if we're talking retro cases I've always been a fan of the late 90s In-Win cases

Enlight

The power supply in the bottom of the case is actually an excellent design choice.

The power supply pulls in and is cooled by cool air from outside the case instead of using pre-heated air from inside the case to cool it.

The capacitors will last much, much longer like this AND the power supply will also run more efficiently.

for PCI AGP boards the upside down motherboard is also a fantastic design, allowing the AGP and PCI cards to dissipate heat naturally.

Best design is Power supply at bottom, with reverse side upside down motherboard. 🤣 Thats a fact. 😎

Warlord wrote:

Best design is Power supply at bottom, with reverse side upside down motherboard. 🤣 Thats a fact. 😎

now hold up there ^^ that might be true for modern systems where the power supply fan is usually off most the time anyways, but in old ATX systems the power supply was often a crucial element in creating proper airflow for heat dissipation, and as soon as a bunch fans are involved natural convection is negligible anyways so upside down or not shouldn't really matter as long as the power supply (or any other fan for that matter) helps remove hot air from the CPU/VRM area, as for PCI/AGP cards, just pointing even a slow spinning fan at them will do more than any orientation change ^^

I like full desktop ATX cases, which seems to be a fairly rare thing where I live. Here is my InWin H500:

The 500 series was actually around since mid-90s and the design for the series largely stayed the same since early AT models. The case is fairly period-correct even for Socket 7, so I'm currently using it for Intel Advanced/ATX (aka the first ATX board from 1995) with Pentium 133 running Windows 3.11.

The design is a bit bland, though, which is the reason why I've installed a 5.25 inch drive to make the system look more "retro". I'll also like to add some interesting CD drive, like a caddy-based model or a NEC MultiSpin.

This is my absolute favourite case, a Palo Alto ATCX model from 1999. It's a convertible case that was used (with different front bezels) by many OEM manufacturers (Dell, Micron, etc). Right now I'm using it in "tower mode" as a home for my P3 Slot 1 build.

Can confirm, those Palo Alto cases are awesome. Solid build quality and versatile.

Chenbro's SR209 (intended for servers) is the ATX tower case I use for retro builds, I highly recommend it (you can see it in use in my builds in my signature).

- Available brand-new (still being manufactured)
- Around $100.00 shipped (in the US)
- Strong metal case (not plasticy)
- Fully modular (aside from the motherboard and HDDs - both of which are mounted with screws)
- Power, HDD, LAN1, LAN2 and FAN LEDs
- Power, Reset and Fan buttons
- Includes rear 120mm fan
- Includes front 90mm HDD cage fan (can also be quickly and easily moved to the bottom of the case instead of the HDD cage to change airflow)
- Includes 'standard' ATX I/O plate (will fit most retro ATX motherboards)
- Includes 3.5" to 5.25" bracket for mounting 3.5" floppy drives
- Front USB w/sliding cover
- Comes in white/beige or black
- Includes front/rear keys
- HDD hot-swap cage is available (if desired)
- Rotating feet to stabilize tower (not needed, tower is plenty stable with the feet turned inward anyway)
- Retro look