How to Choose a Good PC Case ?
One of the most important but overlooked components in your PC is the PC case. Selecting a good PC case is an important step in building your computer, since it determines several things.
It determines the number of PC components you can have, as well as how well your system's temperature. Also it determines how good your PC looks.
External Space
The first factor to consider is how much space your PC case is going to take up. If you have the space, tower PC cases are a good choice. If you're short of space, you may wish to consider smaller mini PC cases which are getting more popular these days.
Internal Space
Another factor to consider is how many components you wish to fit in your PC case. If you're a computer nut and want to fit in a good motherboard, CPU, a couple of hard drives, video card, LAN card, cooling fans, a CD-ROM drive and a DVD writer. That's a lot of components to be cramming into a PC case! Again, a good choice would be a tower PC case. However, with so many components, you have to watch out for overheating problems - make sure you deck out the system with a couple of good fans.
Motherboard Support
One thing you must absolutely remember - check that your motherboard can fit into the case! Some cases are flexible enough to support AT, ATX and Baby-AT boards, but others only support one of these sizes. Even then, you need to be careful - some cheaper 'ATX' cases don't really fit ATX motherboards.
Power Supply
Most PC cases come with power supplies. With more and more components being fitted into a PC, you will certainly need enough juice to power them. Best advice is to go for at least a 400W power supply. Also make sure the unit is ATX 2.01 compliant to avoid motherboard compatibility issues.
Cooling
If you're a overclocker or have many system components, you'll need to ensure you've got enough fans in the case to cool the system. Good PC cases allow multiple (4 or more) cooling fans to be installed, ensuring good ventilation.
