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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.
We wouldn't read Slashdot.
None are QUIET! All are noisy! That is a biased site.
:"Chimney column effect"
That site promotes multiple noisy fans in every case!
Hilarious! While apple products strive to make a noiseless machine lacking any fans (except if temperatures spike too high) Apple 2, Mac plus, Mac Cube, iMac, apple laptops, etc, the pc world not only likes noise they design their cases to lack the
They also have sites like the one in this article link written by people who like noisy load boxes!
hilarious!
Try to find any hardware tweakers site that even thought of a quiet box or REDCUCING the fan noise. You won't.
Thats because "They dont' get it".
Even Steve Jobs loudest computer, the 12 thousand dollar NeXT cube had a 10 foot set of cables so that you could place it in a closet and never need to go near it or listen to its fans. We had ours decked out to 42 thousnad dollars of components and addons but were too proud to hid it so we put it on the other side of the room. It was silent compared to the persitent drone promoted by sites such as this article.
They think a few firewire ports up front or aluminum boxes are "cool". Sheesh...
The only scientific basis I can think of to support that idea is that the main transformer is larger and has more headroom, ie. it doesn't have to deliver as close to its capacity as the lighter one. That could translate into longer life and higher reliability in general.
More likely, in my opinion, the rule of thumb might work because the heavier power supply is just more likely to have been built better; better transformer, better chassis, larger capacitors, etc.
I have yet to find another case as easy to open, get at all the components and make whatever mods are required and flip closed than the Apple tower cases.
Man I hate opening up my PC case to get at stuff. The Mac case just flips open and everything's exposed. There's no reason for it either. I'm sure PC makers could offer the same convenience. Why do we secure our drives on BOTH sides of the unit? An L shaped snap-in plate that hangs on to ONE side would be just as effective.
And the handles molded into the unit make moving it around securely, specially when lifting it up on a higher shelf, a real breeze. Ever dropped a PC? Ever come close and only scraped a couple of knuckles?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Quote from the article at Tom's Hardware: "As with almost everything else in the world today, it is obvious that quality costs money, but over the long haul, if you can continue to recycle your case every time that you build a new system you will not only help the environment, but have a case that is more like an old familiar friend that you have come to count on."
Not only is this poor writing (because of the pontificating about quality), but it's wrong. You should keep your old computer. It probably represents many hours of tweaking. You may need it if you have problems with your new computer. Quite possibly you will need a new power supply because of new power requirements, as with the Pentium IV. Probably you are upgrading almost all your components, so you will only pay a little extra to keep your old computer.
Here is another quote from the article: "If cost were the overriding factor, we would most likely purchase the Antec 1080, but would have rather purchased the Direction 201S, which is what we ultimately would have rather purchased to begin with."
A lot of writing on Tom's Hardware is just filler. It is an attempt to take up as many pages as possible, so you will see as many ads as possible. Someone should write a Perl script to process Tom's pages into something sensible.
We need comparisons of features. It is enormously laborious to do the comparisons ourselves. So, we accept the poor quality of Tom's Hardware.
I've considered cases from 40 manufacturers, and I've never seen a good case. All cases I've seen have a problem with fit. Antec cases don't have fan filters, so in a few months your components are covered with heat insulating dust. The Antec drive mounting system is poor. Their replacement power supplies are expensive, and some of them don't have switches on the power supply to turn off the power in case nothing else is responding. (This is a hassle when you are putting a new computer together, and you have a component installation problem.)
Another manufacturer I considered has a good fan filter, but their power supplies go bad after about two years.