What is the cheapest case you installed a new system in? Any Recommendations?

Hardware Build a PC
1

Hey guys, I recently bought a 30 dollar Rosewill case, and it was warped. I didn’t notice till I broke my motherboard trying to make it fit. I’m looking for a 100 (or less) non-crappy case. Any suggestions?

2

cheapest ive built in was a fractal 1300 £40/$40 with 2 extra fans at the time…
great little case to build in as its pretty much just a box.
but storage options were limited.
all the same it was silent and did its job.

3

Check out 2nd hand sites like eBay or goodwill if your in the us, I am sure other countries have similar if not in the us.

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4

I’ve done several builds using the $80 Thermaltake V21, and one in it’s smaller brother, the Core V1.

I will continue to buy those cases until Thermaltake releases a newer model with matte black powder coating and tempered glass.

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5

yeah that Termaltake V21 looks legit.

6

You can look on Craigslist. Sometime there’s good stuff on there. If you lived near Savannah/Jacksonville, I have an empty NZXT I’d just give you.

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AWWWW. nope, Mississippi, unfortunately. LOVE free PC stuff, though. I’d even take an calculator if it was free.

8

I got a case worth 40USD. Its like a knock-off AERO-500 from 2015-ish era.

It seems servicable enough:

  • Its got 4 USB front ports and mic and headset port.
  • The interior is a bit unrefined, but no outright sharp edge.
  • PSU and HDD shroud.
  • Acrylic side panel
  • Top and front grille
  • built in 1 x 120mm rear fan

I think these guys did a knock off on the LianLi O11 cases recently. I would have gone for those but I dislike the size of the thing.

9

There are $30-$50 cases around that work decently. I would recommend something with a mesh front and at least two fans for decent airflow. Here is one such case:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jG7v6h/cooler-master-masterbox-q500l-atx-mid-tower-case-mcb-q500l-kann-s00

I strongly recommend something like the Meshify C for $90 however, as that case will stick around for a loooong time. If you can spare the extra $50 do so.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/fPzkcf/fractal-design-meshify-c-atx-mid-tower-case-fd-ca-mesh-c-bko

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I have 3 of the Thermaltake Versa T25 TG Mid Tower ATX Case.

Got these $79AUD each so in US its probably half that.

They have been fine for what I need

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There are plenty of decent cases to choose from at around $50,-

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The cheapest case I could find for my bottom of the barrel 3300x build recently was an mATX cooler master thing.

It’s ok. Was about $70 Australian.

13

I had a super cheap Delux case back in the day. It was surprisingly fine. It had some space behind the tray, not specifically for cabling, but I used it for that. My parents still use it, cause I haven’t moved their system to the new case I got them like 2 years ago.
Other than that I have used Zalman Z3+ some time ago. Pretty decent little case for dirt cheap.
Decent cheap case right now is the fairly old Fractal FocusG… This kinda saddens me, cause when it came out I didn’t like the FocusG much, but now everything is glass and PSU covers and RGB and so on, that the FocusG is actually becoming a pretty decent case…
Now if you want a bit more glass Deepcool Matrexx70 have a couple issues. but other than that is perfectly fine for RGB glass build for not much money at all…

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don’t care for glass, rgb, or any of that rainbow show off crap. I’d rather all PCBs were still that cool green color.

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Thermaltake V1 [mITX]
CM Lite 3.1 / Thermaltake Versa15 [mATX]
CM Q500L [ATX]

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I’m considering the CM Q500L for my next build. The V1 looks like a decent case, but the side mounted USB ports are weird to me, and I don’t particularly want a cube on my table. The lite 3.1 is too much glass. I didn’t find a Versa 15, I found an H17, and that thing looks like overheat city. 0 airflow.

17

Stop it…
The case is not great. The fan filters are restrictive and the holes are even more restrictive. The case is not great at all. Also you kinda need extra fans to make it work… Not a great cable management either…

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18

ok then suggestions?

19

Modern cases are garbage…

Is used market an option?
Phanteks Enthoo Pro. Not ProM, just PRO… It’s large, but it have absolutely everything. As in EVERYTHING…
Also my case, Fractal Arc Midi R2 is about the best case I can think of…
Other than that my other post covers it…

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Modern cases are garbage?

Wow. I was about to say modern cases are way far and beyond what they used to be at the cheap end of the scale. Even for reputable brands.

I used to get injured (sliced up) by even mid tier desktop cases when I was building PCs back in the late 90s and early 2000s. The ventilation was non existent. The cheaper ones were always full of chassis flex as well.

I haven’t seen or used a truly terrible case for a long time.

1 Like