking at nearly an entire new build because of a socket change and general lack of availability of older gear.
 

Intel_man

VIP Member
I use pcie slots in my computer for a WLAN card that is faster than what Z390 came shipped with the board. Also, I use a lot of USB ports... so much so to the point where I need an additional usb pcie card to satisfy my needs.

Based on my needs, I'm not moving away from ATX unless they force me to.

Sure, but if I had either my onboard network port or my USB controller crap out, I would probably replace my motherboard, not buy a PCI card. SATA port expansion I can see, but then again, considering that a 4TB HDD is less than $100, not really.
Sure let me just replace my $300 motherboard instead of grabbing a $20 SATA card. Money doesn't grow on trees.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
I can understand wanting to build in a larger CASE - more fans/cooling capability, more drives, larger GPU, etc. But what reason do you really need an ATX board at this point?
Are you implying mATX in a full ATX case would be a suitable solution?
 

gillmanjr

Member
Are you implying mATX in a full ATX case would be a suitable solution?

No, I wouldn't see the point of that. If you are going to build in an ATX case, it would be kind of stupid to not buy an ATX motherboard.

As beers said, your argument seems to be matx is fine for you. That's great. I need 12 sata ports, I can't get that without expansion cards. My entire media library is digital, a 4TB drive isn't even close to big enough. There are also a lot of people who use their old gear for a media center and 4-6 sata ports just doesn't cut it for that.

There are lots of other reasons to need an sata controller. If you have both m2 ports full, that cuts 2 sata ports from use. And if you are still using an optical drive, that's another port gone.

If the rest of the board was functional I probably wouldn't replace the whole board, especially if its several years old and you're now looking at nearly an entire new build because of a socket change and general lack of availability of older gear.

I'm actually very surprised to hear that someone is using 12 SATA ports in a home computer :oops:. I've always just bought bigger drives, rather than more drives. So if I need more storage I usually buy a larger drive and replace my smaller one, rather than using both. But thats just me, I don't keep a digital library of movies, only photos and music, which are pretty small files. I do own a LOT of games on steam, origin, etc, but I will eventually uninstall games that I no longer play in order to make room for new ones.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
There are some people that need terabytes and terabytes of space for file storage depending on what they use it for. Why replace a drive when you just buy a new one? You won't get much when selling a used drive.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
No, I wouldn't see the point of that. If you are going to build in an ATX case, it would be kind of stupid to not buy an ATX motherboard.
I mean, you pitched an argument for a larger case, but are also arguing for smaller motherboards, so it's only a logical conclusion.

I see an emphasis on smaller builds given the smaller process nodes and compute power you can pack into a smaller area dictating a smaller overall form factor/package, but I don't think ATX is going away any time soon.
 

gillmanjr

Member
I mean, you pitched an argument for a larger case, but are also arguing for smaller motherboards, so it's only a logical conclusion.

I see an emphasis on smaller builds given the smaller process nodes and compute power you can pack into a smaller area dictating a smaller overall form factor/package, but I don't think ATX is going away any time soon.

I don't think its going away either, at least not in the near future, and I'm not arguing that it should. I just think we might start to see a trend towards smaller builds, thats all. A good indication of that would be how many new mATX/ITX cases we see in the next few years vs. mid-tower cases.

There's also this thing called data redundancy.

I get that but honestly, given the reliability of SSD now, all the "cloud" backup servers available, and USB 3.1/3.2 external drives, how many people do you really think are using internal SATA drives in RAID 1? I'm genuinely interested to know how many people actually use RAID 1 or just use extra internal SATA drives for data backup. I have always used a single, large external drive to backup my important files. And if its something I can just reinstall (steam games, most software, windows, linux, ETC) I don't even bother backing it up. The only stuff I keep backed up is my music files, all of my photos, some digital movies, my recordings, CAD files that I have saved, and personal documents (mainly text and excel). We're talking less than 250GB here. Seriously, what are people storing on their home PCs that require multiple terabytes and cannot easily be re-downloaded/re-installed if there was a failure???
 
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netrick

Member
I'm genuinely interested to know how many people actually use RAID 1 or just use extra internal SATA drives for data backup.
I use an internal SATA drive for data backup and also use a PCIe slot for a wireless card. However, I've also been thinking about getting an Intel NUC or an equivalent for my next computer since I like the idea of the small size versus this big box sitting on my desk.
 
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