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Choosing a Good Case
Sir Joltalot writes "There's a great
guide at Tom's Hardware about choosing a good
case. They also look at a few very interesting and
slick cases you can get and discuss recent trends
in modding. A good read if you're new to building
computers or thinking about modding a case for
the first time." I've been planning to build a new machine
for a few months now, so this is timely for me.
Would have to be the Chieftec Dragon. It Looks amazing and comes in all sorts of silly colours (Mine Is bright green). Although it's not beyond the capability of anyone here to spray a case. They have Loadsa places to stick fans with little and even throw in a side panel fan (although it sounds like a lawnmower).
I'm a big fan of the Addtronics case line. If I can sit on my tower and it doesn't even slightly buckle, I'll trust my hundreds of dollars hardware in there. Plus they have the most convenient drive rail system I've ever seen. Plus they're decently priced. *shrug* Just my opinion...
Australian Overclockers have great ideas for cases. Some of them innovative.
60623
siliconghetto
Scroll down to the "PC Cases" section of this Silent PC resources page for some good ideas about choosing a case when its noise qualities are a factor.
One case the combines a lot of his "required features" is the PC-60 by Lian Li. ( http://www.lian-li.com )
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This is by far the best case I have purchased and one of the lightest as well (http://www.lian-li.com/product.php?action=viewPD
Tom's site is okay, but some of their reviews / guides seem as if they were hurried as they don't have many example items, this case review is one of them.
Anand has a handy index of all of his case reviews, ( http://www.anandtech.com/searchresults.html?topic
Finally Dan's Data did a good write up on these cases http://www.dansdata.com/llmisc.htm
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A couple of links:
Codegen ATX-9001 server case (rather inexpensive for what you get)
Lian Li PC-6 and PC-5 (fairly cheap Lian Lis - whoever woulda thunk it? This review links to various other Lian Li reviews of mine)
Here ya go... From Directron's website:
Why Weight Matters?
The more appropriate question is why size matters.
The weight of a power supply is directly related to the quantity, quality, and size of the material (thus cost) used to build the power supply. We opened a light and a heavy 300W-labeled power supplies. The heavy one has larger capacitors, thicker wires, larger transformer, larger heat sinks, more connectors, and more capacitors than the light one, all of which are important factors for the overall cost and quality of a power supply. The difference is illustrated below:
Lots of pics and interesting info. Go look if you're interested.
I've had an Antec case similar to the one reviewed in Tom's Hardware Guide for about a year. Yes, it is pretty well-engineered, rugged, quiet and ergonomic.
There is a serious problem, however. The fans seem to pull dust in through the 5" drive bays. Whenever I open my white CD burner tray, it's coated with dust. If you put your hand right in front of the drive bays, you can feel the air getting sucked right through the drives. Air flow past a hard drive is one thing, but a CD burner is un-sealed, motorized, and requires a clean laser to work properly... I would never think of mounting an internal tape drive in this case for fear of dust issues.
It strikes me as a major flaw in this case, and one I have not experienced with any other case.
arstechnica has lots of reviews on cases. I've killed 5 power supplies in the last 5 years, so if anything get a good power supply. The other stuff you can skimp on. After all, isn't the power supply the most important part of a case?
There are companies doing this already. below are a few examples This one is Mac-ish looking and these could pass for stereo components. One Two Three
brightloudnoise.com