Mini-ITX

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Housing
formats
Comparison of mini-ITX and mini-DTX as well as ATX, µATX and DTX.

Mini-ITX is a form factor for computer motherboards which , at 170 × 170 mm, is considerably smaller than motherboards in the conventional ATX format. The four screws and the I / O shield are in the same place and make the mini-ITX mainboard compatible with ATX. Mini-ITX mainboards are often used in thin client terminals. Thanks to the increasing performance of the CPUs used , they can also be found in multimedia and game PCs today.

Motherboard in mini-ITX format
Mini-ITX-PC with internal Flex-ATX- PC power supply unit and Intel-Atom -CPU

Standard-compliant Mini-ITX mainboards are supplied with power via a conventional 20 or 24-pin connector. Power can be supplied via an ATX power supply unit. Various manufacturers offer mainboards with integrated step-down converters that generate the lower voltages required . These boards require a standard switched-mode power supply with a single output voltage of 12 or 19 volts, as is the case with some laptops that use an external power supply outside the computer case . Mini-ITX mainboards are compatible with the mountings of a normal ATX case and the first plug-in card with PCI or PCIe corresponds to the ATX standard.

While the first Mini-ITX boards were mostly equipped with a permanently soldered processor from VIA , the developer of the Mini-ITX standard, there are now more and more mainboards based on desktop or notebook chipsets from Intel and AMD , the allow the simple change of the CPU. This makes it possible to use current high-end processors, regardless of whether they are dual, quad or octa core , on such mainboards, which means that the areas of application of the mini-ITX boards are becoming more and more diverse.

In 2008, VIA defined the Mini-ITX 2.0 standard, which is already being met by a number of motherboards available from various manufacturers.

Web links