Good Quality ATX Case < $45

[astronomer02]

Hello Forum,

I am planning to buy a new motherboard and cpu soon. However, before I get those major components, I need to find a good case with a good quality PSU that will last me for a long while. I have researched and found some great deals on TigerDirect.com. Tell me if the $29.99 ATX Case looks at all good in the link below. If that case is no good, try to recommend a better one please. Thanks!

Click Here

Greg-

[cheapster]

Be careful when ordering cheap cases. I recently tried a really cheap one from compgeeks and significant problems with it. The leads for the LED for the power and hard drive were too short to reach the BIOSTAR motherboard I used to build the system. Also the PCI slots on the motherboard did not line up well at all with the case. I kind of had to jerry rig the modem to get it to work. But I guess for $18.99 with a 250W power supply, you can't expect too much. I guess I haven't really learned my lesson either because I am supposed to receive compgeek's "next cheapest" case on monday complete with 350W power supply. I am hoping it will work better than the cheaper case, even though it was only about $35 delivered. If you are willing to spend a little more, I can vouch for the Enlight midtower cases. I had two of them running Intel systems with 250 W power supplies, and a 3rd case with the 300W power supply running an XP 1700+. They can be found for around $60 or so shipped and are worth it. If the new cheap case is as bad as the other cheap case, I will have to consider another enlight, but I thought I would give it one more try.

[Sterling_Aug]

Like was said before: You get what you pay for.

I would jump up to the $50-$60 range cases if I were you. They are better made and will cause less problems.

[gibsinep]

What I find ideal is to buy a case locally( if you can from like a ma and pa shop) That way you can feel it and see how sturdy it is ect.

Decent ones were I live only run about $20.00 Then buy a powersupply online( good brand) and there you go. You dont have to pay high shipping on the case and know what PS you get.

Just a suggestion.

[astronomer02]

I sorta wanted to get a case with the PSU already in it. I mean...do PSU's differ that much in quality? I was recommended another case a little while ago. Click the link below to check it out. It seems like a pretty good case to me (btw, this TigerDirect.com has a few store locations nearby....so I may not buy online anyhow :P ). Now I know this case is not a 50 or 60 dollar case.....however, the suggested retail price on it is 58......(i'm not sure whether that gives any merit to my argument....lol.)

Click Here

[astronomer02]

Also, just as an aside.....do you all recommend a full tower or a mid-tower.....i mean....running out of room is the last thing i want in my new case! I don't really have any space restrictions, so a full tower could fit where i'd put it.
I was also looking at some mid-towers that have front USB ports and audio plug-ins......are these features generally trusted? I mean....are the USB ports el-cheapo because they come along with the case? Is it better to buy a good case or a good case with gadgets?

thanx,
greg-

[gibsinep]

I mean...do PSU's differ that much in quality?

Yep, you can get a Powersupply that could blow up( really) the first time you turn it on starting a fire. Or one that performes good, without problems.

It depends do you want a lot of room to work in and haver a lot of room in your case. Or normal work room, and normal space. I normally only use mid-towers.

[astronomer02]

Well, I don't think i'll need excessive room inside of the case. I have a CD RW Samung 16x10x32 drive, a 13.6 gig Maxtor hard drive, a 3.5 floppy drive, 50x CD-ROM drive, and I don't think I'll be adding much more...unless i buy a dvd-rw or dvd player drive in the future. Will a mid-tower accomodate all of those things? And if i buy a 40-50 dollar case with a psu included.....will the PSU generally be good quality and not burn my house down?!

Also, what are typically good psu and case brands so i don't end up buying a piece of overpriced junk...lol. If i end up choosing a case with front usb and audio plug-in, what price should I expect to pay for a good-quality case with those specs. I don't want to end up spending 40 bucks for a case with front usb and find out that it's the lowest end case...."but with flashy usb abilities".....(i'm sure ya get my drift there ).

thanx again,

greg

[cheapster]

Based on your anticipated useage, a good mid-tower case should work just fine. I run 2 hard drives, a CD-Rom drive, floppy drive and a CD-RW drive in each of my Enlight 7237 cases without any problems. (My Zip drive is USB) I upgraded one of the cases from a 250 Watt generic PS to a 350 Watt Sparkle unit in anticipation of an eventual upgrade to a high performance Athlon XP or Pentium 4. I never had any problems with the old 250 watt unit with either my PIII 600E @ 744 or my Celeron 900@1080, but I just thought bigger and better quality would be well, better! And while full size server cases are nice and roomy they also offer challenges with the cables and such as there may be quite a reach from the ports on the motherboard to the devices you need to connect cables and power to. Obviously, you can spend as much (or as little) as you choose on a case. Some people swear by the $200 aluminum cases and 450 watt power supplies. I figure these are the same people who paid $400 for an Athlon XP 1900 and then shelled out another $400 for the XP 2000 when it came out (just to pick up an extra 60 Mhz in processor speed ) I suggest you review some decent quality cases at local shops and check out the reviews on the web. A lot of people (including me) are very happy with something like the Enlight mid-tower case for between $60 and $80 delivered depending on whether you want a 300 or 340 watt power supply. A lot of people speak highly of the Antec case/power supply as well. Gibsinep makes a good point that a cheap case with generic power supply has three possible outcomes:
1. works like a champ and you wonder why all those suckers out there are wasting money on name brand stuff.
2. Works, but drives you nuts as you try to figure out why your system is constantly crashing and is totally unstable or won't boot at all.
3. Worst case scenario, you power on, smell smoke and kiss your motherboard, CPU, ram and possibly video card and hard drive goodbye.
Are 2 and 3 possible with name brand more expensive components? Yes, but apparently much less likely, given the number of posts on the subject. A good number of people also probably happily experience outcome #1, but sadly there are many reports of people not having that outcome. If I am building a cheap system that won't be stressed, I am willing to gamble on a cheap case. But if I am putting together a high performance system for intense apps, I say spend the money now for a decent case/PS.
Wow, I didn't really intend for this to be a dissertation!
Chuck
PS, Based on my bang for the buck approach, I would rank power supplies in the following order: Sparkle, Antec, Enermax, Enlight
YMMV

