Case Material?

CovetingSpider · 2 Aug 2009 at 12:56

looking at getting a new case...
does it make much difference what material the case is made out of, are any types particularly good at dissipating heat?

thanks.

Xappy · 2 Aug 2009 at 14:50

It tends to.
Aluminum > steel > plastic in terms of dissipating heat, so far as I'm aware.

CovetingSpider · 2 Aug 2009 at 23:29

thanks, i'll bear that in mind

razer1978 · 3 Aug 2009 at 00:13

where an aluminium case sort of works as heatsinks a steel case with bigger fans will cool just as well if not better and are cheaper than there alu cousins

airflow and noise should be your main concern really as case material won't make much of a difference unless your talking about something like that zalman case that was a giant heatsink and had heatpipes connection to the components, can't remember much about it other than it was dam expencive

what sort of case were you thinking about getting? what is more important to you, is it looks? cooling? or noise? also do you have any problems with space ie: you need it to fit under your desk ect?

Hades · 3 Aug 2009 at 00:23

Airflow is the most important factor in cooling, not the case material. Steel will generally be quieter than aluminium. However, aluminium is much lighter and most high end cases tend to be made of it for looks.

Personally I prefer aluminum cases.

shadowscotland · 3 Aug 2009 at 11:57

Zalman TNN 300 and TNN 500 are the cases you thinking of razer.

At the same price point steel cases rattle less.
But high end cases with all the features are almost always aluminum.

Personally I like the look of the ally cases but can't justify the price tag.
QED why I got into case moddeling

razer1978 · 3 Aug 2009 at 12:44

shadowscotland said:
Zalman TNN 300 and TNN 500 are the cases you thinking of razer.

At the same price point steel cases rattle less.
But high end cases with all the features are almost always aluminum.

Personally I like the look of the ally cases but can't justify the price tag.
QED why I got into case moddeling

yeah that's the one, i remember seeing it in custom pc but didn't look into it more than reading in the mag due to price, there was more to it but price was a big put off for something that wouldn't make my pc faster in fact i have sort of an unwritten rule where i don't spend more than £200 on each component alough next time i'm thinking about getting a real high end single card gpu instead of sli as it really limit's whatever my next set-up is, that is if i stay with amd