Once upon a time, you would have been limited in your choice of computer cases - they were mostly beige boxes with a switch and a few holes. These days, you have a wide range of choice in shapes, sizes and colours.

The computer case is an often overlooked component, most people just go out and choose a case solely on price, and while a cheap case may suffice for an average system, it’s usually a good idea to put some thought into your requirements.

Size, shape and style:

I’ll outline some, but not all, of the case styles and sizes that you’ll come across when buying one for use as a home PC.

Desktop case

This is the style of case utilised for older computers. It’s not so popular or common to see this style of case these days as they have a few disadvantages over tower designs - having a larger footprint (you can get 2 or 3 tower cases in the same space as a desktop) is one of them. As they are no longer so popular, your choice of styling, size and prices is limited with this type of case, so unless you have a reason for buying one, a tower case is recommended.

Tower case

This is the most commonly used type of case these days. As for size, there are three general size specs for these cases that will concern the average home builder – mini, midi and full.

1. A mini tower case generally only has one external 3.5 inch (the smaller 2 front panels in the image above) drive bays and one or two 5.25 inch drive bays. Unless you are restricted for space, this size case is not recommended as it is cramped inside and has fewer drive bays, which can possibly inhibit future upgrades. Also, cooling may not always be as efficient.
2. Besides having extra drive bays (usually 2 or 3 5.25 inch and 2 3.5 inch), a midi tower case will generally be a few inches larger than a mini – width and depth doesn't vary too much, but height does. This is perhaps the most commonly used size of tower case, and the one recommended here.
3. Full towers can be huge and are often used more in industrial applications, perhaps as a file server where many hard drives are required for storage.

Things to consider when buying

As mentioned above, we recommend the midi size tower case - which still come in a variety of sizes. If you do have some concerns about the size, then the case's dimensions can often be found in the "specs" section for the product on the shop's web site, or should at the very least, be on the manufacturer's site. We'll show you how to track down hardware information in another article.

Apart from the actual look of the case (which is wholly down to personal taste and, perhaps, cost), there are 2 things that you have to look for:

1. The power supply - this needs to be suitable for the intended use, and specification of the computer you are building. Please see this Frequently Asked Question for more info on PSUs.
2. The case format - this is generally ATX these days, although a lot of cases will also support the older AT format.