What is the cheapest form factor?

[Wallet_Warrior]

I was going to begin planning a new build for myself and wanted to know the cheapest form factor to build in. I know that larger is more expensive but I wasn't sure about weather getting smaller would be any cheaper than mid-tower.

 

[TylerD321]

Micro ATX is always the cheapest to build in for the most part. Mini ITX is probably the most expensive.

[PDifolco]

Just now, Wallet_Warrior said:

I was going to begin planning a new build for myself and wanted to know the cheapest form factor to build in. I know that larger is more expensive but I wasn't sure about weather getting smaller would be any cheaper than mid-tower.

 

Mid size is the less expensive 

Bigger and smaller (ITX) are more expensive

 

[Dedayog]

1 minute ago, TylerD321 said:

Micro ATX is always the cheapest to build in for the most part. Mini ITX is probably the most expensive.

I think this.

 

m boards are usually cut down ATX versions, so  cheaper.  Like a B650m is cheaper than a regular B650.

[filpo]

4 minutes ago, Wallet_Warrior said:

I was going to begin planning a new build for myself and wanted to know the cheapest form factor to build in. I know that larger is more expensive but I wasn't sure about weather getting smaller would be any cheaper than mid-tower.

 

What's your budget for the whole build and what country? Also what use case?

[TylerD321]

Just now, Dedayog said:

I think this.

 

m boards are usually cut down ATX versions, so  cheaper.  Like a B650m is cheaper than a regular B650.

Correct. As always there are exceptions.

 

The reason I say that Mini ITX is probably the most expensive is because the cases and SFF power supplies are also expensive, not just the motherboard.

 

As far as Micro ATX goes, they are USUALLY cheaper than ATX boards. A higher quality mATX board might cost more than a lower quality ATX board. Same goes for the case. mATX and ATX both can typically use standard form factor PSUs so this is not a factor in price.

[Middcore]

3 minutes ago, Wallet_Warrior said:

I know that larger is more expensive

 

Not exactly.

 

Micro-ATX is cheapest. mATX cases and boards tend to be more barebones. Which is sort of a shame, since in the modern era where a single GPU will be the only PCIe device most people use, mATX makes a lot of sense.

 

Mini-ITX is the most expensive of the three actual standards common for consumer use, and also the smallest.

 

E-ATX has no actual standard besides "bigger than ATX." E-ATX stuff can be very expensive, but a lot of it is also specialized workstation hardware that most people have no reason to ever consider. 

[Wallet_Warrior]

1 minute ago, filpo said:

What's your budget for the whole build and what country? Also what use case?

~£500 and use case would be gaming

[TylerD321]

Just now, Wallet_Warrior said:

~£500 and use case would be gaming

What games? This affects how you want to build your pc in that low of a budget. Are you willing to go used on some/all parts? What country and currency do you use?

[Wallet_Warrior]

1 minute ago, TylerD321 said:

What games? This affects how you want to build your pc in that low of a budget. Are you willing to go used on some/all parts? What country and currency do you use?

Esport games. I would prefer to go used ono minimal parts. £. and England.

[filpo]

2 minutes ago, Wallet_Warrior said:

~£500 and use case would be gaming

I'd say go for this 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£125.87 @ Clove Technology) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£77.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  (£30.49 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: KIOXIA EXCERIA G2 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£39.98 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Case: Deepcool MATREXX 30 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (£29.99 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Power Supply: Gigabyte P-B 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£59.95 @ Amazon UK) 
Custom: Used GTX 1080 Ti (£150.00)
Total: £514.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-11-20 18:29 GMT+0000

[Wallet_Warrior]

8 minutes ago, filpo said:

I'd say go for this 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  (£125.87 @ Clove Technology) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£77.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  (£30.49 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: KIOXIA EXCERIA G2 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£39.98 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Case: Deepcool MATREXX 30 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  (£29.99 @ Scan.co.uk) 
Power Supply: Gigabyte P-B 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£59.95 @ Amazon UK) 
Custom: Used GTX 1080 Ti (£150.00)
Total: £514.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-11-20 18:29 GMT+0000

Thanks for the list.

[mariushm]

mATX is cheaper because they can make more boards out of a pcb panel ... think of it like cutting motherboard circuit boards out of a big panel that's one of the standard panel sizes : 18” × 24”, 18” × 12”, 9” × 24”, and 9” × 12”

Also there's fewer components (a bunch of pci-e slots that don't have to be put on the board, maybe a few sata ports less, it's pennies but it adds up)

 

mATX is 9.6" by 9.6" ,  ATX is 12" by 9.6"   ... you can put 2 mATX boards on a 24" by 18" panel, but you can make only one atx board because there must be space on the sides for tooling and other things so you can't have  2x 12" = 24" , at least one inch is lost in each direction.

 

You can see an example of pcb panel in the video below, at around 9:30 is a good sequence :

 

 

 

iTX is even smaller at 6.7" by 6.7" and in theory you can have 3 x 2 = 6 boards from a panel, but the problem is there's less space for all the components so you often have to use more expensive components (higher efficiency, less heat produced, but potentially use less of them) and also the traces (wires) between components have to be routed in a more complex way (often requiring more layers which increases circuit board cost), and more layers means more time to make the pcb and more time to test the pcb and slightly higher failure rate so those bare pcbs are more expensive to make.