Choosing a (cheap) gaming case

[jimbob9713]

Trying to choose a case, but really not sure what I'm looking for.
Not looking for anything particularly big or small, just something to house an ATX motherboard, 7870 or an R9 270(x), and possibly a Cooler Master Hyper TX3 cooler. Hopefully about £25-40

Cases like the Cooler Master Force 500 and N300 don't seem to be advertised as gaming cases, but they look fairly solid and will fit everything in.
On the other hand cases from companies like CiT, Sharkoon and Aerocool seem to have "gaming case" written everywhere, but is there anything better about them? From what I've read, the build quality of the Cooler Master Cases would be better.

I know the Corsair 200r is meant to be good, but I'm not desparate to spend much on a case.

tl;dr - is there anything wrong with using the cooler masters as gaming cases?

[Ttaskmaster]

Friend of mine has a CM Elite 430 as his gaming case. Works bloody brilliantly and is easily £30 these days!!

[Bagnaj97]

Bitfenix Merc Alpha - ~£30, plenty of space for components, enough space for cable management and all the airflow you can eat.

I've built a couple of PCs using them now and the value for money is very good, they're well made cases. The only downside is that they lack USB3.0 ports.

Oh, and don't worry about whether a case is labeled as a "gaming" case or not! A case is just a box to hold your components, if they're powerful (and hot) components then you need to consider airflow for cooling. Calling a case a gaming case is pure marketing and usually means it's got LEDs, superfluous knobbly bits of moulded plastic, chrome wheels and a loud exhaust.

[jimbob9713]

Friend of mine has a CM Elite 430 as his gaming case. Works bloody brilliantly and is easily £30 these days!!

Thanks - sounds like the N300 would be good then. It looks similar to the Elite 430, but it's got USB 3 and, I think, a small bit of cable management.

[jimbob9713]

Bitfenix Merc Alpha - ~£30, plenty of space for components, enough space for cable management and all the airflow you can eat.

I've built a couple of PCs using them now and the value for money is very good, they're well made cases. The only downside is that they lack USB3.0 ports.

Oh, and don't worry about whether a case is labeled as a "gaming" case or not! A case is just a box to hold your components, if they're powerful (and hot) components then you need to consider airflow for cooling. Calling a case a gaming case is pure marketing and usually means it's got LEDs, superfluous knobbly bits of moulded plastic, chrome wheels and a loud exhaust.

I've seen the Bitfenix recommended in quite a few places as an ideal case at this price point. It does look good considering the price, but USB 3 is important for me I'm afraid. Thanks anyway!

Has anybody got any experience with any of the Aerocool cases <£50? Aerocool are beginning to look slightly less cheap than the two other brands I mentioned, and some of the reviews actually point out the "high build quality".

[Ttaskmaster]

Thanks - sounds like the N300 would be good then. It looks similar to the Elite 430, but it's got USB 3 and, I think, a small bit of cable management.

Indeed - The Elite 430 has the drives round the same way and there's a surprising amount of cable routing space down there, along with a metric ****-ton of tiedown points. If the N300 is anything like that, you'll be laughing!

[jimbob9713]

Indeed - The Elite 430 has the drives round the same way and there's a surprising amount of cable routing space down there, along with a metric ****-ton of tiedown points. If the N300 is anything like that, you'll be laughing!

Sounds promising, thank you!

[Ttaskmaster]

In fact, you have what looks like a good half inch or more behind the motherboard tray in the N300 as well, so that's looking pretty good to me.
Not many 5.25" bays, but then I like my bay device gubbins.

