Fractal Pop Mini Air - Where are mATX cases?

[Teralek]

Been browsing the market because I want to buy a new PC in a few months. Came to PC specialist where I bought my 10 year old laptop that is still working great (although can't play any recent AAA games) looking for a new build!
To my surprise there are no small factor cases. Only ATX and ITX. Why is that??!
My sugestion for a mATX case is Fractal Pop Mini Air
Please give us an option for a mATX case or I may look elsewhere... ITX cases are just too tiny and motherboard choices are limited

 

[Scott]

There are a few things to consider here. Firstly, none of us work for PCS, it's not the type of forum to suggest taking your money elsewhere. We have absolutely no influence on where PCS market demographic is, but Mini ITX will make up a very small margin and with millions in the turnover per year, you have to understand that you taking your money elsewhere wouldn't resonate. That's the same with any known integrator though. They all want you to shop in their store and be happy, but individuals are not relied upon.

Second, I don't think any of us would recommend a Mini ITx build. There are so many down sides to it, with no up-sides over a laptop. I built a mini ITx mediacenter many moons ago, it was nothing but trouble. So noisy as I had to have good components in it. When I was using plex to transcode I thought it was going to take off. You're asking so much of a small form factor when putting good parts in a build, I would never recommend it and I don't think any genuine enthusiast ever would, certainly not to anyone they liked.

Thirdly, I think this is the configurator you may be looking for below. it contains all the small form factor cases. I don't think the Pop Air was considered a small form factor, but I could be wrong. I recall seeing it on the configurator for regular builds previously. The options were limited but I'm sure it was an ATX offering.

PCSPECIALIST - Mini PCs - Small Form Factor PCs

Shop our Mini PCs and Small Form Factor PCs. Ultra-small form designs and compact Mini PCs available in different sizes to suit you. Configure your Mini PC and Small Form Factor PC today.

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[sck451]

@Teralek is talking about mATX ("micro-ATX") rather than ITX ("mini-ITX"). It's an intermediate form-factor. PCS offers mATX motherboards (e.g. the Gigabyte DS3H), but only in ATX cases. I presume this is because the market for them is relatively small, and the margins aren't amazing either. (I did once hear that mATX products have the lowest profit margin, but I don't know how true that is.) And from your perspective, mATX is restrictive to a certain extent; a smaller case will come with compromises around cooling and potentially compatibility.

There's an extent to which PCS is only going to offer a certain number of configuration options: they can't offer everything that a PC user might want. And mATX is really a market that has fallen away in the gaming space in recent years...

It's conceivable that you could order a case like the Fractal Pop Mini Air with "send in your own case" and choose all compatible products on the configuration tool, but I would be very, very cautious about presuming it would work. I think it should as the case accepts a 365mm graphics card, which is quite impressive, so it probably will, but I wouldn't like to bet money on it.

 

[Teralek]

Yes I am talking about micro ATX. As I said, I agree that mini ITX is not a good format, is too claustrophobic inside for a gaming PC.
I also agree that PC specialist doesn't have to accommodate my requests. There's no lack of competition in this country! But this forum is about Case requests! So I did my request...
Surely I am not the only one buying mATX cases. In my case is not a question of a whim but rather space constrains. A mini ATX case would fit perfectly whereas a mid tower would not... Maximum case height is 40cm. regarding airflow and problems in my opinion there isn't much difference between a good mATX case and a ATX

 

[sck451]

Yes I am talking about micro ATX. As I said, I agree that mini ITX is not a good format, is too claustrophobic inside for a gaming PC.
I also agree that PC specialist doesn't have to accommodate my requests. There's no lack of competition in this country! But this forum is about Case requests! So I did my request...
Surely I am not the only one buying mATX cases. In my case is not a question of a whim but rather space constrains. A mini ATX case would fit perfectly whereas a mid tower would not... regarding airflow and problems in my opinion there isn't much difference between a good mATX case and a ATX

Oh, absolutely. Though in volume there's very little difference between a small ATX case (like the Corsair 220T) and a largeish mATX case like the Fractal Pop Mini series. I actually agree that the Fractal is a better case in terms of being able to accommodate larger graphics cards because it's shorter but deeper. But the answer to your "why don't PS stock them?" question is "it's probably too complicated and not worth it". But for gaming systems, mATX is relatively uncommon these days: ITX is seen as the "cool" option, whereas ATX is seen as most effective for cooling/fitting the increasingly large components in the case.

I will 100% agree with you though on the Fractal mATX case: it's great and I've used it myself.

 

[Scott]

Apologies, I was getting my form factors mixed up. I guess I was also remembering the Pop Air, rather than the Pop mini Air. I recall it being offered but I don't think it lasted long. It made me think that there were issues with it. It may be stock issues though, as it did seem to review well.

I genuinely wouldn't touch any mini case at all for any sort of gaming build. Even my little lowly mediacenter really struggled at times.

I really like the look of them, and the idea of them in general, but they just don't work for higher end components.