S

electing the perfect computer case

is like scouting the grocery store for

a bottle of wine. And as oenophiles

of all knowledge levels and palates know,

you can’t judge a bottle by its price. In that

sense, we’re scooping from the bargain bin

in this month’s mega-roundup of computer

cases: Only chassis priced at $100 or less

are eligible.

But don’t get the wrong idea. Just

because a case is cheap doesn’t mean it’s

poor. Although these budget boxes may

lack many of the bells and whistles of

their costlier counterparts—such as built-

in water cooling, hydraulic panels,

r crazy paint jobs—they can still provide

an awesome fit for your computer parts.

In fact, you’ll find you have a far wider

selection of models to choose from, with

more vendors making economy enclosures

than $500 monstrosities.

Of course, you’ll also likely fi nd that a

case’s relative pros and cons become more

extreme at this price level. For example, a

manufacturer may opt to release an aes-

thetically beautiful case... that doesn’t fi t a

high-end graphics card. Another may off er an

ingenious way to mount hard drives, only to

forgo any room for fans.

For this very reason, we mount a full sys-

tem in each case we review. The components

are identical to those we use in our standard

benchmarking systems and represent what

an enthusiast user would be working with in

a typical system install. Given the smaller size

of sub-$100 cases, it’s critical you verify there’s

suffi cient space for your components. There’s

just no compromising on that point.

But we’re taking it one step further: You

shouldn’t compromise on anything short of a

maximum case. And as you’re going to see, it’s

not always the big-name vendors that deliver.

Of course, you’ll also likely fi nd that a

case’s relative pros and cons become more

extreme at this price level. For example, a

manufacturer may opt to release an aes-

thetically beautiful case... that doesn’t fi t a

high-end graphics card. Another may off er an high-end graphics card. Another may off er an

ingenious way to mount hard drives, only to

For this very reason, we mount a full sys-

tem in each case we review. The components

are identical to those we use in our standard

benchmarking systems and represent what

an enthusiast user would be working with in

a typical system install. Given the smaller size

of sub-$100 cases, it’s critical you verify there’s

suffi cient space for your components. There’s

just no compromising on that point.

But we’re taking it one step further: You

shouldn’t compromise on anything short of a

case. And as you’re going to see, it’s

not always the big-name vendors that deliver.

econo

- closures

reach

new heights

http://www.maximumpc.com | JUL 08 | MAXIMUMPC | 53