I was browsing around Newegg and found some "MicroBTX" cases. They look like MicroATX except the mobo is on the wrong side. Despite being on the wrong side, they were some pretty schweeeet cases. Will a MicroATX board, the MSI socket 939 one, fit in a MicroBTX case? EDIT - on that subject, will the PSU that comes in the BTX case support an ATX board? EDIT - I counted the pins. All my ATX stuff has 20. The MSI mobo has 24, as does the BTX power supply, so I guess it will work. But will the MicroBTX holes line up with the MicroATX board? EDIT - I found the schematics. For ease of reference, let's start at the hole right behind the PS/2 connectors as A and head clockwise. B is between the socket and the RAM slots. C is in the corner nearest the RAM. D is below the IDE connectors. E is at the end of the video card slot. F is at the end of the last PCI slot. G is at the other end of that slot, nearest the back. H is between G and the audio connectors. I am not sure whether E is on the MSI 480 board, but it is on my reference mATX board, which is an inch short, and does not have C or D, so E would be necessary on that and somewhat redundant on the MSI board, which is full mATX and an inch longer. On the BTX schematic: A is shown past the I/O panel, on a straight line with G and H. However, on both my reference board and the pictures of the MSI I found, it is between the I/O connectors and the socket. B is completely missing. C is shown, but at the end of the tray, 10.5" from the back. mATX is only 9.6", so I don't know if it will fit. D is in the same situation as C. E does not exist at all, but I expect it is not needed when C and D are available. F, G, and H are all in the right spots. So, anyone able to fill in the blanks and tell me whether the A, B, C, and D holes on the mATX board line up with the equivalent mBTX holes?
Technically, no; the board layouts and screw hole placements are too different to do it without modification. Ironically there are still about 50x more BTX cases than BTX motherboards
BTX, as far as rear panel layout goes, is having an ATX board chopped in half between the slots and I/O panel and having the two halves switched. No, the two will not be compatible. I believe a BTX PSU will work on an ATX board though. a microBTX PSU is a different shape and whatnot, but I think as far as standards goes, it forces them all to have a 24-pin connector (instead of 20), eliminating the old AUX thing, quite possibly making the +12v 4-pin plug into an 8-pin and making it all ready for PCIE. But in short, don't try and fit an atx board into a btx case. It's not worth the trouble even if you can do it, especially seeing how bad the selection is.
Well, I guess a nice MicroATX case is in order... How silly of me, hoping that they would either standardize the hole placements or at least make it backwards-compatible...
considering that most Micro-ATX cases are overpriced and/or suck, id just get a desktop-or an Aspire Q-pack; that is the best utilization of space I have seen in a case.
Well, not really BTX cases, there cases that make an ATX motherboard act like a BTX motherboard. I haven't seen a BTX motherboard yet. Though Gateway claims they use BTX tech, but I'm not sure if they actually use BTX motherboard, or just have a flipped ATX case.
I was looking at the Aspire Q-pack; does the PSU work with the 24-pin connector on the MSI 480 board with socket 939?
A flipped ATX is wATX iirc , so if they said BTX they probably use it otherwise they could get sued etc. BTX is pretty much ATX but mirrored
