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cyberdactylFeb 7, 2012
To me, a mid tower with a a couple extra inches of depth, with all the internal sheet metal edges turned is all I need.
The goofy flashing lights and the superfluous plastic is for Christmas or birthday presents for 14 year olds wanting to impress their neighborhood pals.
To spend $200 EXTRA, when it can go for actual hardware is beyond me.
neondistractionFeb 7, 2012
Exactly. The case is the one thing you can sorta cheap out on without paying for it in performance. Hell, I'd still be using the tower from my old 386 if it didn't have an oddly shaped mount that doesn't quite fit modern power supplies.
Donuts4UFeb 7, 2012
I use old 11 bay supermicro's. Plain white and ugly, but there's nothing that won't fit in them. Two or three times with room left over for a beer cooler.
norman619Feb 7, 2012
I had one of those till recently. Mine was dropped during a move and I finally had to buy a new full tower. I really hate the LED's they put in those damn things now. I had to duct tape the front LED's on mine so I could sleep.
MadocComadrinFeb 8, 2012
The funny thing is (for me at least), I often end up getting the flashier case AND save a few dollars as well if I do things right (and can still fit everything quite nicely). I for one am not opposed to sticking LEDs wherever they can fit as long as the quality of the case itself doesn't drop.
neamerjellFeb 7, 2012
I built my current computer back in 2007, and used Maximum PC Magazine's Best of the Best list as my shopping list / inspiration.
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos (the original, Cosmos II was just released)
Motherboard: EVGA nForce 680i SLI
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53 GHz with a Zalman copper heat pipe air cooler
RAM: 2 GB Corsair DHX DDR 2
Video: Originally was a single EVGA E-GeForce 8800 GT SSC... it literally burnt up, graphics anomalies were consistent with overheating.
Swapped it out for 2x PNY GeForce 9800 GTs in SLI
HDD: Seagate 1 TB and 500 GB - I use the 500 GB as a convenient backup drive
Sound: Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum, ruined the live drive trying to get it into the case...
Optical drives: Samsung SG-S203B DVD writer, later added a Plextor PXB320SA BluRay player / DVD writer combo with LightScribe
PSU: PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750
This computer was as good as it gets on $1500 back in the day, and still running strong. Heck, its 5 years old and still runs Skyrim on MEDIUM settings! Nothing is overclocked, at least not since I swapped out the video card. It was overclocked at the factory. That was a financially painful lesson. If I'm gonna sink that much money into something, I want it to last!
As for the big case, I love it! It made building the computer a breeze. It had plenty of room to work in, options for routing wires, and has sound dampening foam in the inside. The thick, heavy metal helps with sound dampening too. Nothing worse than a PC that sounds like a freakin' vacuum cleaner! Its huge and when fully assembled it weighs about 40 pounds.
tuppe666Feb 7, 2012
Idiots will buy overpriced difficult to upgrade hardware...Apple market only to these people.
The other side of the coin is Microsoft lock the OS to particular set of hardware. More and more of the hardware is being wrapped up in a single unit; The CPU. Laptops are on the rise; Base units are dropping to a disposable computing level. So swapping out hardware from your computer is simply less useful.
toddkayFeb 7, 2012
Corsair Obsidian series is the way to go. I recently bought a 700D for the newest incarnation of my 3D workstation, and I am very confident it is the last case I will ever by for myself until the ATX standardization goes out of style.
blankmikeFeb 7, 2012
Thought provoking story. Apart from cooling capacity I'd say the internals are more important than the externals.
Then again what sort of mission is the machine being used for... My main machines (a Mac and a Linux box) are used mainly for development and software reviews (with a bit of writing thrown in). For the most part I don't need a whole lot of horsepower but I still have it (relative to my first few machines).
For gaming I had a colleague set up a Windows ME box two weeks ago (you can stop laughing now - it works fine as long as I don't connect it to the internet) so I could play some older games I accumulated over the years. I prefer turn based games where there is some thinking involved rather than those which require a lot of hand-eye coordination and twitching. You could say I prefer to be the General rather than the Private.
Once a machine becomes too old for daily use I turn it into a home server. This way I can learn about networking. Again there doesn't need to be a lot of horsepower if the bottleneck is the speed of the network.
Speaking of servers... The silliest conversation I heard was a sales drone going on about the latest Windows server package and how the sysadmin really needed the top end sound and video cards. I just shook my head and walked away.
ImperatoreChicoFeb 7, 2012
badly
captswuitsFeb 7, 2012
Im a mac user, but I want one only for gaming.
norman619Feb 7, 2012
What PC gaming are you talking about? That was killed by consoles years ago. Most "PC games" are really just console ports. There hasn't been a real PC game that takes full advantage of the technology released in years.
rudegarFeb 7, 2012
well sc2 ran pretty crappy on my old computer though that was likely ati's poor drivers fault
deanbonneyFeb 7, 2012
yup, I absolutely agree with you consoles games are much more better the PC
norman619Feb 7, 2012
Not better. the PC is a much more advanced gaming platform. The console is the lowest common denominator in gaming which is why video game vendors are targeting them primarily and then porting the games to the PC.
deanbonneyFeb 7, 2012
yes, you're right here, I mean they're much more better in terms of convenience
captswuitsFeb 7, 2012
I have a xbox and my roommate as a PC. Guess who has faster gaming speeds, better graphics, direct download of nearly every game, and Steam. Not I. PC is, in many ways, better than any console. Consoles are just easy to use with very little hassle.