I have a Q9550 build in a Modecom Oberon Pro Silent white. It has two 5.25" bays, which I haven't yet put to use, but one day I may put an older mainboard there together with an optical and floppy drives (the latter with an adapter to fit the 5.25" bay).

The Q9550 runs considerably cooler than in its "period correct" chassis, even with the same cooler mounted on it.

I like the Fractal Designs Focus G cases. Quiet, good airflow, decent cable management, and a couple 5.25" bays.

I do wish they had tempered glass instead of acrylic side panels, but for the price I can't complain too much.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-05-03, 00:02:

I like the Fractal Designs Focus G cases. Quiet, good airflow, decent cable management, and a couple 5.25" bays.

I do wish they had tempered glass instead of acrylic side panels, but for the price I can't complain too much.

I have one of those for one of my older systems, like you said for the price its good.

I also have a Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Tempered Glass (PH-ES515PTG) it has one 5.25 bay, they also have the Enthoo Pro Tempered Glass (PH-ES614PTG) that has three 5.25 bays.

{edit} I would post pics from Phanteks site but they are large in screen space

I got the Pro M back like 2 years ago because it was under $100 and it had a better internal layout then the Pro so it would be good for one of my older systems or a newer one. The Pro M is no longer made but they still sell the older Pro version, I got no idea why the Pro is still made but not the Pro M.

Azarien wrote on 2023-05-02, 23:32:

I have a Q9550 build in a Modecom Oberon Pro Silent white. It has two 5.25" bays, which I haven't yet put to use, but one day I may put an older mainboard there together with an optical and floppy drives (the latter with an adapter to fit the 5.25" bay).
The Q9550 runs considerably cooler than in its "period correct" chassis, even with the same cooler mounted on it.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-05-03, 00:02:

I like the Fractal Designs Focus G cases. Quiet, good airflow, decent cable management, and a couple 5.25" bays.
I do wish they had tempered glass instead of acrylic side panels, but for the price I can't complain too much.

that Modecom and Fractal Design cases do look nice, it seems most modern cases avalible at most have 2 5.25 drives which is manageable depending on how much retro you want to cram in.
wish something like the corsair 4000d had 5.25bays as for some reason that white/grey colour scheme would really work for a vintage setup.

couple cheap options:
Deepcool Matrexx 30 -only 1 5.25 bay but very cheap m-atx with a window

Thermaltake Versa H25 -2x 5.25 seems to be varients with/without a window and the H22 version has 3x 5.25bays

not as cheap options:
SilverStone FA313-B -2x 5.25bays nice industrial look no window

Fractal Design Core 2300/2500 -2x 5.25bays sidepanel fan mount for those voodoo builds?

for the horizontal pc case folks: SilverStone Grandia GD09 fits ATX only one 5.25 bay likely strong enough for a crt on top

wish there was more horizontal options out there.

i don't think theres many retro ITX motherboards around but i like the look of the SilverStone SUGO 14

maybe a perfect fit with the upcoming amiga 500 ITX?
with some biege paint on the SilverStone FA313 or the Core 2300 they'd fit right into the vintage era

Grem Five wrote on 2023-05-03, 00:38:

I have one of those for one of my older systems, like you said for the price its good.
I also have a Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Tempered Glass (PH-ES515PTG) it has one 5.25 bay, they also have the Enthoo Pro Tempered Glass (PH-ES614PTG) that has three 5.25 bays.
I got the Pro M back like 2 years ago because it was under $100 and it had a better internal layout then the Pro so it would be good for one of my older systems or a newer one. The Pro M is no longer made but they still sell the older Pro version, I got no idea why the Pro is still made but not the Pro M.

that Enthoo Pro is quite nice.
also found another canditate with 4x 5.25bays!
SilverStone SETA-D1

on the pricer side but almost perfect wish it had a side fan mount, possible future build that could cover 5"+3.5" floppy drives, gotek and compact flash in one bay with a 3d printed face and a cd drive in the 4th!

The Fractal Pop Air still has room for 2 5.25 drive bays. It also scored very well on GN's reviews for basically everything else.

Great topic! I was just pondering this a couple weeks ago.
See here: Let's talk about cases

Seems that the Focus G and the Enthoo Pro are two excellent modern options. I have a couple old Lian Lis that I'll probably be buried with, and I opted for the Focus G in grey for my 2005 A64 build I'm working on right now.

Cooler Master Elite 361.

