Will ATX and MATX cases become more compact?

[minervx]

Most MATX and ATX cases could be 20-30% smaller with no impact on performance.  Most builds only use 1/3 to 1/2 of the space anyway.  Power supply cables being modular, dual GPU's being a thing of the past, and M.2. SSD's instead of hard drives.  And with ventilation being more common, they can be smaller without being hotboxed.

 

But case manufacturers want their case to be everything to everyone.  Most people aren't using the tallest air cooler, the longest GPU, a 360+mm liquid cooler, and 4-5 hard drives all at the same time.  But they need to include most or all of these things because it may be a dealbreaker to a portion of people if one of these things are missing.

 

The $75-125 price range is the goldilocks zone companies are competing for.  Below that range, inflation ravaged the budget market.   Above that range, there's severe diminished returns; airflow doesn't get better, and aesthetics are subjective. 

 

This results in companies focusing on creating $100 cases that both can be used for $1000 builds and $3000+ builds.  A $1000-1500 build may not need a large case, yet a builder may still buy one because most of the best options do happen to be big.

 

[Agall]

8 minutes ago, minervx said:

Most MATX and ATX cases could be 20-30% smaller with no impact on performance.  Most builds only use 1/3 to 1/2 of the space anyway.  Power supply cables being modular, dual GPU's being a thing of the past, and M.2. SSD's instead of hard drives.  And with ventilation being more common, they can be smaller without being hotboxed.

 

But case manufacturers want their case to be everything to everyone.  Most people aren't using the tallest air cooler, the longest GPU, a 360+mm liquid cooler, and 4-5 hard drives all at the same time.  But they need to include most or all of these things because it may be a dealbreaker to a portion of people if one of these things are missing.

 

The $75-125 price range is the goldilocks zone companies are competing for.  Below that range, inflation ravaged the budget market.   Above that range, there's severe diminished returns; airflow doesn't get better, and aesthetics are subjective. 

 

This results in companies focusing on creating $100 cases that both can be used for $1000 builds and $3000+ builds.  A $1000-1500 build may not have a hot enough GPU to require a massive case, yet a builder may still buy one because most of the good cases happen to be big.

 

Corsair 4000D and FD North are practically as small as you can get for standard mid towers without any compromises.

 

Without changing the layout, I don't see how this gets more compact. The 4000D and FD North are the same exact sizes. Both can fit eATX boards, however its tight in the 4000D with its cable management bracket. You can see there's still room in the North even with an X670e Aorus Master.

 

 

[SorryBella]

17 minutes ago, Agall said:

Without changing the layout, I don't see how this gets more compact.

I have a pretty crackhead idea about making the ATX form even narrower for pure gaming system. I might actually use this thread as a kick start to make a concept sketch.

[Crunchy Dragon]

31 minutes ago, Agall said:

-image-

I have never felt claustrophobic while looking at a computer before now.

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of compact cases but I also still use SATA drives. When my system lived in a Fractal Define R5, I had what I would consider a pretty standard build -- fully modular PSU, 1 HDD, 1 SATA SSD, single GPU(GTX 1070), 280mm AIO -- and that case felt cramped and difficult to work in.

[Agall]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I have never felt claustrophobic while looking at a computer before now.

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of compact cases but I also still use SATA drives. When my system lived in a Fractal Define R5, I had what I would consider a pretty standard build -- fully modular PSU, 1 HDD, 1 SATA SSD, single GPU(GTX 1070), 280mm AIO -- and that case felt cramped and difficult to work in.

The AM5 7mm offset mount really puts the NH-D15 close  I used to be a mITX enthusiast for ~8 years before getting an RX 6900 XT then RTX 4090, both of which were way too large for mITX. This is my form of mITX without compromising.

 

Yes Optimum Tech can throw a 7800x3D and RTX 4090 in a tiny mITX case, but not at 133% TDP, that's for sure.

 

What I'd personally like to see is shorter but thicker graphics cards. Make them 5-6 slots but eATX length, and the case could be a lot less deep. Give the GPU a similar tower style design that would make the GPU only as long as the PCB but practically take up all avaiable PCIe slots.

 

 

The red line being how compact the case 'could' be, with the orange being how large the GPU would be, blue indication the direction of airflow through the GPU. Could probably get rid of the top fans as well in doing so since you could design a FD Torrent line wind tunnel from the front.

[minervx]

50 minutes ago, Agall said:

Corsair 4000D and FD North are practically as small as you can get for standard mid towers without any compromises. 

 

This may be true for highest end ($3000+) builds, but most people aren't using a RTX 4090.  Most people are making a $1000-2000 build with maybe a RTX 4060, which doesn't need a case that big.

[Agall]

4 minutes ago, minervx said:

This may be true for highest end ($3000+) builds, but most people aren't using a RTX 4090.  Most people are making a $1000-2000 build, and a case of that size is overkill.  

 

So more like this size? Fits up to a 200mm long GPU so it'll fit up to ~ RTX 4060ti or RX 6600 in terms of power right now, comfortably cooling up to maybe an i5 13500.

 

Little bit of modifications, you could do a custom loop with an SFX PSU and at least 240mm worth of radiator space in 2x120mm radiators. 

