Treasures or Trash, 5 PC Cases for Gamers 369
An anonymous reader writes "Tom's Hardware has a look at 5 different customized PC cases and a few peripheral devices that may be of some interest to gamers. From the article: 'Those who believe it is impossible to make any missteps when buying a gaming case are sadly mistaken. In most cases, you get too much plastic for your hard-earned money. Case components, covers and door panels break off far too easily, and are hard to use besides. That's why we advise savvy buyers to spend a few more dollars on their cases, and make sure they're getting quality components - especially where plastic covers or door panels are present.'"
Well if I were to recommend a case (Score:5, Informative)
Of course it also looks stellar. It's extremely sleek and clean the whole way around. It's the kinds of subdued good looks that make you want to leave it alone, rather than put stickers on it and rice it out.
These cases I'd liken to a riced out Civic. You are going for flash to try and distract and wow people. The P180 is more like an Audi sedan, it looks so good it needs no modification.
Either way if you are willing to spend the cash on cases like this (the $100+ market) give these overly flashy jobs a miss and have a look at a P180. It will look good in just about any room and they really put some thought in the engineering of it. It's the first case I've seen that really seemed to think someone might want to have a system that's quiet AND high performance, but not want to screw with water cooling.
Why get a Civic with a spoiler and fart pipe if you could get an S4 without for the same price?
Re:Does a case matter (Score:5, Informative)
It's all about the cooling - get the right fan placement and air flow in the right place and that's what matters. When you're running an AMD processor faster than a 4200 with an Nvidia 7800 SLI rig, it will matter that you have the right case to get it cool.
ugly!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
I hate to be the token apple fanboy, but these cases are amazingly ugly. all of them are significantly uglier than anything apple's produced, dating all the way back to the blue and white G3s.
that's not to say that OEM PC cases have to be ugly. IBM's produced some slick-looking cases, and so has Dell (for their small-form factor business stuff at least).
Lian-li's cases are also reasonably attractive [lian-li.com], even if they somewhat appear to be knockoffs of the G5.
Industrial design seems to be an art lost to many theese days, which is a real shame... the G5's case was beautiful, functional, and able to cool several ridiculously hot G5 processors silently.
No point in posting the full text (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Same reason people rice out cars (Score:1, Informative)
This Calls For... (Score:5, Informative)
An article like this calls for Anti-Pagination [mozilla.org]!
Re:why I love Tom's Hardware (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ugly!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immagine:PowermacG5_
http://www.starcoder.com/blog/static_links/g5_ope
And even the iMac Rainbow of the late 90's, which were colorful to a fault were admirably well thought out in terms of being functional. Sure, upgrading the internals was a royal pain, especially on the earliest models - but those cases were never designed to be opened by their owners; but they were quite functional. The only fault I'd give to modern mac cases is the lack of highly accessible usb ports -- for using with flash drives, cameras, and other similar devices.
The older generation at least had usb ports on the keyboard, but that's gone away with bluetooth/wireless. (And even then those ports weren't generally as well powered.)
Of course this is easily fixed with a usb hub and ipod dock combo device...
-cheers,
Re:Well if I were to recommend a case (Score:3, Informative)
The only thing worth mentioning is that it's quite a deep case, so much so that it doesn't fit on the ledge in my PC desk and has to sit on the floor beside it. All in all a great case though, well worth the money.
Re:Well if I were to recommend a case (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This Calls For... (Score:2, Informative)
It does take quite a while to download all 29 pages though. Definitely far longer than it should. I'm still waiting for it to finish loading, but I can see it's been downloading stuff, unlike the first one.
Re:Does a case matter (Score:5, Informative)
The fans these cases use are absurdly small (so they can be really cheap to make) and using many fans creates added noise due to the beat frequency between them.
The correct way to go about this is to get a cheap steel case, like this for $20.75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16811156011 [newegg.com]
Then get a fan like this for $9.95
http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?UID=20060529 19261386&item=16-1331&catname=electric [surpluscenter.com]
Now to slow the fan down, to make it quiet, wire a motor run capacitor in series with the fan. Use a cap like this ($1.99) :
http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?UID=20060529 19273017&item=22-1186&catname=electric [surpluscenter.com]
If you use a smaller value cap, the fan will run slower. If you use a larger value cap, the fan will run faster. The fan speed changes a lot for small changes in the cap value.
Now cut a blowhole in the top of the case, bolt the fan on top blowing into the case, and get rid of all other case fans. Leave the faceplates off on both sides of the video card so lots of air rushes out that way.
