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Is MicroATX capable enough to build a respectable desktop? What are it's limitations? I'm only looking to have 1 optical drive, and perhaps 2 internal hard drives, so I'm looking at MicroATX cases. I see it doesn't do DDR3, which kinda sucks cuz DDR2 is getting expensive comparatively...

#1, The only differences between ATX and Micro ATX are the board size and (because a Micro ATX board is smaller) the number of slots for expansion cards. Things like built-on 1394 Firewire, the number of USB ports, etc., have nothing to do with the motherboard's form-factor. ATX and Micro ATX don't specify things like number of memory slots, PS/2 ports, serial ports, etc. Those kind of things are determined by the motherboard manufacturer.

By the way, this motherboard has one IDE connector and five SATA connectors internal, allowing you to connect up to two IDE/ATA devices (older hard drives or optical drives) and five SATA devices (newer hard drives and optical drives). It also has an eSATA port on the back. Also built-on is 1394 Firewire (Sony iLink) with one port on the back and one set of header pins onboard to connect to a case mounted Firewire port (if your case has one).

sloppy description. this board has nothing to do with SLI. It's an AMD/ATI chipset, natch, so the description ought to say "Hybrid crossfire" - there's only 1 PCIe slot (it is a Gen2 slot though, so that's nice). the board does support DisplayPort and HDMI, which is very good for users who care about such things. A terrific buy at the price.

ASUS M3A78-EM AMD 780G. It's a decent board. Have one running a AMD 9950 with no problem.

#2, I understand that the capabilities CAN be the same, I'm just wondering, compared to what's available in a standard ATX form factor, besides just fewer slots, what should one look for?

#6, Not meaning to argue, but if you understand that the capabilities CAN be the same then what exactly are you asking? The only things that will definitely be different between ATX and Micro ATX are motherboard size and the number of expansion slots.

The best thing to do is determine what capabilities you need in a motherboard, decide what form factor you want, and then research what motherboards meet your needs. You can get any feature on a Micro ATX motherboard that you can get on a regular ATX motherboard except for more than 4 expansion card slots (including a slot for a video card). Oh, and SLI or Crossfire (multiple video card) support is uncommon on Micro ATX motherboards. The chipset on this motherboard supports "Hybrid Crossfire", but that's a subset of "Crossfire" where you use a supported video card in conjunction with the built-in video.

I guess that Rudy Giuliani works in their shipping department. Cheapest for me is $9.11.

@MisterE

didn't get it for about half a second. LOL

Just to back up MisterE here, microATX boards have much the same capabilities as an ATX board, and in many cases more. Most all have built in video and as quite a few are used as HTPCs, they boast nice audio as well (maybe not super high end, but mid tier versus low end). I went with mATX just so I could use a small case and have my desk organized and better accessible.

I'm getting $79.99 - $15 = $64.99 before rebate.