good mirco atx case

[toughwimp11]

i'm building a computer for my dad and i was wondering what a good cheap case would be?

i would like it to be within $80 and have a psu and cooling included. i would also like it to be micro atx but it if there is a better atx one, then thats fine

any suggestions?

these are the stats that i hope for the pc
athlon 64 3000+
pqi TURBO 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM
ECS K8M800-M2 Socket 754 VIA K8M800 Micro ATX
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L080P0 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133
cd-rw

 

[Safeway]

Hmm. Most microATX cases come with a PSU since they are so ... proprietary. Check out the big online retailers like xoxide, newegg, svc, jab-tech, etc.

 

[Zepper]

A lot of people like the Chenming 118 or the Aspire X-QPack variant. The Enermax Venus series is nice as is the Athenatech A100 series if you need to save some money. IAC, be sure the the mobo you choose has the P4-12V connector for powering the CPU to work best with the PSUs that come with these cases. JustPC has a nice looking one too but I have no personal experience with it.

.bh.

 

[Mrvile]

The Aspire X-QPack is a nice case, but I really don't like how it looks. Silverstone is releasing an aluminum mATX case of their own, looks really clean and I believe is very close to the new Fragbox cases.

 

[Jhhnn]

Check out the new Z series Inwin, also their older but still solid v523 and v508. They come with quality Fortron manufactured standard atx psu's of 300w, suitable for most applications.

Their slim cases are also good, if you don't need full height cards or lots of power...

Their power supplies aren't proprietary, just different formfactors like SFX or TFX, both of which are becoming more popular and widely available...

 

[Zepper]

The Silverstone is supposed to cost over $200. sorry Charlie...

.bh.

 

[robphelan]

i bought one of the qpacks last week. neat cases.. not too big, not too small.

however, i've already scratched ALL 3 windows taking the on and off.. not happy about that at all.

also, i've had random reboots ever since moving my parts into this case.

i think i've narrowed it down to my temps on my C: drive getting too hot. so, i'll have to figure that out since it only has room for 1 120mm fan.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

I've got an In Win, with a Valmon Stealth. It's been running solid for 2 years, and is still virtually silent.

had an xp2500 in it. the a643000 shouldn't put out much more temps.

Only kicker is you have to be very carefull about hsf selection as it's very limited height wise. Mine has a AC Slim Silencer on it with about 4mm clearance. (as long as you keep total hight below 65mm you should be fine)

otherwise I'd suggest antec