Over time a number of motherboard form factors have been used in mainstream desktop PCs. The major variations are PC, (XT), AT, and ATX. They differ in size, location of mounting holes, and arrangement of major components. Major vendors also have used a variety of proprietary form factors for motherboards.
The PC and XT used a 22x33cm motherboard usually with 5 to 8 eight bit expansion card slots in the left rear. Power was provided through a pair of six pin connectors plugging into a 12 pin socket. Memory plugged into 36 (generally) 16 pin IC sockets on the motherboard.
The AT form factor was introduced with the PC-AT. It used a larger 30.5x33 motherboard with 8 expansion card slots. Most of these were sixteen bit slots although some boards had fewer slots or had one or more eight bit only slots. Memory was initially provided by IC sockets, however, when 386 CPUs came into use, plug in memory modules -- SIMMs, SIPPs, and later DIMMs were used instead. The slots were generally placed somewhere on the right side of the board -- often buried under the power supply and or drive bays in an assembled PC. Power was provided via the same pair of six pin connectors used on the PC/AT motherboard. Over time, some card slots morphed into MCA bus or VLB and later PCI slots. Cache memory ICs or modules were added -- usually on the front right.
AT mounting screws were generally in different places than PC/XT screws and were somewhat variable in location. It is generally the situation that most AT cases will accept most AT motherboards, but it is often necessary to move or remove mounting brackets(sometimes with a bolt cutter).
As components shrank, so did motherboard form factors. Two major shrinks of the AT motherboard took place:
Baby AT -- 20*23 cm
Half Size AT -- 22*16.5cm
LPX (Low profile, not widely used) -- 23*33cm
In 1995 the ATX form factor was introduced. ATX standardized the location of the CPU (right rear) and replaced the PC power connector with a large ATX connector that carried power and that allowed power to be controlled by motherboard logic. At least five major variations exist
ATX -- 30.5*24.4cm
MiniATX -- 28.4*20.8cm
Micro ATX -- 24.4 * 22.4cm
Flex ATX -- 22.9 * 19.1cm
NLX (Low Profile) 26*22.9cm or 34.55*28.45cm
ITX motherboards are intended to be small motherboards with as many peripherals as possible integrated on the motherboard. Typically they have two PCI slots
ITX -- 21.5*19.1cm
Mini ITX -- 17*17cm
Nano ITX -- 12*12cm
In 2004, Intel announced three new form factors with the CPU moved to the front of the motherboard and PC slots on the rear right. These are designed for improved thermal control
Perhaps surprisingly, BTX motherboards are a bit bigger than ATX. It is asserted that this is because the classical motherboard functions are unlikely to take less space and additional functions take more real estate as do the thermal management optimizations.
BTX -- 32.5*26.6 cm
microBTX -- 26.4*26.6 cm
picoBTX -- 20.3*26.6 cm
Return To Index Copyright 1994-2008 by Donald Kenney.