Long gone are the days of dull beige rectangles. Nowadays, computer cases come in various shapes, sizes, colors, and designs and with much better features than ever before. Computer gaming can create a tremendous amount of heat as rendering graphics works that processor harder, over clocking creates even more so keeping that processor cool is extremely important if you don’t want to turn it into a paper weight. Many case manufacturers now integrate system or CPU cooling features right into the case. Most come with at least one system fan of 80mm and as big as 120mm for cooling with options to add as much as 5 fans. Problem with fans is the noise.

Water cooled systems, like the radiator on your car, are gaining popularity as a computer geeks alternative to cooling with noisy fans. Water cooling computer cases is a noiseless way of keeping that CPU and GPU cool and tells everyone you’re on the leading edge of case modding. As more exciting products like cooling fans with LED, artistic case wraps, bright neon lights and cathode tubes get introduced into the market, modifying and upgrading computer cases will continue to gain popularity. What these breakthrough innovations mean to you is simplebetter choices and better technology. Even still there are some things to keep in mind when selecting a case. There’s nothing worse than cutting yourself on a sharp case edge or not being able to put a fan in the front bezel because no mounting holes exist.

• Size (Tower, Mid-tower or Mini ATX) Aluminum or steel or acrylic (aluminum dissipates heat better)
• Room for upgrades
• Pull out motherboard tray
• Slide out component trays
• Power Supply
• Cooling

Cases have 3 basic categories of sizes with minor subcategories of each. Servers are usually housed in the largest of cases, the tower. These cases normally come with their own rolling cart and have upwards of 10 drive bays or more. Unless you really plan on running a web or network server there is no need for a home user or gamer to own that type of case. But, that’s your own choice, after all the more case to mod the better, right?

Mid-tower cases are the size most home users have and are the most popular size of cases. About the size of a large brief case, a case this size is perfectly adequate for the majority of gamers and home users. A step down from the tower size case, this case usually has 3 - 5 drive bays plenty of cooling options and most custom computer cases now come with an acrylic side window to see the “guts” of your madness. As monitors have become sleeker and less of a space hog, so to have computer cases.

Micro or mini ATX cases have the smallest footprint of all the cases, about the size of a large shoe box. These are great space savers and compliment the d

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