 

GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 XTREME WATERFORCE 24GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 ATX Video Card GV-N4090AORUSX W-24GD - Newegg.com 

 

This card 'almost' fits

[Crunchy Dragon]

6 minutes ago, micha_vulpes said:

the Define r5 is really spacious in some aspects, but the top of the board being so close to the top of the case makes plugging in things like eps12v, fans, and anything else up at the top fairly difficult if you have a big air cooler installed, or if you run top fans/rand which then hang down over the motherboard area. It just feels like a case dated by its time more than it being too small. Just oddly laid out. Being able to move the drive cages all over the place is sweet though.

 

And for giggles, when I tried to do an MATX workstation there is 1MM between the cooler and the CD drive cage.

-snip-

Don't get me wrong, I love the Define R5(in fact, I still have that case in my possession). I think the main problem in my case(lol) was that my AIO wasn't long enough to be mounted in the front, so I had to put it in the top which made EPS12V and fans more difficult to route, and there wasn't a ton of room behind the motherboard tray for cable management(especially with a SATA SSD back there).

 

6 minutes ago, Agall said:

What I'd personally like to see is shorter but thicker graphics cards. Make them 5-6 slots but eATX length, and the case could be a lot less deep. Give the GPU a similar tower style design that would make the GPU only as long as the PCB but practically take up all avaiable PCIe slots.

 

The red line being how compact the case 'could' be, with the orange being how large the GPU would be, blue indication the direction of airflow through the GPU. Could probably get rid of the top fans as well in doing so since you could design a FD Torrent line wind tunnel from the front.

Short and thicc graphics cards could work, but I think it would be too niche of a market slot to make it worthwhile. Some people still have other PCIe devices. Additionally, eATX is a fake "standard" so "eATX length" really just boils down to "an arbitrary number longer than 9.6 inches". It's definitely an interesting idea though, and solidly within the realm of a modder who halfway knows what they're doing.

 

Hardware Canucks had a video that touched a little bit on this:

 

I think the actually vertical vertical GPU mounting could work and would certainly leave some room to make a case more compact, but you would struggle in the thermal department a little bit with anything that wasn't a blower-style cooler. Actually come to think of it, I think most GPU TDPs at this point have skyrocketed past what blower coolers are capable of....

[Agall]

17 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Don't get me wrong, I love the Define R5(in fact, I still have that case in my possession). I think the main problem in my case(lol) was that my AIO wasn't long enough to be mounted in the front, so I had to put it in the top which made EPS12V and fans more difficult to route, and there wasn't a ton of room behind the motherboard tray for cable management(especially with a SATA SSD back there).

 

Short and thicc graphics cards could work, but I think it would be too niche of a market slot to make it worthwhile. Some people still have other PCIe devices. Additionally, eATX is a fake "standard" so "eATX length" really just boils down to "an arbitrary number longer than 9.6 inches". It's definitely an interesting idea though, and solidly within the realm of a modder who halfway knows what they're doing.

 

Hardware Canucks had a video that touched a little bit on this:

 

I think the actually vertical vertical GPU mounting could work and would certainly leave some room to make a case more compact, but you would struggle in the thermal department a little bit with anything that wasn't a blower-style cooler. Actually come to think of it, I think most GPU TDPs at this point have skyrocketed past what blower coolers are capable of....

I agree, I mention eATX since neither the 4000D nor FD North list 'support' for it and there's not too much info on what length motherboard it does support, so I always feel necessary to mention it when discussing the case. The x670e Aorus Master is literally as long as you can possibly get in a 4000D, the FD North however has a bit more room which is shown in the photo, another 0.5" or so till you'd lose the cable management holes.

 

Problem I have with abnormal layouts is I/O issues, riser cable requirements, and they usually require AIOs to be compact. A compact ATX layout would just sandwich the GPU and mount it vertically, but that'd require CPU water cooling. The thing I like about my concept is you can use either and would be about the length of an ATX motherboard.

 

I don't think PCIe expansion past graphics cards for majority of gamers is really a problem. The minority who don't do such can just get a different card. I'd also be down for having a 1x slot above the primary 16x slot like the days prior to m.2 drives.

[minervx]

More than 1 PCI-E port is a thing of the past anyway.  People don't use wifi cards, PCI-E storage or dual-GPU setups.  And audio interfaces have replaced sound cards.  Maybe a minority of enthusiasts will use a capture card, but other than that idk. 

 

MATX could really be the new standard, but change happens slowly.  People will buy ATX because it has more options.  And it will have more options becauise more people buy it.

 

 

[tkitch]

4 hours ago, SorryBella said:

I have a pretty crackhead idea about making the ATX form even narrower for pure gaming system. I might actually use this thread as a kick start to make a concept sketch.

how would changing the ATX Spec do anything to 300+ MM Wide GPUs?

 

Note:

To support a 300mm GPU?  The case needs to be 14-16" Deep, minimum.

[SorryBella]

18 minutes ago, micha_vulpes said:

There were ATX and Flex ATX boards in the late 90s/ early 2000's that were pretty thin at about 190mm wide

Im talking more about case width but yeah, Flex ATX style cut down was what im thinking.

[minervx]

 

There is quite a bit of empty space.  As shown on the drawing.  But with different companies making different parts, we won't get that coordination.   Plus, the front panel is an inch longer than it needs to be and an inch could be cut from the sides as well.

 

And this pic is the most extreme case.  Most builds don't need a double tower cooler and most commonly used graphics cards don't need a heatsink of that size.

 

Cables could be shorter, but they are standardized so they could fit larger builds.  Power supply could be SFX in most builds (unless maybe youre using a 4090).  But as said earlier, it's hard to do this with different companies making different parts.