Did some research trying to find the slimmest possible full ATX capable tower case for one of my early retro builds, and ended up with this. Bought a couple more of them later. Size wise it's about the same as those Baby AT towers from the 90s , albeit slimmer and somewhat longer. It can be used horizontally as a desktop case as well.

The build quality is okay, but don't expect any wonders. It's a basic case made from quite thin and flimsy sheet metal. It does its job though, and once it's fully assembled, it doesn't feel bad at all. It's not breaking the bank either, paid ~35 USD for mine 7 or 8 years ago on the generally overpriced Swedish market.

It's surprisingly easy to work with despite the compact size, mostly thanks to the somewhat unorthodox PSU location. What looks like three 5.25" slots is actually only one. The remaining two are fake, the PSU sits behind those. A nice thing about that is that there's nothing blocking access to the mobo when everything is installed, which of course is great for a retro machine that tends to be tinkered with a lot.

The predecessor Elite 360 is even smaller. It's just fractions of inches though, it doesn't look as good as the 361, and it has been out of production for ages.

ATi_Loyalist wrote on 2023-05-03, 03:35:

I have a couple old Lian Lis that I'll probably be buried with, and I opted for the Focus G in grey for my 2005 A64 build I'm working on right now.

yeah theres a ton of lian li especially in that silver era that where incredible quality builds. especially ones that had the entire motherboard/io able to slide out from the back, a feature i wish more modern cases had

kaputnik wrote on 2023-05-03, 06:46:

Cooler Master Elite 361. https://i.ibb.co/qCJhYLM/cm361.jpg Did some research trying to find the slimmest possible full ATX capa […]
Show full quote

Cooler Master Elite 361.

Did some research trying to find the slimmest possible full ATX capable tower case for one of my early retro builds, and ended up with this. Bought a couple more of them later. Size wise it's about the same as those Baby AT towers from the 90s , albeit slimmer and somewhat longer. It can be used horizontally as a desktop case as well.
The build quality is okay, but don't expect any wonders. It's a basic case made from quite thin and flimsy sheet metal. It does its job though, and once it's fully assembled, it doesn't feel bad at all. It's not breaking the bank either, paid ~35 USD for mine 7 or 8 years ago on the generally overpriced Swedish market.
It's surprisingly easy to work with despite the compact size, mostly thanks to the somewhat unorthodox PSU location. What looks like three 5.25" slots is actually only one. The remaining two are fake, the PSU sits behind those. A nice thing about that is that there's nothing blocking access to the mobo when everything is installed, which of course is great for a retro machine that tends to be tinkered with a lot.
The predecessor Elite 360 is even smaller. It's just fractions of inches though, it doesn't look as good as the 361, and it has been out of production for ages.

i think the avaliblity of these cases will be region dependant. that would be perfect for some space saving builds but i can't find any in aus, the only cooler master elite series thats in stock here is an ugly looking 344 with that gloss plastic that becomes a finger print magent nanoseconds after unboxing, the elite 300 and 500 just have 1bay, but the 360/361 are definitely ones to keep an eye out for.

couple more avalible(atleast on aus pc sites) in that cheap but cheerful range:
Deepcool Wave V2, 1x 5.25" and 1x 3.5"

Cooler Master N300, 2x 5.25" 1x 3.5" versions with/without window

Antec VSK-4000, 3x 5.25" 1x 3.5" theres a smaller variant VSK-3000b with 1 less drive bay

brian105 wrote on 2023-05-03, 02:25:

The Fractal Pop Air still has room for 2 5.25 drive bays. It also scored very well on GN's reviews for basically everything else.

I just put a Pentium 233MMX system in a Pop Air. The metal is thin, as you’d expect at the price point, but it looks great and I think the concealed 5.25” bays at the bottom of the chassis are quite nice. For whatever it’s worth, the case definitely has my Retro Build approval.

OriginalDan wrote on 2023-05-03, 01:24:

for the horizontal pc case folks: SilverStone Grandia GD09 fits ATX only one 5.25 bay likely strong enough for a crt on top http […]
Show full quote

for the horizontal pc case folks: SilverStone Grandia GD09 fits ATX only one 5.25 bay likely strong enough for a crt on top

wish there was more horizontal options out there.

I have this case for HTPC use and I certainly wouldn’t put CRT on top of it. It is a HTPC case meant for TV stand and so chassis has very little load support for the case and it is relatively thin material. It may not collapse completely as there is one metal bar across the case, but case plate will most likely bend significantly.