[Pob255]

There's not much around the £30 mark these days which are real stand out cases, if you can stretch your budget slightly there's some good things in the £40-50 range

If you have transport, then it is worth scouring ebay and gumtree, you can pick up some very good if slightly older cases for almost nothing but it will involve you collecting it yourself.
eg
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zalman-Z11...-/231199472422
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antec-Nine...-/171293162689

[Pob255]

There' just as little space behind the motherboard tray in the n300 as there is in the elite 430, ie almost none.
Both have very similar dimensions, esp height and width, near enough the minimum physical size you can make a standard layout ATX case and still fit a rear 120mm fan and ATX motherboard & psu
Cooler Master have done something cleaver with the N300 in that they off set the 3.5" bays rather put them in the centre as normal, this has made space on the front of the right side panel to put 2x120mm fans, there's even enough for the fans and a 25mm thick rad.
There is a pressed out section to sort of hide cables behind, but putting fans on the side does block it off.

Not an amazing case but for the cost it's ok and one of the better sub £35 cases.

The bitfenix merc alpha is worth a look at the sub £35 mark as well http://www.amazon.co.uk/BitFenix-Mer.../dp/B005JRICNG
Zalman Z5 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zalman-Z5-Mi.../dp/B00949DWYO

[jimbob9713]

There' just as little space behind the motherboard tray in the n300 as there is in the elite 430, ie almost none
Both have very similar dimensions, esp height and width, near enough the minimum physical size you can make a standard layout ATX case and still fit a rear 120mm fan and ATX motherboard & psu
Cooler Master have done something cleaver with the N300 in that they off set the 3.5" bays rather put them in the centre as normal, this has made space on the front of the right side panel to put 2x120mm fans, there's even enough for the fans and a 25mm thick rad.

Not an amazing case but for the cost it's ok and one of the better sub £35 cases.

Thanks for that! If I'm honest, as long as it's not going to cause me any problems, snap in half, or look f-ugly then that's enough for me. The purpose of this thread was just that the N300 wouldn't do any of that

The eBay links were useful, but, although I can't ask for much at this price point, I do like new, and I'm not planning on spending any time upgrading or tweaking it after the initial build, so as long as it will all go in without a hitch, having a case that's bigger or easier to build in won't be that important.

[Pob255]

Have a look at the zalman z5 similar quality and just that little bit bigger with better fan options

Or the cooler master K280 for just under £40 http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...k280-kkn1.html

[fatguy666]

Recently built a new budget PC for my stepdad, got them the Zalman Z3 Plus off Scan for about £30.

Was pleasantly surprised with it, didn't feel cheap at all and was very easy to build in. My stepdada was shocked at how tidy it was inside, he's not had an upgrade in about 10 years and the inside of his last computer looked like spaghetti junction!

Only slight issue I had with it was one of the top fans was wonky. He won't be getting much heavy use out of the system so I just unplugged it.

[jimbob9713]

The K280 and Z3 Plus both look good (leaning towards the Zalman).

A Hyper 212 EVO is unnecessary if I'm not planning to OC, isn't it?
It would be a bit tight fitting it in both those cases, so I'm thinking of getting a CM Hyper TX3 or Arctic Freezer 7 Pro V2, as they're both a bit smaller than the 212 EVO.

[Pob255]

Depends on the cpu and the heat involved, in theory you don't need anything but the stock cooler.
Getting an aftermarket cooler is often more about keeping the noise down rather than dispersing more heat, yes they do disperse more heat, but most people use that to allow the fan to be run slower thus reducing the noise.
Also a larger fan generally means you can run it slower again reducing noise.

Any case with a 120mm rear fan should fit a 160mm tall cpu cooler (most 120mm fan based tower coolers are between 155-160mm tall)

Have a look at the zalman cnps10x http://www.scan.co.uk/products/zalma...l-and-amd-cpus it's cheap and a 120mm fan based cooler and slightly smaller than most 120mm fan base tower coolers.

[jimbob9713]

Should've mentioned the CPU, sorry!
It's going to be an FX-8320/8350.

Reason I was thinking of getting an aftermarket cooler is when you look various reviews of various CPU coolers, even some of the cheapest aftermarket ones, there's always a massive jump in temperature at the bottom of the graph between the stock cooler and all others, so the £15, to me, seems worth it.

The CNPS10X looks good - closer performance to the Hyper 212 Evo than the TX3, so I'll probably go with that, thank you I'm guessing from what you've said it'll fit the Z3 Plus.