PC Case Buyers Guide

Your PC’s case is a more than just a box to house all the components, modern cases offer so much more, with a huge variety of shapes, sizes, colours and materials to choose from.

Motherboard Compatibility

The first and most important decision to get right is choosing a case that is big enough to house the motherboard. The good news is that whatever brand of case or motherboard you look at, all manufacturers design their components according to a common set of industry standards. All you need to do is ensure that the case and motherboard are both the same standard. The most common standard for mid-tower and full tower size PCs is ATX. The other standards are Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX, both of which are smaller than ATX, and finally the enormous E-ATX SSI-EEB standard. The diagram below illustrates the dimensions of the most common motherboard sizes.

Cooling Capabilities

A well-designed case does a lot more than keep dust away from your precious PC components. It will also channel air through your PC, keeping everything cool and quiet - much better than having a PC sat out in the open. While every case is designed to air-cool a PC, some cases have additional fan mounts and space inside making them more suitable for water-cooled PCs. Depending on your how you intend to cool your PC this is what you need to look out for.

The best cases for air-cooling

Even the cheapest case will include a fan mount or two and normally some fans. If you’re building an entry-level PC a single exhaust fan at the back or top of the case is normally sufficient, but high-end PCs will require more fans, with some sucking cool air into the case and others exhausting hot air out of the case. Make sure you choose a case with sufficient fan mounts, ideally for 120 or 140mm fans as these are more efficient than smaller fans.

The best case manufacturers, such as Corsair, show on their product pages how many fans the case supports.
If you’re intending on using a particularly large CPU heatsink then make sure the case has sufficient space to house the cooler, the best way to do this is on the product page of the cooler on the Scan website and clicking on the Specifications tab and check its height versus the width of the case. Always leave room to spare as some of the width of the case will be taken up by the motherboard and its standoffs.

The best cases for hydrocoolers

If you’re going to buy a CPU or GPU with an all-in-one hydrocooler it’s critical you choose a case that has the right number of compatible radiator mounts. Hydrocoolers come in three main size groups, 120/140mm hydrocoolers with a single fan, 240/280mm hydrocoolers with two fans and 360/420mm hydrocoolers with three fans. You can check what each case supports on the product page of the case on the Scan website and clicking on the Specifications tab which will list what size radiators the case supports.

The best cases for custom water-cooled PCs

Custom water-cooling is lot more complex than a CPU or GPU hydrocooler because you not only need to find a case that has the right number of compatible radiator mounts but also plenty of room for the pump, reservoir and tubing. Some cases provide dedicated mounting points for these components, but often your only option is to bolt or screw the pump and reservoir into any spare space you can find.

For custom water-cooled PCs the larger the case the better as it’ll have more space for the components and be easier to work inside while you’re building your custom water-cooled PC.

Connectivity

In addition to the usual power and reset button, all cases have some external I/O ports (Input Output) to help you connect devices to it, such as cameras and external drives. This saves you having to reach around behind the PC to the rear I/O ports every time you want to use one of these devices.

The most popular combination is a handful of large USB A ports plus audio connections for headsets. However, some cases are beginning to include the smaller, more modern and faster USB Type C ports, so if you need one of these its well worth checking the Specifications tab of the case on the Scan website. pay extra attention to which version of USB the case and motherboard support, as there are multiple versions in the market.

Quiet Cases

While every case will muffle the sound of your PC to some extent, some cases are specially engineered to be as quiet as possible. The quietest cases are fitted a layer of foam on the outer panels that absorbs sound vibrations and plates to cover up unneeded fan mounts. Just beware that you need to strike the right balance between making your PC as quiet as possible while ensuring if its adequately cooled, so it can’t be completely sealed box.

Some cases also include fan controllers with a dial or switch on the front panel to adjust fan speed. However, we’d recommend avoiding these sorts of fan controllers and using the motherboard BIOS or a Windows application to control the fan speed instead as you’ll get far more control and can create a custom profile unique to your PC.