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Cases and power supplies

Posted on 12 May 2008 at 11:17

Bringing together the best possible component combination is all very well, but if you house them in a chassis that doesn't do them justice you'll be missing out on one of the joys of personal PC building. Aesthetic taste will be a major factor in your choice, but there are a few things to look out for other than looks.

Airflow is increasingly important as components draw more power and produce more heat. Larger fans push more air, so a chassis with 120mm units front and rear will provide optimum flow. A healthy number of drive bays means you can add extra storage as required, or fit novelties such as a fan controller; we've included one in our silent system, allowing us to turn down fans to reduce noise.

If you really can't stand the noise, acoustic matting can help. A special version of Coolermaster's Cosmos called the 1000 comes with soundproofing pre-applied and a full complement of quiet 120mm fans. At £102, it isn't the cheapest chassis, but with five external 5.25in bays, and six internal 3.5in ones, it has bags of storage upgrade potential.

For our gaming PC, though, we wanted to go for the most impressive appearance possible. Zalman's GT900 Z-Machine isn't cheap at £204, but with a side window and coloured LED fans set against a black aluminium finish it gives our gaming PC a real bling factor. Antec's excellent P180 would make a more price-conscious option at £74, and still looks good.

With a budget PC, however, spending even £74 on a case isn't sound economic sense. Fortunately, you can pick up a nice-looking chassis with plenty of features for very reasonable money, which fits most of our criteria. For example, the Sharkoon Rebel9 Economy we've chosen costs only £22, but offers nine 5.25in bays, with mounting rails for 3.5in drives. So it has plenty of drive upgrade potential. The front and rear fan mountings can accommodate 120mm units, with two 120mm side grilles as well.

Some PC cases come with a power supply already installed, and if you're building a standard system this can make for good value. However, the unit supplied with a budget chassis will be low on watts and of limited quality. Even a low-cost PC will have room in the price list for a separate power supply, and this will allow you to specify a meatier supply with headroom for future component upgrades.

For example, we've allotted £32 of our value PC budget for a Hiper 530W supply. This may seem like an extravagance when you can get a basic supply for a third of the price, but skimping on core components you'll keep through upgrades isn't a good long-term plan.

A decade ago, a 300W supply would have been enough for all but the most hungry multi-processor workstation. These days, quad-core processors can draw over 100W on their own, and the fastest graphics cards more than twice that. If your power supply can't cope, it will become inefficient, cause instability, or even give up the ghost entirely, potentially taking expensive components with it. So we recommend erring on the side of caution, which will also give you room for upgrading to more power-hungry components in the future.

For our gaming PC, we've taken a similar philosophy. There are PSUs now available offering 1,000W or even more. But a supply this hefty is only really necessary if you start off with the fastest quad-core processor and multi-graphics setup. The biggest PSUs are also larger than standard, won't fit in every case and cost close to £150. Our choice - the Antec Quattro 850W - still offers plenty of headroom, but comes in a regular package and costs under £100. It's still an expensive supply, but should last you through upgrading your entire set of PC components more than once.