Cheap, small(ish) ATX case?

teiresias

Senior member
Oct 16, 1999
287
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Hi all, my primary gaming rig is an Athlon X2 deal that I have downstairs in the home theater. I upgraded that from an older AthlonXP Socket A rig that used an ABIT NF7-S mobo.

So right now I have this mobo, CPU, and a Radeon 9500 Pro sitting on a table doing nothing. So, I figure, why not use it? I don't want to buy another copy of Windows so I'm thinking I'll just stick some flavor of Linux on it and use it to surf, do email, web surfing, torrents, folding@home, etc. I was originally wanting to go really small with this case, but that would necessitate buying a microATX Socket-A mobo, which I can't justify when having a perfectly functional NF7-Sv2 - plus I'd have to remove the heatsink and CPU and reseat it on the new mobo, and who has time for that? :)

so I'm looking for a case for it all (I'll also need a power supply and HDD, so if the case comes with a relatively ok power supply that would be good too). I don't want another huge ATX case, I have one already, this is a secondary system, so it need not have all of the luxuries of my other case. Basically, I'm looking in the $30-$50 range, with the lower end being preferable, but obviously I'm open to suggestions.

I was thinking of the following Rosewill case from newegg:
Rosewill R805BS

or maybe the following Athenatech:
Athenatech A416BS.H350

Aside from the mobo, CPU, 9500 Pro, HDD, and a CD-ROM there's not going to be anything else in the system so I don't need a ton of power on the PSU.

So was wondering if anyone had any opinions on these two options or had any better suggestions? Thanks.
 

NuAlphaMan

Senior member
Aug 30, 2006
616
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I have this case and it's pretty cool. I thought I got it for $29, but it looks like it went up a few. It's a pretty quite case and sounds like it would work well for you situation.
 

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
18,998
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Check out the nMediaPC 300 series. Since the JPAC NJA doesn't seem to be available any longer the 300s are about the most compact full ATX cases that can use a standard ATX PSU around.

And if you want a relatively compact case with a PSU, the Arctic Cooling Silentium cases are among the few that include a decent PSU. In this case it is a customized Seasonic with 350W continuous/450W peak capacity.

.bh.