We pit 25 cabinets against each other
in this month’s shootout, right from the cheapest cases to the pocket burning
meteor-sized ones. Hold on to your thumb screws because this isn’t going to be
an open and shut case
When the time finally arrives to build or
upgrade your rig, you will obviously want the very best components that can be
bought in your budget. So after selecting all the innards, your next big
decision should be to select a good cabinet. In most cases, people focus on all
the other core components and end up buying cheap and flimsy cases.
For the lack of a better word we’d call
that plain silly, because a bad cabinet with poor build-quality, improper
airflow will increase the internal temperature of the cabinet and decrease the
life of your precious components. This is where we come into the picture, to
help you make the right decision and help you choose the best cabinet for your
needs.
Mini-tower and mid-tower cabinets under $150
This price bracket has the most
budget-friendly cabinets including mini-towers as well as mid-towers. Some of
the cases mentioned in this category have features that you may get in
higher-end cabinets as well but for a fraction of their price. Let’s take a
closer look at them, shall we?
Cooler Master Elite 344
The CM Elite 344’s design is inspired from
its bigger brother the CM Elite 311 but the Elite 344 is a micro-ATX case. It’s
simple looking with a glossy finish at the front and silver accents around its
borders. The side panel has space to add a 90 mm fan to improve air-flow. But
it being a mini-tower, $75 is still on the expensive side for us to be fully
sold on it.
Cooler
Master Elite 344
Huntkey T-91
The T-91 from Huntkey has a simple meshed
design on its front bezel with some slit-like grilled accents. The power button
is big and has nice feed-back to it when pressed and it lights up from the top
to give it a nice look. The ports are aptly placed and easy to reach. Going to
the side panels you will notice that the left side panel has a grill which can
be used to mount fans. Inside the case are some plastic blockers used to close
out sharp parts of the case to prevent cuts during installation. The drive
caddies are well made and tool-less. But one thing which is missing from this
case is USB 3.0.
Huntkey
T-91
Bitfenix Merc Alpha
The Bitfenix Merc Alpha may look Spartan,
but don’t let looks fool you, because it packs quite a lot of impressive
features when it comes down to functionality. It has plenty of room for mounting
more fans as desired. The number of USB ports on the Merc Alpha is also an
added advantage. The PSU can be mounted either with its fan facing down-wards
or upwards. Modules in this case are stripped down to cut costs but it’s not
necessarily cheap at $55 We didn’t like its laterally mounting hard drive cages
as the cables interfere with other components.
Cooler Master K380
This case has a design which is somewhat
inspired from Cooler Master’s HAF series of cases but without the HAF
nomenclature. The front panel has a zig-zag design to its edges, along with a
metallic CM logo and a meshed grill. Its top is raised so as to provide for an
air-vent. Powering on this case, you will notice a Red LED fan with a honeycomb
grill at the front which looks futuristic. A big bulging side-panel window lets
you see inside the case. The niggling bit is that it’s hard drive cages are
laterally placed. There is not an abundance of space in this case but it gets
the job done.
This
case has a design which is somewhat inspired from Cooler Master’s HAF series of
cases but without the HAF nomenclature.
Corsair Carbide 200R
Corsair Carbide 200R has a very basic but
quite a functional design. The front of this case is plain with matte plastic,
and honeycombed slits are used for air intake. Installing 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch
drives in this case is very easy – you just need to slide the drives in the
cages and they get locked in. It even has four easy to use compartments for
2.5- inch drive installation. Though it has some nice features, but we feel its
pricing at $120 is on the higher side.
Corsair
Carbide 200R has a very basic but quite a functional design.
Zebronics Bijli 2
After the original Bijli, Zebronics has
improved their design with the Bijli 2. It has a meshed front and the ports as
well as buttons on Bijli 2 are all at the top for ease of access. The power
button is backlit and the side panel window is nicely designed to make place
for viewing the innards of the case. It also provides tool less installation
for the PCI cards by using small clips. We found this case to be very cool
during testing mainly because of sheer number of fans included with the case.
But this case will pull in a lot of dust, as it does not come with dust-filters
at all.
