Where can I find mATX cases that don't suck?

[Deucer]

I got in on the recent Hot Deal mATX FAR Soyo motherboard, so my next building project will be a Micro ATX box.

I think this case looks cool. This one too. Unfortunately I cant find a place to buy these cases, or others that are configured similarly and look good. So can anybody recomend a good looking and reasonably priced mATX case. I'm looking for one with the CD drive sideways, so it is thinner, and which stands vertically. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Deucer

 

[Zepper]

Look at the Athenatech A100/106 series and the Ahanix Extreme (X119, X120) on newegg. Not exact, but fairly similar. Amamax.com has both the cases you mentioned, but they don't have the best rep as an online vendor, but improved some recently - see ResellerRatings. Try a froogle search for more vendors - I found some other vendors for those cases with froogle.
.bh.

 

[Dantzig]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Look at the Athenatech A100/106 series

Yes, these cases rock! I just got an A100SC for my FAR Soyo mobo and love it. Great appearance and build quality. It has tons of features for such a small case. There have been some complaints about airflow, but my case came with an air intake over the CPU/Northbridge area, so it looks like they fixed that problem. Newegg has them for reasonable prices:

Athenatech cases @ Newegg

 

[Deucer]

Thanks a lot guys, I should have done a better search on Newegg. Now, do I want to spend the extra 12 bucks for the silver and black A106? Decisions Decisions.............

Deucer

 

[Mingon]

I have a lian li pc9300 which is pretty good, and I like the looks of the new antec aria.

 

[fell8]

The Aopen 340 series cases are nice, when you can find them. Newegg often carries them, but availability can be spotty. This is the one I got. The feet attach easily to the bottom and both sides.

I suppose you'd want a case that can fit full-height cards. If so, nevermind.

 

[Zepper]

Unfortunately, the AOpen 340 series requires low profile add-on cards. The ones we've been discussing can all take full height cards. But they are nice if you don't mind that limitation. Lots of nice options in the low-pro case category.
.bh.

 

[hasu]

What mobos you guys use in these cases?
Where do you get low profile (half height) pci cards?

 

[Zepper]

Low pro cards are scarce, that's why most of the cases mentioned in this thread can use standard add-on cards. Any standard micro ATX mobo should work just fine in them. The new DFI KM400 based mobo is very nice - one of the few with integrated SATA. You can even get one for AMD 64bit processors if you want.
.bh.

 

[fell8]

Actually the only real limitation for the low-profile cases is the video card. The best you can do right now is Radeon 9600. Anything faster is full-height only.

Most network adapters and modems are half-height nowadays, including gigabit and 802.11g. There is also a broad selection of low-profile sound cards, but onboard sound is good enough for all but the most discriminating listeners. And keep in mind that the nforce2 MPC-T has Dolby digital encoding.

Lets see here, the Leadtek TV2000 XP Expert (widely regarded as one of the best TV/FM/video-in cards available) comes in a low-profile form factor, as does at least one of the new HDTV cards coming to the market (made by Dvico, I believe). There's firewire, USB 2.0, SATA RAID, SCSI RAID (Adaptec, no less), all available in low-profile flavors (BTW, RAID is largely useless with the 340 as it has only 1 internal 3.5" bay).

One problem though, virtually nobody includes the appropriate rear bracket (except Aopen, who makes the case), so that means either fab/mod one or run without (like me). No back bracket means being extra-careful when connecting to the card.

To answer the MB question, I personally use an Asus Nforce board (though now I would opt for the Shuttle Nforce2 board). The integrated video, sound and network fit my needs just fine, I added a firewire card to round things out. The 230W PS runs the whole thing flawlessly, easly the best, most reliable PC I've built to date (well, for myself at least). Oh yeah, it's also super quiet, near "Dell-quiet" (as the kids like to say).

Newegg is a great resource for people with low-profile boxes because they feature pictures of almost all their products, so you can see what will fit.

 

[Cheetah8799]

I agree with fell8. There are MANY cards on the market if you search hard enough. Modding the bracket is easy to do as well if you have a dremel.

 

[hmsrolst]

Originally posted by: fell8
The 230W PS runs the whole thing flawlessly, easly the best, most reliable PC I've built to date (well, for myself at least). Oh yeah, it's also super quiet, near "Dell-quiet" (as the kids like to say).

I have a P4 system in one of these cases, and while I agree with most of what fell8 says, mine came with a 200W PSU that starts out quiet and quickly becomes quite loud. It's the only thing I don't like about the systems. fell8, can you provide a link to the PSU you're using, and are you using it unmodded? Thanks.

 

[fell8]

Hmmm, sure enough, mine is a 200W. That's rather disappointing seeing as how it was listed as a 230W when I bought it. Oh well, it still performs without a hiccup.

Mine stays at a constant sound level, no matter how long I leave it on. It's pitch is a little higher than Dell, making it sound louder, but it's still quiet enough to use during a radio show, 4 ft. from the mic, and be completely undetectable over the air. I've done no modding to it. The case does get noticably warm to the touch, but internal temps are acceptable.

 

[hmsrolst]

thanks

 

[DancingBear]

http://www.antec-inc.com/us/pro_details_enclosure.php?ProdID=15130

 

[Eyebeam]

Holy Crap, Batman... I'm in love with this case!!!!!

 

[Zepper]

Yeah, the Aria is pretty cool, but it's not all sweetness and light. There is a pretty comprehensive review of it somewhere on the web. The new DFI SFF barebones is gonna be in the Aria style case.
.bh.