Stick a fork in it. It's done.
Re:Too many pages... (Score:2, Informative)
Sheesh has everyone forgotten newsgroups? Thats what they are there for.
Re:Does a case matter (Score:4, Informative)
Your suggestion about leaving the doors off is only good for people without pets or young children. Furthermore, if the power supply is blocking the fan-propelled air from directly reaching the CPU heatsink, its possible the CPU will actually operate at a higher temperature than if the doors were on and quiet fans placed in the pre-punched case mounts.
Re:Tom's Hardware and too many pages (Score:1, Informative)
Printer. Friendly. View.
Re:Too many pages... (Score:5, Informative)
What I look for in a case (Score:3, Informative)
Here are the things I always look for when I buy a case:
Is the case a Full Tower?
I have fairly small hands, and even I find that it's really painful trying to get into a mid-tower, let alone a mini tower. Especially with Video Cards getting bigger, people more likely having multiple hard drives/optical drives, etc. I think a full tower is the only way to go. It helps with airflow, it helps getting everything into the case in the first place, and it makes it easier to get inside and work on the machine later.
Good Side Pannels
Some people don't like them, but good cases with good sidepannels make working on machines much easier. My case, for example, has a latch that locks into place when you snap the sidepannel on. It's sturdy enough that even when transporting the computer to lan parties or similar, I've never had a problem with it comming loose. When I want to get into the case, just pulling on the door latch and sliding it out and I'm into the case. The only problem I've ever had is that it's a slight pain trying to get the side pannel to line back up to snap back into place. I'd much rather mess with that than screws though.
Removable Drive Holder..thingy
I'm not sure what you'd call these, but my case - and a few others that I've worked on, has a little thing that slides in and out of the case from the front where the optical drives and hard drives go. The nice thing about this is that it makes it easier to actually get these things stablilzed well. I don't know how many computers I've worked in where the hard drive was held in by a single screw, because it was too hard to get any of the other screws in because of the case design.
Those are the big things I look at when getting a case. I'm particularly fond of the Antec cases, which aren't necessarily the most stylish looking cases, but in my experience are well built and have the right features.
[OT] Why Toms Hardware isn't so good anymore... (Score:3, Informative)
Editor In Chief and CEO of Tom's Hardware Both Step Down [dailytech.com]
IMO, tomshardware.com "jumped the shark" several years prior to this (2001?). Seemed like Tom stopped writing articles to focus on starting a corporate empire. Once all of the so called "editors" started putting their hands in the pie, the quality suffered quite a bit. Now it seems like everything on the site is targeted at the clueless newbie and paginated to maximize advertising revenue.
Which full size ATX case best for me (disabled)? (Score:3, Informative)
I have problems moving computers (even minitowers), and opening and closing cases, using screwdrivers (even electronic ones), removing case covers (sliding types still fail for me). Are there any out there work for me so I don't have to get someone to do it for me?
Second, heat!! I have problems keeping my computers stable for every upgrades. My room can go aboev 85 degrees(F) in the heat wave. A/C won't do well since my room is upstair so all heat rises. I don't even overlock.
Here's a sampler of my Web surfing temperatures:
-Athlon 64 754 CPU (3200+) Windows XP Pro. SP2 box: 113F
-ASUS K8V SE Deluxe (1007 firmware): 132F
Note: Have seen CPU go up to 150F during stress like gaming in 85+F room (don't remember the peak temperatures for motherboard).
Idled system in my Linux/Debian box:
-MSI KT4AV-L (Socket A/Socket 462; VIA KT400A) motherboard: 151F
-Athlon XP 2200+: 122F
You can see my system specifications here: http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/comput
No, I am not getting water cooling. Too much work, and my disabilities will not work with that setup.
I am planning to do redo my hardwarwe setups when I get my Athlon 64 x2 in autumn (much hotter than now).
I don't care about the look of the case as long as it is not pink color.
Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.
Re:Does a case matter (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the PSUs RaidMax useds seem to be pretty good -- haven't had any fail. And the included fans are quiet.
Plus the sides go on/off easily.
My only gripe has been that the 3.5" drive bays have this little extra piece in the mount that interferes with the fan doodad that I like to attach to the bottom of hot-running HDs. Tho I suppose I could just mount it in the next drive bay down; there are 6 such bays, so usually some surplus space.
Re:Does a case matter (Score:3, Informative)
A 12 volt squirrl cage blower can draw 20 amps. Thats a lot to pull from a PC supply.
P.S. Your mom called and said to tell you to wash your mouth out with soap.