Slashdot Mirror
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...
What I really need is a case big enough to fit Tom inside it so that he can continually keep my machine up-to-date without my needing to waste so much time reading all these hardware websites.
At the very least, he'd probably be quieter than my fan.
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.
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...
One case the combines a lot of his "required features" is the PC-60 by Lian Li. ( http://www.lian-li.com )
& prdid=367 )
= 201&action=listarticles )
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)
I placed an order for this Doggie Case from Nikao a few days ago. $45 and $10 to ship via Pricewatch.
Now, a bunch of you are probably going to ask me why or call me a fag or say that I don't understand the meaning of case modding. What I'd really like to know is why there aren't more humorous/non-manly styled cases. There are plenty of girls out there as well as guys who just appreciate asian culture and random cute things. I think after I get this case I'll get a review up. -Steve PS: And no, I'm not talking about the damn Barbie computers. Remember those?
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.
Point being, if there is a problem, then the owner has a place they can drive to, which is important. This qualifies as the equivalent of a ford or chevy solution (vs a yugo solution)
PC Power and Cooling has attracted advocates with a religious level dedication, especially the quality of their power supplies.
They also have this chart on what various components draw is very useful for figuring out how much power you need. Worth a bookmark in itself.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
One thing this article seems not to mention (unless I missed it) is that you want a power supply with an intake fan on the bottom, not the front. This does a lot to draw heat away from the processor. I actually had an Athlon-based system that was locking up regularly until I switched to a new case and power supply.
The Antek KS388 is cheap, easy to work with, and comes with the "right kind" of power supply. It's the best case I've ever worked with (though to be fair, I've never bought a top-of-the-line case.)
Why is this these computer cases are all looking more-or-less the same ?
are these "case designers" that narrow-minded as to think i actually want a case like what they offer ?
It seems that attention to asthetics has not been ignored by some rack server manufacturers, making some cool looking 19" rack stuff (usually hidden from view) but they seem to think the regular consumer wants an ugly oblong box in a _____ colour that makes a lot of noise under my desk !
I would love a case that looks like a piece of hi-fi, something i could place in my component stack (as a media/coms device) and it wouldnt look out of place,my dvd,amp,cd,video,console etc are not in big ugly boxes so why should my computer be any different ?
At least Apple are trying to think "outside the box" and redefine how we see computers visually
now why cant the pc-case manufacturers take a leaf out of their book and try and innovate case design instaed of churning out the same visual styles for 15 years
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.