As the largest but often overlooked accessory in DIY, its existence seems to stay only in appearance. Many people always think that this iron case can be used, cheap, and even the emergence of “shoebox party”.It is right to pursue cost performance, but this is also in the premise of ensuring durability and safety.So, how to choose a suitable case for yourself?
1 Pay attention to the types of motherboards supported
There may be a multiple-choice question involved here, do you want to buy a motherboard for a certain case, or a case for a certain motherboard?Now the mainstream motherboards have ATX and m-ATX two kinds, of course high-end motherboards also have wider E-ATX, small size and ITX.Viewed from the outside, the m-ATX is a little shorter than the ATX motherboard, and of course there are three fewer expansion slots.The ATX case is downward-compatible with m-ATX and even smaller ITX motherboards, but if you buy an m-ATX motherboard, you won’t be able to fit a standard ATX motherboard.
And for the pursuit of small host users, in addition to look at the motherboard type supported by the chassis, but also pay attention to the adaptation of the power supply, such as some cases can be installed standard ATX power supply, and some can only be installed smaller SFX power supply, so when buying must look carefully at the chassis description.
Enter the purchase
2 Look desirable
This is a very emotional question, after all, some people like fashion, others like simplicity.Because now many motherboards, memory, graphics cards and radiators are equipped with RGB light effect, so you can consider buying side or full penetration case.Of course, it does not mean that the case without side penetration is bad, after all, the all-metal case has better EMI electromagnetic radiation shielding performance, although no one mentioned this today.But such a case is also cheaper, more suitable for users who do not pursue the trend and have cost-effective needs to buy.
Some cases have also added a lot of humanization design, such as convenient player topline line slot, motherboard signal line hole, graphics card auxiliary cooling fan, etc., can be used as a reference when the case purchase.In addition, there are some special-shaped cases on the market for sale, but the price is generally more expensive, we should pay attention to the support type of the motherboard when buying.Of course, there are more alternative chassis, such as the following can keep fish, we should pay attention to the bottom of the aquarium main case waterproof problem.
3 Heat dissipation capacity
Now the CPU, graphics card performance is more and more strong, while the heat is more considerable, so the chassis can not only look good, but also pay attention to the heat dissipation ability, in short, the chassis is the more heat dissipation hole, the larger the area, the more expanded fan capacity, the better the heat dissipation ability.
In addition, we should also pay attention to the height of the CPU radiator that the chassis can support. For example, the larger chassis will support the 6 heat pipe vertical twin tower radiator, and some pursuit of small size of the chassis may only support the height of the very low horizontal radiator.Therefore, if there is a requirement for heat dissipation performance, do not go to buy those who look like the kind of sealed chassis, or minutes to change the oven.
4. Expansion capability
Literally, scalability is how many PCIe devices are supported, for example the standard ATX case has 7 expansion bits and m-ATX has 4 expansion bits.But in practice, the top expansion bit is often useless, so when installing a graphics card, you need to remove from the second baffle, otherwise there will be a slot above the graphics card, you need to buy a universal baffle to hide the ugly.In addition, the current RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 graphics cards are three-slot radiators. If you want a separate sound card or wireless card, buy an ATX case and motherboard if possible.
If you buy a high-end card, also be aware of the extra space in the case to support the card, including the height and length of the card, or you’ll end up with a graphics card that won’t fit, or a side cover that won’t fit.Of course, you can understand that a longer, wider case has few such problems.
5 Work with materials
Say the two words separately.Let’s start with the materials. Usually the chassis is made of thin steel plate. The thicker the steel plate, the higher the mechanical strength, the less easy to deform, and of course, the greater the weight.Therefore, the greater the weight of a case (excluding the side glass), the more practical the material can be said to be.And some inferior cases may even use iron material, pick up there is a feeling of lightness, of course, the use of aluminum alloy material except the case.
The case steel plate is common SGCC hot dip galvanized steel plate and SECC cold rolled steel plate galvanized process, relatively speaking, the former rust oxidation resistance is better, of course, the latter can also be, the most afraid of is the use of thin iron chassis, not only easy to paint off, more easy to rust, low mechanical strength and even installation of larger weight graphics card may lead to a certain deformation of the case.
In terms of workmanship, we should focus on the treatment process of steel plate. For example, the folding design can avoid scratching the hand when installing, and the edge work of steel plate and accessories is smooth, and there can be no burrs, otherwise there are hidden dangers of scratching the hand.
Above is our summary for you to buy the case purchase strategy, you Get it?
