Whats the best case on the market?

[DocEvi1]

Hi, at the moment I am using a case which is pretty poor. It is a mid-tower and has 4 5.5" bays, only two can be used due to the layout inside - the mboard juts to far into the side hence the drives won't slide all the way back :mad:. I have decided to get a new case however need some advice.

I need a mid tower - with 4 5.5, 1 floppy and 2 HDD. I would like an AMD approved PSU and good ventilation inside to cool the case down - my 1.4 Tbird runs at 46C idle, about 52 load.

I don't want to be spending a fortune here - the unit has already cost £1400 and I don't want a £200 case! What is the best budget case available in the UK?

Cheers,
Stefan

[Bovon]

Altho it may not be considered the best..(depends on what some individual considers the best.)

I like the Antec SOHO SX 1030.

I know it is available in the UK, but I sure don't know where. It is about $100 bucks US, and I don't know how that relates to your currency. The case is very well constructed, heavy duty, wider and deeper than average, a little taller than most mid towers. two front and rear fan positions, comes with a 300 watt Antec (AMD approved) psu. It has removable slides for all drives, and can install 4 hard drives if wanted. The hard drive bays are removable so only one bay can be used if wanted. each bay houses 2 drives. One of the front intake fans is attached to the top hard drive bay, which sucks in ambient air and blows this over the hard drives on its way into the case.

Here, you can see a pic of the series:

http://www.antec-inc.com/product/cases/sohoser.html

There was a post here at SysOpt a couple of months ago where some guy in England I think wanted one, and located it in the UK somewhere. I did a search for that post but didn't locate it.

In my opinion, you can pay more...like for instance, an all aluminum case, but I doubt the quality is any better.

[DocEvi1]

Hi.
I looked at the antec case but it won't fit under my desk :D.
I should really have done a search for "case" it comes with a suitable number of past threads :rolleyes:.
I was looking at this case:
http://www.addtronics.com/6896a.htm what do you think? It has what I like however the price is much more than I wanted to spend - I was hoping to spend a tenner more and get a PSU....the PSU I was looking at was a quiet 300Watt however I am now looking into a higher quality 400Watt item to power my 1.4Tbird, DVD, CDR, CD and two HD in Raid0.

What do you think?

Many thanks,

Stefan

[Bovon]

Well..I really like the case. It has about all of the features the Antec has, plus some that I wish the Antec had. The layout looks very good and clean. I don't think you would go wrong with this one.

I didn't see a make or model for the power supply, I think I would look closely at that. A good power supply is the heart of the system, and all 300 (or 400) watt supplies are not the same. Some are rather cheaply constructed with less than the best components. You can get hum and other types of noise from a badly filtered supply that will give you fits with your computer, and it is very hard to diagnose where the problem is.