Alright, what does the M at the end mean?

[spirals]

I've been confused about this topic, I meant there are 2 totally different models from e.g ASRock, like X370 Pro4 and X370M Pro4, what's so different about them? The one with the "M" are slightly cheaper than the ones that haven't got one (from what I've seen), what's the deal tho? What's the difference here? What does it mean? 

 

 

Any Advice would be appreciated

[Princess Luna]

It means that the motherboard is of Micro-ATX standard.

 

The common standards are:

 

E-ATX (Largest)

ATX (Normal)

M-ATX (Smaller)

Mini-ITX (Tiny)

 

Spoiler

 

[star_pilot475]

2 minutes ago, spirals said:

I've been confused about this topic, I meant there are 2 totally different models from e.g ASRock, like X370 Pro4 and X370M Pro4, what's so different about them? The one with the "M" are slightly cheaper than the ones that haven't got one (from what I've seen), what's the deal tho? What's the difference here? What does it mean? 

 

 

Any Advice would be appreciated

Usually it means MicroAtx

@Princess Cadence and I answered at the same time 

 

lol

[Ragingwasabi]

M means masochi- oooh wrong forum

[spirals]

Ooh.. but therefore is there any performance difference between the 2? 

 

[Princess Luna]

9 minutes ago, spirals said:

Ooh.. but therefore is there any performance difference between the 2?

It depends, if you mean the chipset then no... a X370 or X370M is the very same chipset.

 

Now the motherboard itself may be lesser, like not as good power phases, VRM, memory controller and so on, it depends on the model... Micro-ATX boards are usually a bit lesser than their normal ATX ones but that's not an absolute truth and you can still find super high end Micro-ATX boards.

[Jurrunio]

15 minutes ago, spirals said:

Ooh.. but therefore is there any performance difference between the 2? 

 

None, they only differ in features like the number of PCIe slots. Dont think they cut more away than that

 

Also why cheap ATX boards dont make sense

[aisle9]

16 minutes ago, spirals said:

Ooh.. but therefore is there any performance difference between the 2? 

 

A very broad generalization would be that MicroATX boards tend not to have as good of VRMs/VRM cooling as their bigger ATX brothers. This is far from always true, but since MicroATX boards tend overall to be considered midrange or lower end than ATX, it's a fairly common reality. Goes without saying that you lose expandability with mATX boards, as they only have four expansion slots to work with rather than a full seven.

 

The strong points of mATX boards are the flexibility to fit in smaller form factor cases than their big brothers and their lower prices compared to equivalent ATX boards. If you can get a $90 mATX board with the same VRMs, VRM cooling and features (albeit fewer of those same features) as a $140 ATX board, why wouldn't you go smaller?