For me each decade would be a different style. 80s heavy metal, 90 beige boxes, 2000s black boxes, 2010s black boxes with windows, 2020s black boxes with windows and RGB.
or something like that...
What is your general idea of "cool"? Neat and tidy office pc from the 80s or more like a mid 2000s plastic space ship?

We have 40 years of home computers to cover here... thats a huge job 😁

Hahhaaa yes 😀

There really weren’t many cool atx cases. There are some I like and have nostalgia for, but I’d never call them cool. They all tended to look distinctly uncool. Some modern cases look really nice though…

I'm a fan of the late 90s/early 2000s Lian Li silver aluminium cases. I had a first gen PC-70 back then that I modified quite a bit. That style has stuck with me ever since (my daily driver is in a modified Mac G5 case, similar vibe). For me they're some of the 'coolest' cases of the era.

Here's 5 of the 7 different ones I currently have in my collection (not pictured are a PC-70 and PC-A05):

If you have the ability to laser cut (or even hand cut) and fold sheet aluminium then these are really quite simple to construct. Just basic panels rivited together (which to be fair is what basically all cases are.. but still). Lian Li were quite clever about reusing parts across their cases too, the design and engineering is quite interesting to look at as they progressed over a few years. The biggest annoyance I find is there are so many very small variations on their case models - often with exactly the same model name - it can be hard to accurately identify them.

The old Powermac G5 cheese grater case is a personal favorite. It can easily be modded to house ATX stuff.

I also love the Jonsbo U4. They have other great looking cases aswell.

I love those Lian Li cases. My Win98 build is in one and it's my favorite case out of my collection.

DerBaum wrote on 2024-01-18, 03:28:

For me each decade would be a different style. 80s heavy metal, 90 beige boxes, 2000s black boxes, 2010s black boxes with window […]
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For me each decade would be a different style. 80s heavy metal, 90 beige boxes, 2000s black boxes, 2010s black boxes with windows, 2020s black boxes with windows and RGB.
or something like that...
What is your general idea of "cool"? Neat and tidy office pc from the 80s or more like a mid 2000s plastic space ship?

We have 40 years of home computers to cover here... thats a huge job 😁

Yes, you're right. I believe that for pentium 1, I prefer something beige, while for pentium 3, it should be something like a light beige/white case, with translucent details perhaps?

I have some cases with windows like Thermaltake Xaser but I can't see myself putting a Pentium 3 there, they look like a Pentium 4 HT, with that bunch of orange coolers, neon bar, and maybe a custom water cooler with a bottle of UV colored liquid .
Modeling plastic is reasonably ok for me if it is white, I can use PVC pipes (after heating they become soft and easy to shape), my problem is with translucent plastic, I believe I would be limited to the options I find on the market.

In the past I had one of the first ATX, which was basically an inverted ATX case, I think it was an intel design, it was strange but charming