Case isn’t bad though as it eats regular ATX sized boards and airflow is decent especially with case fans. There is not much room though as it is pretty much the size of many amplifiers and you may encounter a problem with installing even modestly sized CPU cooler and 5.25” drive depending on the MB layout and cooler.

I wanted to get a Cooler Master HAF XB EVO, they still sell them but I believe its a legacy product but some stock still seems to be there but I think they are just selling off remaining stock.

2 years ago you could get it for $105 USD but in the past 2 years the price inflated to around $150 USD.

Was looking for a case about 3 years ago however the case had to fit a large dual socket 8 board so my results reflect that requirement.

Budget I liked some of the the Aerocool range, especially the Aero-### range eg the Aero 500
https://aerocool.io/product/aero-500

but for about the same price you can get a second hand Antec three hundred or nine hundred which is what I did.

I kinda dislike modern cases because of the features they are missing (PSU mountable in the top, 3.5in and 5.25in bays (both internal and external)). Especially the lack of external 5.25in drive bays puts me off of getting a modern case.

I think my favorite modern retro PC case would be a second hand one.

Having said that, I do kinda like the Antec VSK-4000, but it seems to not be readily available here in The Netherlands.
The Cooler Master N300 does and if I really had to order a new retro case today, I'd probably at least consider this one.

When it comes to modern parts, for my the appeal in them that you can go small without compromise on performance. That goes for the cases too, I like small ones that allow me not to compromise much.

The Raijintek Metis( /Plus) is an ITX case that can take certain uATX mainboards and have room for a full height graphics card with dual slot cooling and a PCI-e 1x soundracd. It also uses full size PSU. Though sacrifices external 5.25" and 3.5" drive bays.
https://www.raijintek.com/en/products_detail. … hp?ProductID=17

The In Win BL series takes a TFX PSU, uATX motherboard, low profile expansion cards, and have an external 5.25" and 3.5" drive bay.
https://www.in-win.com/en/computer-chassis/bl-series/APAC

The Akyaga AK-502-02BK is a lot like the previous one, but a little bit bigger.
https://www.akyga.com/products/521-sff-case-ak-502-02bk.html

The Chieftec HT-01B-350GPB and CT-01B-350GPB are one step above, still uATX but for exchange it has 1 external 3.5", 2 external 5.25" drive bays and full height expansion cards.
https://www.chieftec.eu/products-detail/77/HT-01B-350GPB
https://www.chieftec.eu/products-detail/82/CT-01B-350GPB
Chieftec also has a lot of cases in higher size categories which still has external drive bays both for 3.5" and 5.25" drives.

The Gigabyte GZ-M1 is a lot like the previous, but with 2 external 3.5" drive bays. This is what I use for my XP build. It also has a stainless steel power button which adds a higher sense of quality. I think it's no longer sold new.
https://www.gigabyte.com/PC-Case/GZ-M1

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-05-03, 18:36:

I have this case for HTPC use and I certainly wouldn’t put CRT on top of it. It is a HTPC case meant for TV stand and so chassis has very little load support for the case and it is relatively thin material. It may not collapse completely as there is one metal bar across the case, but case plate will most likely bend significantly

ah bummer, the more i look into various cases the more i feel like trying one of those rack cases, painting the front biege and making a wooden case for it like clints industrial ibm @5:30

Grem Five wrote on 2023-05-04, 03:38:

I wanted to get a Cooler Master HAF XB EVO, they still sell them but I believe its a legacy product but some stock still seems to be there but I think they are just selling off remaining stock. 2 years ago you could get it for $105 USD but in the past 2 years the price inflated to around $150 USD.

Yeah it really seems stock and prices are completely random from region to region, some discontinued stuff still in supply some new varients not, prices all over the joint. probably due to physical locations of each company and large logistics buildups only recently easing up

chinny22 wrote on 2023-05-04, 10:48:

Was looking for a case about 3 years ago however the case had to fit a large dual socket 8 board so my results reflect that requirement. Budget I liked some of the the Aerocool range, especially the Aero-### range eg the Aero 500 https://aerocool.io/product/aero-500 but for about the same price you can get a second hand Antec three hundred or nine hundred which is what I did.

a solid option, i like when they have side panel fan mounts for us paranoids wanting to keep those voodoo temps down, but yes it's a good idea to search local markets some good deals to be had on discontinued models with more retro mounting options but it's fun to see whats out there to grab new and rust free

Tetrium wrote on 2023-05-04, 14:36:

