Jonathan,

In building a DAW from scratch or from a barebones kit, the mobo is probably the most important decision.

The small form factor barebones limit your mobo choice because of the form factor. Not the EOTW, but a very important consideration. Another concern is the shortness on PCI slots. And heat dissipation.

mitz

My Aardvark Q10 uses a standard size PCI card for the interface. If the board will support it, I can install (4) Aardvark Q10 using (4) PCI slots. This gives me 32 mic channels.

The micro ATX have a limited number of PCI slots available. Make sure the board you choose has enough flexibility to support the current hardware and any realistic future expansion.

I'm building a 19" rack to house my Q10 (19 inches wide), and also my DAW chassis. As long as it fits inside this rack, I don't care about the form factor being small.