[astronomer02]

Well thank you very much for that full, well-thought out answer to my numerous questions. I always spend all this time thinking out what my next question is going to sound like.....and then I usually get an answer back that is two lines and answers only half of what I asked..lol! So thank you for all of that information about cases and PSU's!

The cpu i plan to run in the new case will probably be between an AMD Athlon XP 1600 or an 1800....and the motherboard will likely be an ECS K7S5A. What PSU should suit my needs the best? Would a 300 Watt PSU suffice?

thanx ,
Greg

[cheapster]

The cpu i plan to run in the new case will probably be between an AMD Athlon XP 1600 or an 1800....and the motherboard will likely be an ECS K7S5A. What PSU should suit my needs the best? Would a 300 Watt PSU suffice?

I have read a lot of posts of people who have had struggles with that particular motherboard (at least the earlier versions, perhaps later versions are better) and it seems that most of them revolved around inadequate power supplies and/or cheap ram. I don't know what power supply would suit your needs best, but I would strongly suggest at least a 300 Watt unit, preferably one that provides at least 200 watts on the the combined 3.3 and 5 volt rails. Don't be fooled by the total watt rating. A lot of cheao 350 watt branded units only provide180 or less on the 3.3 and 5 volt rails, while the Sparkle 300 is rated at 200 and the one of the Antec 300 Watt units is rated at 220!! If it were me, I would consider the enlight En72500AZ case with 300 watt supply to be minimum. (It is rated at 180 watts for the 3.3 and 5 v rails, and should be good up to at least the XP1800 with 512 mb of ram.) But if you plan to upgrade or attempt to overclock, you may want to go with something more powerful such as the sparkle 350 watt or the Antec 350 watt which provide combined 3.3 and 5 v rail maximums of 220w and 230w respectively.
The more stress you place on your system in turns of drives, peripherals, memory processor speed, fans and video card, the more critical the quality and quantity of power you provide. Keep that in mind. An off brand 300 w PSU like the Allied from newegg may work fine with a single hard drive, an XP1600+ and 256 mb of PC133 ram using its' 160W combined rating. But throw in another hard drive, an XP2000+ and 512 mb of DDR PC2100 ram and a Geforce 4 4600 and your previously rock solid system may spontaneously reboot constantly, or maybe even not boot at all. Or it may just work great. There might be 4 people follow my post with tales of their K7S5a running XP1900+'s with generic 250W PS's with no problems. (and all 4 of them might crash next week, or just continue to run fine it just depends...) But if you do plan to add to or upgrade your system down the road, you may want to go ahead and buy the power supply you will probably need eventually now and save the added expense of the generic that might work and instead just get the one that for sure will work.
Chuck

[astronomer02]

Cheapster,

The only problem is that I really need the ECS K7S5A motherboard because it has both SDRAM and DDR support, whereas most motherboards will not provide that. Granted an Asus model that came out last year with both SDRAM and DDR support would be nice, but it's waaaaay too expensive (aren't all Asus's....lol). The reason I have to get that SDRAM/DDR support mobo is becuz i just bought two sticks of 128 MB SDRAM PC 100 for my system that was constantly crashing about a month and a half ago. And my K6-2 Processor couldn't take DDR at the time. So time was the issue. However, i really think eventually, I'll buy DDR for my computer....and when that day comes.......i don't wanna have to buy a whole new mobo to accomodate that need. So is the ECS K7S5A really as bad as people make it out to be?....I has been recommended by a few people in the SysOpt forum.....that's why I may have seemed overconfident in my proposal to buy it soon...lol.

thanx again

Greg

[cheapster]

Greg, I have no personal experience with the ECS board. But I do know that some people swear by the K7S5A, and a lot of people swear at the K7S5A. The defenders claim that the detractors generally fall into the "cheap components" trap, that if they would use quality components the board would be fine. The detractors say that even with good components, the boards are still flakey. The question is, as Dirty Harry says: "Do You Feel Lucky?" How much time are you willing to gamble on a board that has had a lot of negative feedback? I haven't checked reviews lately, and as I said, the latest revisions might be fine. I just don't know if I would be willing to risk it. Another board that offers SDRAM and DDR support is the Shuttle AK32, but I have no experience with it and have seen very little feedback about it. It is another cost conscious option, however. check out feedback on the via KT266 chipset, not the KT266a, since the AK32 uses the older version.
Chuck

[astronomer02]

I've posted a message in an old thread I created about a week ago on a good mobo that has SDRAM/DDR/Athlon XP support to see what people think about the Shuttle KT266 you mentioned. In the mean time, I'm gunna go and check it out. Thanks for the suggestion .

Greg-

[astronomer02]

Here is the answer I got to the post about the Shuttle board you mentioned. Click the link below to view that post. BTW, the post should be at the very bottom of the page.

Click Here