My Thoughts on Case Selection
Case Selection:
Many people make their case selection based on appearance or cheap price. These are the last reasons to be considered when selecting a case.Their are two critical factors that should effect case selection.
The first of these is Air Flow.Over clockers and Toms Hardware both have had excellent articles discussing the heat generated in a computer case.Many people don't realize the temp on top of the cpu roughly approaches that of a rocket engine.Other sources of heat include the hard drive bay,the vid card,the power supply,MB as well as all the other components.When computers were slow they could operate without cpu heatsinks and fans.They cannot do that now.A modern cpu will fry in less than a second without approate heatsink and fan(unless their is a failsafe built into the chip or mb or unless you use water or extreme cooling).Good cases have airflow thru the hard drive bay and across the vid chip as well as onto the mb and across the cpu slot and thru the power supply.Fresh air from outside the case has to cool the heat generated by all the components.The Goal you should aim for is to have the inside case temp the same or as close as possible to the room temp.A Good case attempts this(and comes close).
The second factor to consider is to have enough room inside the case.This includes room for all the components you have now as well as all the components you will add in the future but it also includes enough room that allows you to run all the wiring in a manner that will still allow good air flow with all components installed and the wiring in place.There are other factors that many overlook when purchasing a case.Most people make sure the HD drive bay has enough room for all the hard drives but only the astute buyer insures there is room in the HD bay for all the hard drives and plenty of room to blow air thru the bay to cool the drives.
If you examine most of the better computer builders (not extreme cooling or water)they will have a total close to 10 fans (total) in their cases.(example;2- front fans.side fan,top fan,2-rear fans,cpu fan,vid card fan,Northbridge fan,1 or 2-power supply fans).This is done because you have to move a lot of air to keep a top preforming computer working well.They also often have larger cases to insure that the air flow is not hampered.Cost was not discussed because we discussed the performance factors that are critical to case selection.
Edit: I posted this on an earlier post but I still think it is the way to go.
I will also be used as a tv in my room, and for xbox360. Keep the replies coming. I would like to hear from all of you!
