My CoolerMaster HAF 932 is sill serving me well for almost 8 years now.

I'd recommend CM newest HAF version, with large fans that run slower and quieter yet provide ample airflow.

Obsidians, would not recommend, huge yes, but not good airflow.

Colleague had three of them, now running with open side panel and fan blowing inside its 8x disk Raid0..

BeQuiet Cases (Dark Base 700)are highly rated.

Check out Bit tech for case reviews,

Thanks for the input so far.  Yes noise would be a primary consideration, so I’ll check review sites for recommendations.  I haven’t paid attention to windows machines for a long time so I’m only really familiar with Tom’s hardware, if anyone has another recommendation for quality reviews then please share!

I had planned to purchase a seperate power supply, but I noticed that fans and water cooling are another feature that cases can come with / without.   I assumed I would get a case with fans, and not add my own - is that OK?  This will be a pretty average box with only 1 GPU so I’m not expecting to need water cooling.

FWIW the company I do a lot of work for uses Corsair Obsidian cases.  I guess they’re OK but the ones at work are huge, as they have 4 GPUs in them each.  I’m looking at ATX cases but I want something smaller than a bar fridge ;-)

Anyway always fun to browse online...

-Chris

On 27 Jul 2018, at 9:01 am, David Baud <AE-List@media-motion.tv> wrote:

I am sure some people on this list will have more practical answers to give you, but for someone who has been running/maintaining/building computers for more than 35 years, here are a few things you may want to consider when selecting your case:

. cooling - as you certainly know, you want to keep temperature down and variation as little as possible. Things to consider include size, building material for the case, air and water cooling

. upgradability or not! - room for internal hard drives, card slots, power supply - ease of replacing components (rack, slider,….)

. noise - if you plan having your computer next to the operator, you may want to make sure it is noise free!

Let us know what you end-up choosing,

Good luck,

David Baud

Colorist & Finishing Editor

david at kosmos-productions.com

On Jul 26, 2018, at 16:34 , Chris Zwar <AE-List@media-motion.tv> wrote:

Hi all,

I’m going to put together a simple windows machine and thought I’d ask peoples opinions on cases.  All other parts of a computer can be chosen on their technical merits but I’m a bit stumped when it comes to choosing a case.  Lots of cases seem to be aimed at gamers, while honestly I don’t care about LEDs and how many colours it comes in.
I’m wondering if there are specific features I should look for that are more relevant to video professionals… things like port placements and so on.  Why the fuss over tempered glass panels?  If the point of a glass panel is so you can see the LEDs on the motherboard then I wouldn’t bother, unless there’s more to it than that?
The online retailer I use has over 300 cases to choose from ranging from $49 to over $800, and unlike RAM / CPU / GPU I have no idea what the extra money is bringing in.  

I haven’t built a windows machine for over 10 years so any insight is welcome.

-Chris