I kinda dislike modern cases because of the features they are missing (PSU mountable in the top, 3.5in and 5.25in bays (both internal and external)). Especially the lack of external 5.25in drive bays puts me off of getting a modern case. I think my favorite modern retro PC case would be a second hand one. Having said that, I do kinda like the Antec VSK-4000, but it seems to not be readily available here in The Netherlands. The Cooler Master N300 does and if I really had to order a new retro case today, I'd probably at least consider this one.

they certainly wont win awards for quality but in comparison to the razer sharp tetanus hazard rust buckets in the garage they seem like quite the step up 🤣

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-05-04, 15:21:

When it comes to modern parts, for my the appeal in them that you can go small without compromise on performance. That goes for […]
Show full quote

When it comes to modern parts, for my the appeal in them that you can go small without compromise on performance. That goes for the cases too, I like small ones that allow me not to compromise much. The Raijintek Metis( /Plus) is an ITX case that can take certain uATX mainboards and have room for a full height graphics card with dual slot cooling and a PCI-e 1x soundracd. It also uses full size PSU. Though sacrifices external 5.25" and 3.5" drive bays. https://www.raijintek.com/en/products_detail. … hp?ProductID=17
The In Win BL series takes a TFX PSU, uATX motherboard, low profile expansion cards, and have an external 5.25" and 3.5" drive bay.
https://www.in-win.com/en/computer-chassis/bl-series/APAC
The Akyaga AK-502-02BK is a lot like the previous one, but a little bit bigger.
https://www.akyga.com/products/521-sff-case-ak-502-02bk.html
The Chieftec HT-01B-350GPB and CT-01B-350GPB are one step above, still uATX but for exchange it has 1 external 3.5", 2 external 5.25" drive bays and full height expansion cards.
https://www.chieftec.eu/products-detail/77/HT-01B-350GPB
https://www.chieftec.eu/products-detail/82/CT-01B-350GPB
Chieftec also has a lot of cases in higher size categories which still has external drive bays both for 3.5" and 5.25" drives.
The Gigabyte GZ-M1 is a lot like the previous, but with 2 external 3.5" drive bays. This is what I use for my XP build. It also has a stainless steel power button which adds a higher sense of quality. I think it's no longer sold new.
https://www.gigabyte.com/PC-Case/GZ-M1

Raijintek is certainly interesting but i feel like ya cant really have a retro build without cd unless you're targeting pre cd era games then with a gotek you could get away with zero external bays by mounting the gotek to a rear bracket? or use an external usb one but that kind of defeats the purpose of a small form factor retro build.
i agree min maxing getting close to those baby AT like form factors without sacrificing too much can be a nice space saver if you have multiple builds otherwise i think a larger tower thats setup to cover multiple eras of games can end up saving the most space at the end of the day, but thats whats great about pcs is there's no shortage of options
gotta mention PhilsComputerLabs multiple in 1 pc builds which is probably the end game of space saving while still using older hardware.
that in-win and Akyga is great never thought to try a uATX build like that

wow looking at Chieftec website they have some mint retro compatible options https://www.chieftec.eu/products/Chassis you can even filter the search for external 5.25 and 3.5!
a really interesting standout to me is the Pro Cube CI-02B-OP i can see that being really handy for folks swapping parts on the regular

and the LT-01B-350GPB really reminds me of certain biege cases that had sliding/front panel doors

shame it seems to be a euro company and avalibility in aus is only a handful of imports from amazon, I'm sure an email to em could get the ball rolling if you where after a specific case and that cube is mighty tempting to me.

OriginalDan wrote on 2023-05-05, 07:14:

wow looking at Chieftec website they have some mint retro compatible options https://www.chieftec.eu/products/Chassis you can ev […]
Show full quote

wow looking at Chieftec website they have some mint retro compatible options https://www.chieftec.eu/products/Chassis you can even filter the search for external 5.25 and 3.5!
a really interesting standout to me is the Pro Cube CI-02B-OP i can see that being really handy for folks swapping parts on the regular

and the LT-01B-350GPB really reminds me of certain biege cases that had sliding/front panel doors

shame it seems to be a euro company and avalibility in aus is only a handful of imports from amazon, I'm sure an email to em could get the ball rolling if you where after a specific case and that cube is mighty tempting to me.

