What is the Computer Case?

The computer case is the shell or armor of your computer. It’s the part that helps hold all your other parts together in one place and plays a role in keeping your parts from overheating. It’s important that when you shop for your computer case, make sure it’s compatible with the rest of the parts you buy. Make sure all your parts will fit inside the case.

To make things easier on yourself, it may be better to know exactly what case you’re going to buy first before you go shopping for all your other parts. So here’s what you need to know…

What to Pay Attention to When Purchasing a Case

Form Factor

Like the motherboard, computer cases come in different form factors. You have the ATX, Micro-ATX, and the mini-ITX. The form factor of your computer should at least match your motherboard’s form factor. If you wish, you can buy a computer case with a form factor bigger than your motherboard to store additional parts such as graphics cards, storage, or liquid cooler.

A lot of times, computer cases are designed to be backwards compatible, meaning bigger cases not only allows you to install motherboards with the same form factor, but also smaller form factors. Just make sure you’re 100% certain by going to the specs and look under “Motherboard support/compatibility.”

Specifications

Interior Storage Space

There’s a couple of things you want to be sure of before you buy a case.

First, make sure the case has enough space to fit your graphics card(s). When you shop online, go to the specifications, look for the ‘Max GPU/Video Card Length,’ and make sure the length of your chosen graphics card doesn’t exceed the maximum allowed length.

Two, make sure your computer case has enough space to fit your CPU cooler. If you decide to ditch your stock CPU cooler and buy an aftermarket cooler, then you need to double check the ‘Max CPU Cooler Height Allowance.’ Aftermarket coolers can come in a much bigger size than stock coolers so you want to make sure your case has enough room to install a bigger CPU cooler.

Three, make sure you have enough space to install your PSU. Just like the previous two things, check the ‘Max PSU Length’ under the case specifications. However, another thing you want to consider about this aspect is whether or not you want a case designed to have your PSU mounted at the bottom or the top. There are advantages and disadvantages of both. Tom’s Hardware wrote a very informative article about this particular situation you can read here.

Lastly, check how many drive bays are available to install your HDDs and SSDs. Computer cases typically come with more than one bay, so if you’re planning to install more than one storage hardware, this won’t be an issue for you.

Tip: If you want to think more long-term and want to future-proof your gaming PC, you may want to buy a case that’s bigger than the one you originally want so you have room to replace the other parts that may be bigger than the one you’re replacing.

Ventilation

If you want to keep your parts alive for as long as possible, the most important thing to do is to keep your parts from overheating. In order to do that, you have to optimize ventilation, especially when you plan on overclocking. Different computer cases have different numbers of fans built inside.

But first, let’s first understand what ideal ventilation looks like:

As you can see, it’s best to let the air flow in two different directions:

1. From the front of the case to the back
2. From the bottom to top

When you go shopping, you’ll that there are cases that are specifically made for gaming. One of the main differences between a gaming case and a normal case is that gaming cases are more designed to optimize airflow.

Based on the diagram I showed you above, it’s best to look for a case with fans in the front and  the PSU mount on bottom (to let the air flow inward), and fans on top and in the back (to let the air flow outward). If there are no fans on any of those positions, you can always buy separate fans and install them.

Ports

Another thing you may want to look at are additional ports. Computer cases will have extra ports USB, audio, microphone ports, controllers, etc. built in. They’re also positioned differently depending on how the case is designed. Some ports are built on top of the case and some are built in front. This part all depends on your preferences and needs.

If your motherboard doesn’t provide you enough USB ports for your peripherals, then having extra ports in front of your case will definitely be useful. If you prefer having certain peripherals plugged in through the front such as headphones or flash drives, then that’s where front ports will come in handy as well.

Cable Management

Proper cable management is another factor to help optimize ventilation, which helps keep your parts cool. Unlike generic cases, higher end cases have features built in to make cable management easier.

You’ll notice that there are holes and routes to run your cables through.

There are many accessories you can and should buy to manage your cables. The essential ones are the cable ties. Use these to tie your components’ cables to the holes.

You can also buy cable spiral wraps to tie all your cables together.

The most important thing to make sure is that you don’t have any cables in the way of the fans. That will disrupt the airflow inside the case and your components may not be properly cooled.

Aesthetics

When you put a lot of time and effort building your perfect gaming computer, you want it to look beautiful right? You don’t want a gaming computer to look like this…

You want your computer to look like this…

Of course, the nicer looking the cases are, the more expensive they cost. But at the same time, you’ll be getting more out of the better looking cases.

For one, the material the case is made of. The most common material that computer cases are made of is steel. Usually, steel cases are cheaper, more durable (depending on the company also), and have sound proof qualities. But they’re a lot heavier.

The other material cases are made of is aluminum. Aluminum cases are lighter and is more aesthetically pleasing. But they’re also more expensive and more fragile than steel cases.

Second, the nicer looking cases also come with RGB lighting. Who isn’t crazy about having a computer that glows rainbow in the dark? Just look at this beauty.

This is all personal preference. If you want to spend some extra money for the looks, by all means. Otherwise you can get a regular looking durable case. I recommend the H500 case from NZXT. They provide their cases on an affordable price for people on a budget. The way the interior layout is designed is amazing, it makes cable management very easy. Plus it’s water cooling compatible.

They also have a premium version of that case called the H500i. It includes everything from the H500 case with additional features like RGB lighting and fan control. So be sure to check those two cases out!

Next Steps

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