Cases For Cost-Conscious Builders

Although they often don't get as much love as they deserve, cases are critical components in any new system build. That's why we've made an effort to not only write up in-depth build-oriented reviews of enclosures, but also photograph them from every possible angle. If you haven't already read In Pictures: Five Mainstream Gaming Cases, Previewed, check that piece out before this one.

When we build our $1000 PCs for the System Builder Marathon, cases in the $80-120 price range dominate the reader-favorite list. When we recently polled the audience on what they'd most like to see in an upcoming round-up, we even had a few folks let us know that they wanted a comparison of everything in that range. Though the constant flow of new hardware makes it impossible to go into that much depth, we promised we'd do what we could.

Given so many potential candidates, we decided to do a series of round-ups with five or six models per story. We then invited more than two dozen companies to send up to three of their most competitive cases, giving them just three unobtrusive requirements:

The cases had to be priced between $80 and $120. The cases had to hold full ATX components. The cases had to provide an internal front-panel USB 3.0 connector.

That third requirement was a big problem for many manufacturers. But it was important to us because Tom's Hardware is the site that begged, pleaded, and eventually coerced motherboard companies to agree on an internal header standard, even as the forum that controls those standards dragged its feet.

Case companies have been so slow to embrace this standard that our requirement dropped a field of over 50 products to a collection of only 15. Fifteen products is an easy number to manage, dividing cleanly into a three-part series. We recently published In Pictures: Five Mainstream Gaming Cases, Previewed to show you some of the features found on our first five contenders, and today's review concludes part one of the series.

Corsair 300R In Win Mana 136 MSI Stealth NZXT Phantom 410 Xigmatek Midgard II Dimensions Height 18.7" 17.0" 18.6" 20.5" 18.4" Width 8.3" 7.5" 8.1" 8.7" 8.1" Depth 19.4" 19.4" 19.5" 21.4" 19.6" Space Above Motherboard 1.4" 0.5" 1.3" 1.25"**** 0.2" Card Length 11.8" to 16.3"** 11.5" 11.5" to 16.4"*** 10.8", 11.8"^, 16.8"^^ 11.9" to 16.7"^^ Weight 14.1 Pounds 12.0 Pounds 14.8 Pounds 20.8 Pounds 16.1 Pounds Cooling Front Fans (alternatives) 1 x 140 mm (2 x 140/120 mm) 1 x 120 mm (2 x 120 mm) 1 x 120 mm (1 x 140/160/180 mm) 1 x 120mm (1 x 140 mm, 2 x 120 mm) 1 x 120 mm (2 x 120 mm) Rear Fans (alternatives) 1 x 140 mm (None) 1 x 120 mm (1 x 92 mm) 1 x 120 mm (1 x 92 mm) 1 x 120 mm (None) 1 x 120 mm (1 x 92 mm) Top Fans (alternatives) None (2 x 140/120 mm) None (2 x 120 mm) None (2 x 120 mm, 1 x 140/160/180 mm) 1 x 140 mm (2 x 140/120 mm) None (2 x 140/120 mm) Left Side (alternatives) None (2 x 140/120 mm) None (2 x 120 mm) None (2 x 140/120 mm) None (1 x 140/120 mm) None (2 x 140/120 mm) Right Side (alternatives) None None None None None Drive Bays 5.25" External Three Three Four Three Three 3.5" External None None None None None 3.5" Internal Four Six Four Six Six 2.5" Internal Four* Two Four* Six* Six* Card Slots Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven Price $80 $80 $100 $100 $85 *Shared on 3.5" tray **Slots 1-5 ***Slots 2-4 ****w/o Top Fan ^w/o fan bracket ^^w/o Center Cage

Three of today’s cases weigh less than 15 pounds, yet all five cases use a steel structure. In other words, the lightest of today’s cases is going to inherently have less rigidity than we might expect of products priced over $80. We’ll try to reserve most of that critique for our conclusion, though.