I use one of these CI-02B-OP cube cases for my main PC and I love it:

I was able to cram in a 3 and 1/2 slot Powercolor RX 6900XT Red Devil, an extended length Corsair HX1200 PSU and a Ryzen 5700g paired with a Gigabyte B550M Aorus Elite. I also have 2x 2TB and 1x1TB 2.5" HDDs in there. No issues with cooling since the case is remarkably well ventilated. It will fit long video cards and pretty tall CPU coolers, and has 3 2.5" HDD bays - 2 on the bottom, one under the 3.5" bay, all using plastic slide-out caddies as well as 2 more 3.5" HDD bays in front of the PSU (witch I had to remove because of the 1200HX) It's also one of the few cases to still have a 5.25" bay. I'm planning on adding a bluray burner and a Thermalright ARO14 later on. Not sure how beneficial the massive ARO14 would be since the 5700g is a really cool chip and won't go over 74C during extended periods of load using the dinky little cooler I have on right now, but it would sure look cool and I'm a big fan of the Thermaright Macho series.

I really like this stacked horizontal case design. The CL-02 and CL-01 cases are my favorite mATX designs, and the Cooler Master HAF XB evo is my favorite ATX design in the same stacked horizontal form factor.

Chieftec CL-01B:

Cooler Master HAF XB:

OriginalDan wrote on 2023-05-05, 07:14:

a solid option, i like when they have side panel fan mounts for us paranoids wanting to keep those voodoo temps down, but yes it […]
Show full quote

chinny22 wrote on 2023-05-04, 10:48:

Was looking for a case about 3 years ago however the case had to fit a large dual socket 8 board so my results reflect that requirement. Budget I liked some of the the Aerocool range, especially the Aero-### range eg the Aero 500 https://aerocool.io/product/aero-500 but for about the same price you can get a second hand Antec three hundred or nine hundred which is what I did.

a solid option, i like when they have side panel fan mounts for us paranoids wanting to keep those voodoo temps down, but yes it's a good idea to search local markets some good deals to be had on discontinued models with more retro mounting options but it's fun to see whats out there to grab new and rust free

Tetrium wrote on 2023-05-04, 14:36:

I kinda dislike modern cases because of the features they are missing (PSU mountable in the top, 3.5in and 5.25in bays (both internal and external)). Especially the lack of external 5.25in drive bays puts me off of getting a modern case. I think my favorite modern retro PC case would be a second hand one. Having said that, I do kinda like the Antec VSK-4000, but it seems to not be readily available here in The Netherlands. The Cooler Master N300 does and if I really had to order a new retro case today, I'd probably at least consider this one.

they certainly wont win awards for quality but in comparison to the razer sharp tetanus hazard rust buckets in the garage they seem like quite the step up 🤣

Razorsharp rustbuckets are really not a thing anymore. The worst were cases predating ATX. Especially AT minitowers required a bloodsacrifice most of the times I worked in one (I didn't work a lot in cases predating these, except to take stuff out of them) which was so common I made it a habit to have some pre-cut strips of these nearby, the earliest ATX cases could also have sharp edges but it was already becoming progressively better at that time. I mean there's like beige cases that were already pretty solidly built (think AOpen H500A).

Most of the AT minitowers I found were outside and most of these didn't even have any rust. And when buying cases second hand, I've never had to deal with what turned out to be utterjunk, the cases were always decent (or I not buy it 🤣) and mostly complete. A few scratches is not the end of the world.
I think most cases I bought second hand were Cooler Master Centurion 5 (not sure how many I have, but I got at least 2 second hand, maybe 3, bought 1 new) and (not identical) AOpen H500A cases and all were in pretty good shape.

Mostly cases may be dusty, but that's an easy fix 😋

The 2 Chieftec Dragon cases I got were also second hand and are build like tanks! Could toss em at a wall and probably the wall would break lmao! Well ok maybe not literally but these are very very sturdy! They are like an old car, not the most efficient by todays standard but they have a charm of their own. And no sharp edges as far as I could tell 😋

It's really not as bad as you think. Well unless you have some kind of OCD issue or something 😋

And if you do get a scratch, fixing it will not look like something like this 😂

I would prefer 2nd hand old cases but where I live that's not an option, all I see is those old cases selling for 1.5x what new cases cost.

Grem Five wrote on 2023-05-05, 14:10:

I would prefer 2nd hand old cases but where I live that's not an option, all I see is those old cases selling for 1.5x what new cases cost.

Even during covid I managed to buy some full (but untested) systems for like €15 each or so? All untested of course but the cases alone along with whatever was inside were well worth it.
One of these cases was even a beige case with a full system inside of it, when I saw it I just knew I had to get it 😁

But indeed, it will depend a lot on where you are. In this regard I'm fortunate to live in a relatively densely populated country that isn't too large.