Weekend Open Forum: How much did your case cost?

Matthew DeCarlo

Posts: 5,271   +104

Although some enthusiasts are willing to splurge on extravagant computer cases, many shun the notion of spending $200+ on a glorified metal box. That's understandable with when you compare the features of products such as Cooler Master's $60 HAF 912 and $200 HAF X. Both offer the same core functionality: a home for your components.

Expensive cases typically have superior cable management, stock cooling and accessibility, but budget chassis owners aren't missing out on much. Cables can be hidden with some imagination and zip ties, fans can be upgraded if necessary, and unless you swap hardware frequently, fancy tool-less mechanisms won't be saving you much time.

The difference between a $60 and $200 chassis often amounts to some extra space, aesthetics such as interior paint, and a simplified installation process. Our question is: are those features worth a price premium to you? How much did you pay for your current case? To get us rolling, I'm using the dated Thermaltake Tai-Chi and Julio has the HAF 932.

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CoolerMaster HAF-X. Awesome case - recommend it for any user, especially if you're going to do SLI and/or multiple drives.

I have to disagree with the "fancy tool-less mechanisms won't be saving you much time." No, it won't save you hours, but putting in four screws into each side of a hard drive the old way, compared to a 5 second snap in place - that's a time saver. Especially for multiple drive configurations. Just sayin. ;)
 
Yep, you'll save a few minutes for sure -- but is that worth a premium? That's the question :).

I think the HAF 912 in specific has tool-less drive mounts anyway.
 
Cooler Master Centurion 5.
No huge complaints, but for my next machine, I am gonna spend a bit more (mostly for a computer with a working security lock -- d'oh!)
 
Mountainmods ascension with three windows.

440.00 usd and a silverstone tj07 powder black 350.00 usd

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
 
My main rig case is a Thermaltake Eclipse (mid-tower). Great case except the on/off switch is the absolutely worse ever designed. Very poor housing in that it is thin and thus fragile. Broke a long time ago.

Our family PC's case is an old 2002 Thermaltake Xaser II full tower that I swear is made from WW II Sherman tank plating. It is heavy! I was able to get brand new out of the box from Thermaltake's direct/discontinued products all for $60.00 and that included shipping.

My newest case is a mid-tower Cooler Master HAF-922 that is very close to having as much room as a full tower that I got for around $85 with with free shipping from NewEgg. It will be for my new build.
 
My Koolance PC4-1036BK Liquid Cooled Aluminum Full Tower Case - Black cost $619.99 + Shipping $65.35 = $685.34

http://www.koolance.com/product_archive/product_info.php?product_id=275

I've done some other upgrades to it as well such as

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7...sureRiser_-_Black.html?id=cX29Pfwd&mv_pc=1175

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7...Black_No_Fittings.html?id=cX29Pfwd&mv_pc=1174

Now it can handle 1320watts of total heat and since I have 2 EVGA GeForce GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper 2's for SLI and getting the new Sandy Bridge when the Maximus IV becomes available it will be nice to have some over head for the heat being out by those components.
 
I technically got the HAF-X on sale from Newegg for $180, but I would have dropped the extra $20 on it anyways. The bells and whistles like front-panel USB 3.0 are nice and all (well....once stuff starts actually using 3.0), but to me most of the value comes from all the extra space it has to offer.

I wasn't installing a particularly large amount of hardware, but even so when it was all said and done that extra room definitely paid off. Trying to cram all that into a smaller case would have been an interesting endeavor, not to mention limiting my possibilities for future expansion. I can't imagine trying to fit a second Radeon 6870 in anything smaller. Now, whether I just did a terrible job at planning all my wire-management....well, that's another story.
 
Corsair 800D -$NZ500. Likely going up for sale once Silverstone's TJ11 becomes available.
Second system chassis is an Armor+ (modded)
Also have a selection of cases sitting around the place waiting for sale/modding (Lian Li V1100,Tt Xaser III and a Chieftec server chassis,
 
The first case that i bought for myself is an Apevia Xplorer with a clear side and costed me 100$.
My second case is a ThermaleTake Element T (vk9000series).
I'm currently only running on my ThermalTake case because i'm repainting my Apevia case and modifying it for better air-flow. The color scheme will be flat-black on the frame and gunmetal paint on the outer panels (side panels and top panel). I decided to let a good friend of mine, airbrush on it when the painting is done. When all is done it will house a knew Gigabyte ma785g-ud3h motherboard, athlon II
X2 or X4, Gskill 4GB mem and after sometime a knew NVidia GTX560Ti or GTX460
 
Antec p183. $180 AUD eighteen months ago

Still going strong with a 1055t @ 4Ghz and crossfired 5850's but man those stock fans are noisy on high.

Can Anyone recommend a quiet, efficient 120mm fan?
 
10 years ago i bought a LIan Li PC6070 for $210.

I still use the same case and its in almost in perfect condition.
 
Ive used the majorty of cases out there and no case comes close to the cool-masters Cosmos S
 
I've got the thermaltake V9 Black Edition... I went for it because of the huge 23mm window fan, which I'm not currently using... see, I also got a tower cooler for the CPU which interfere with the fan, so I had to remove the fan... anyway, if there is something Ive learned with this case is, no more side fan, too much dust get inside... so next time I'll get a cable management case with cristal clear side window without any fan, and a good liquid cooling system... pretty expensive but i think will be worth it.
 
I'm using a £45 NZXT Beta.

When I upgrade though, I'm going to get the Silverstone Raven RV02-E that we recently reviewed on here.

I haven't found anywhere in the UK that does this case yet, but since the same is true of the FSP Group Boosters that I need two of, I'm going to order them from the US and get them all shipped together (should fit in the case nicely!).
 
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