The way I see it, the case is one of the cheapest components in your system,
but one of the most important, so it's crazy to pinch pennies here.

That said, it's not necessary to spend more than you need on a box.

My criteria are: Good power supply, plenty of space for drives and mobo,
nice appearance and good ventilation, not necessarily in that order.

If there aren't too many sharp edges, that's a plus.

I don't know if this brand is available in the US, but I've found the ICute
line to be excellent (except for the name!), particularly the 627SL.

It's a mid tower with space for 4xCD's, 2xfloppies and 4xHDD's.

It has a nice looking, symetrical front (why don't the Chinese and Taiwanese
manufacturers get some Italian designers on the job and turn out some decent
looking boxes?), a 320W power supply that can handle P4's as well as AMD's,
plenty of space for the mobo and, best of all, a thumping great 6" (but
quiet) fan, mounted behind the ventilated front panel.

Ventilation is where a lot of otherwise acceptable cases fall over, with
squinty little slots provided at the underside of the front of the case, so
that if you sit your box on a carpet, your shagpile is going to prevent any
reasonable passage of air.

The Icute sells here for around $NZ85 ($NZ38) but it's easy to spend over
double that on a case with less features.

Ian Porter
Computer Guys Inc.
Arrowtown
New Zealand
[log in to unmask]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim" Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Buying a PC case on ebay or ubid


> I want to thank everyone for their reply. It seems like it was umpteen
> against buying a case at auction and zero for. I am going to take this
> advice and go all out. I'm going to get an Antec tower case SX1240 ATX
with
> 400w power supply. It might be a bit much, but like someone said, if you
get
> a good case you won't have to replace it to upgrade, like the other
> components. Thank you all again for your help.
> Very truly yours
> Jim Markellos

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