PC case advice

[jpanhalt]

I've made the decision to replace my workhorse Dell Dimension 8100 with a mid-level build your own PC. I'm stuck on the case.

My choice is narrowed down to the Antec 300 or the CoolerMaster Centurion 590.

Does anyone have any experience with or opinions about either? I do not do gaming and will not be using water cooling or more than one video card (EVGA 9800 GTX).

Thanks. John

 

[MoRoH]

I have a friend who has the CoolerMaster Centurion 590, I can't really tell you anything about it except hes had no problems with it, and his computer runs at about 982127 degrees

The 590 has more ventelation it seems. Not much help but

 

[HiTech]

Just make sure the interior is laid out so you can access cards and drives rather easily and that ventilation is adequate. Many custom cases are expensive yet are lousy at allowing the owner to effect hardware changes and the occasional cleaning. Look for the guage of sheetmetal used in construction. Some brands are sturdy while others are too thin and flex easily.

As for the EVGA card, if you haven't purchased it yet get the XFX version instead. It's very highly rated, comes with a rock-solid lifetime warranty, has a reliability history greater than EVGA and the other brands. Either way that 9800GTX card is about 10" in length or longer. Mine is 10.5" and just clears the SATA drive by a quarter inch! The 9800GTX is a great card and slightly higher in performance than the 8800GTX. It should be... afterall it has 780 million transistors!! That's primarily a gamer's card so if all you use it for is watching videos, it will be more than enough to handle general computing tasks.

 

[jpanhalt]

Thanks for the reply.

I don't watch videos. I got the card mainly for a CAD program (SolidWorks 2008). The other choice was a used CAD card, like the Nvidia Quadro FX3400. The newer consumer cards presumably perform as well as a CAD card that is a few years old.

The more I study the differences between cases, the more I lean toward the CoolerMaster. It is 20" long, compared to 18" for the Antec, which avoids conflict between video cards and drives; although, I can't see that I will be using more than one video card in the near future. I will look into the XFX version. The box I have is unopened, and the store is very liberal with returns.

John

 

[HiTech]

I can tell you from experience since I have both the EVGA and the XFX brands. The XFX is higher quality construction.

 

[duffy]

I'm stuck on the case.

You should use this Leela case -
**broken link removed**

You know, unless you have a hamster. Then you should use this case with a built-in hamster cage -
**broken link removed**

If you're really broke, there's always the pizza-box case -
**broken link removed**

For a network, you could have Leela holding the pizza-box and the hamster eating the pizza crusts. Hope this helps!

 

[AGbattery]

Very informative and useful information. Thanks for the useful advice!

 

[duffy]

Always glad to give helpful, practical advice. Here's an informative article on building your own computer case out of a beaver -
Compubeaver --> How to case mod a beaver - in 29 easy steps!

 

[Mike_2545]

That is a nice looking beaver.

 

[jpanhalt]

Duffy,

Your logic was unassailable. I really liked the looks of the Leela case, so I got something I hope is similar from LianLi, PC7FB.

John