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Thread: Case under £20

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    Case under £20

    I'm looking for a decent case, but under £20, nothing fancy is needed, just something that will last a while.

    Anyone have any ideas? I know under £20 will be tough and I'm not looking at very high quality, but something that's a real bargain and not wasting anything.

    Not to rant, but I see a lot of fancy cases that are like £20-30 and yet they seem to waste effort on parts like shiny fronts, fancy LED's, audio jacks and all that extras when I can never find a case that has a simple plain front, a power button and an opening for a disk drive. Fine USB at the front, fair enough. But these cheap budget cases seem to have tons of extra spacing for 8 racks of harddrives, 3 drive bays, and all sorts of extras as if someone who has all that stuff is going to spend very little on a case, not to mention the bad cooling that will be from it. If I had the money, I would introduce a case for people like me.

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    Re: Case under £20

    http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...e-case-w-o-psu

    There ya go

    Or infact, any from this list! theres quite a few haha.

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    Re: Case under £20

    First off under the £25-30 mark the steel tends to get really thin, the overall quality takes a plunge too so you'll end up with sharp edges, low tolerances which means when you come to make something it may not fit correctly.

    Generally if it's under £20 it's not really worth it, remember ontop of that you've got p&p, the free scan shipping isn't going to apply for something that cheap
    Not sure when the last time you bought a case was but even the cheapest come with audio sockets, granted they can often be really low quality but they'll be there none the less.
    As to shiny fronts, that's just the finish on the plastic bezels, normally it doesn't really cost any more to make them shiny as it's part of the moulding process and plastic used, probably a little but it'll be pence per case.
    You'll find the main cost in cases is in setting up production runs, shipping and the materials, it's one of the reasons cases often share the exact same internals, because the frame is the same they just has different bezel designs and side panels.

    ATX or mATX?
    A good cheap mATX case the fractal design core 1000 is a great choice for £30 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/fract...e-case-w-o-psu
    for ATX I highly rate the casecom K5-9388 at £28 http://www.ebuyer.com/239238-casecom...an-k5-9388blue granted ebuyer only do free p&p on orders over £50, yes it's got an led fan and shiny bezel but they are great quality for the price and is comparable to some £40 cases for features and layout. there is also the K5-7688 for £21 which is basically the same internal frame, just lacks the 2nd included fan and has a different bezel http://www.ebuyer.com/251582-casecom...nt-fan-k5-7688

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    Re: Case under £20

    Quote Originally Posted by Pob255 View Post
    First off under the £25-30 mark the steel tends to get really thin, the overall quality takes a plunge too so you'll end up with sharp edges, low tolerances which means when you come to make something it may not fit correctly.

    Generally if it's under £20 it's not really worth it, remember ontop of that you've got p&p, the free scan shipping isn't going to apply for something that cheap
    Not sure when the last time you bought a case was but even the cheapest come with audio sockets, granted they can often be really low quality but they'll be there none the less.
    As to shiny fronts, that's just the finish on the plastic bezels, normally it doesn't really cost any more to make them shiny as it's part of the moulding process and plastic used, probably a little but it'll be pence per case.
    You'll find the main cost in cases is in setting up production runs, shipping and the materials, it's one of the reasons cases often share the exact same internals, because the frame is the same they just has different bezel designs and side panels.

    ATX or mATX?
    A good cheap mATX case the fractal design core 1000 is a great choice for £30 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/fract...e-case-w-o-psu
    for ATX I highly rate the casecom K5-9388 at £28 http://www.ebuyer.com/239238-casecom...an-k5-9388blue granted ebuyer only do free p&p on orders over £50, yes it's got an led fan and shiny bezel but they are great quality for the price and is comparable to some £40 cases for features and layout. there is also the K5-7688 for £21 which is basically the same internal frame, just lacks the 2nd included fan and has a different bezel http://www.ebuyer.com/251582-casecom...nt-fan-k5-7688
    Is that casecom the upgraded version of the one that we made fan filters for? (I remember this from some time ago lol) But that case was quite cheap and had a reasonable build quality.
    Last edited by Fortune117; 01-08-2012 at 01:57 AM. Reason: I accidentally a word.

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    Re: Case under £20

    Yep it is they did the following.
    - Change to the drive cages, a middle cage is now removable, although that's not as good as you might think because the number of 5.25" bays puts it a bit too low down, still removing it does help improve air flow by clearing the air path.
    - Improved vent on the side panel, they made it slightly smaller but that's actually a good thing because you can now fit two standard 140mm filters to it if you want to minimise the dust.
    - Extended the bottom vent, I'm not sure if the 9388 includes a filter or not.
    - Made the case slightly wider, by just 10mm, it might not sound like much but it gives you that extra space behind the motherboard tray to put cables, which was my major complaint with the km-6788 getting the side panel back on when you had a load of cables behind the motherboard tray was a bit of a struggle.

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    Re: Case under £20

    Fortune117, I was looking at the same list.

    Pob255, I understand what you're saying and my complaint is they all seem to go too far. At least some should be as simple and use minimal amount of material as possible. For a £20 case, maximum two driver bays and 3 hard-drives and that's it! The front could also do with a really simple design with a power switch and reset button. Fair enough there could be USB/AUDIO jacks in minor variations -if that's a MUST, but the goal here is to have a case that doesn't try to give you everything with crappy flimsy parts hanging from it or more material than needed. One front cover with no need for a special design, it's meant to be a plain setup.

    My current case (and there has been plenty before) is a Lian Li, which cost like £100 and the quality is well worth it. As for the scan charge, I'll add something I want and that should be alright. I'm looking for a case below £20 as I'm giving the whole computer away, I don't want to spend much more than I have to. The idea it to actually use one of these below £20 cases in a realistic use.
    Last edited by Savas; 01-08-2012 at 05:19 PM.

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    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: Case under £20

    There are some nice fairly simple yet cheap designs out there.
    USB and Audio are pretty much standard now, you're actually more likely to not has a reset button these days than you are to not have usb or audio.
    Have a look at the fractal design core 1000 I linked to, granted it's mATX but it's still fairly cheap at £30 and very simple in design, but the quality is still a good way better that of a sub £20 case.

    As to the number of drive bays, that's down to the form factor more than anything, even more so in cheap cases, if you ever take apart a cheap case you'll realise how cleaver they are with the construction.
    you can take the drive bays out of a case like your lian-li and the case will not fall apart, it would on a cheap case even the into the £30-45 range basically the drive bays add a lot of rigidity that has been lost through the use of thinner steel in the construction, so it's easier to make them with a full load of drive bays than it is to make it with fewer bays bacause you'd have to add something else or thicken the steel to regain the support.

    If you don't mind collection only you can pick up some real bargain older cases on ebay

    I'd stick with my casecom K5 recommendation as good cheap case, if you want to stick with scan, you could have a look at the chieftec http://www.scan.co.uk/products/chief...-black-w-o-psu they are not as good as the older ones, but still decent (we have the mATX versions at work)
    On thing to watch out for is width, if I'm reading you right you're giving your i7 to someone, keeping some bits to use in a new build, if you're using a 120mm fan based after market cooler on that, then it's not going to fit into any of these really cheap cases, so you'll ether have to ditch the cooler or look at £30-40 for a case

    From scan I'd personally look at the NZXT source 210 as a cheap simple design http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nzxt-...mm-fan-w-o-psu

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