I use a cooler master one, cost about £45 :

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cooler-master- … desktop-w-o-psu

It is quite basic but sturdy, a little fiddly if you have to keep swapping psus and hdds, or if you want 2 fdds in there as well, but quick for motherboards and cards. It's compact and square too so packs away nicely, and is easy to find a site for when in use too.

I use motherboard or other boxes.

I wouldn't mind having something that allows putting the drives underneath, like most proper test benches, but I find them all a bit too expensive to be honest.

Looking at the 4 motherboards, 2 graphics cards, ~30 RAM sticks and 1 PSU sitting on the table besides me, makes me realize that I "may" have a similar problem. 🤣

The CoolerMaster one that ratfink posted seems cool and relatively cheap. Another one that I found is the Lian-Li T60, however that's about twice the asking price. It does look pretty awesome though!

I use a cardbox from some Toshiba laptop. The FDD and DVD just fit in the box one on another. Motherboard is on top and PSU is outside so I can switch between AT/ATX. But some proper cheap test bench would be nice. But I rather spend money on some components than on any case.

I have a test bench case made from an old case - it has I/O shield and MB mounts but PSU and disks still sit loose. I only use it for systems with heavy cards, like 7950GX2, because those tend to sag/flex in the slot otherwise. For lighter stuff I'm just straight on a granite table with an MB bag to protect the table from scratches.

I have a case with a slide-out mainboard tray, which would make a great test platform. But that case works very well as is.

I couldn't find that Cooler Master case for sale anywhere in the US. I did see that Lian Li case, which looks gorgeous. But it seems huge, and costs $80-100 USD. Yikes. For that money I could almost buy that G3 PowerMac I've always wanted.

A case with power supply on its side, a hardcover book on top of it, that's it!..🤣

Doesn't take much to make one yourself, does it?

a few pieces of wood for the legs and a little shelf at the size of an full size atx board. then a few nails through the shelf (points upwards) at the places where the screw holes of the boards are.
That way the board can't fall off and is easy to lift off.

Legs should be long enough to fit a psu and drives underneath (or permanently fix them).

Sould be doable within an hour?

It would be fun to make my own. In my experience though homemade wooden things are bulky, heavy, and kinda rough. I built a toothbrush holder once that was nigh-unusable.

I live in an apartment though, so I don't have access to good woodworking tools or space.

I just put a sheet of cardboard on the desk and lay the motherboard on that, with the expansion cards hanging off the side. 2 power supplies are sandwiched next to each other with outputs facing opposite directions, optical and floppy drives on top, and a KVM hanging there somewhere. It's a big stack of junk with lots of wires. There's usually no hard drive. Usually if I'm installing an OS with a hard drive I'll take the time to put it in a case.

I never paid attention enough to realize they sell chassis designed for this type of thing. I think I'm too cheap to spend money on them, but it might be cleaner that way.

Uuugh I bit the bullet and ordered one of those Lian Li cases. It was on sale on Newegg, and I was already ordering some MX-2 and a HSF, and I really wanted it...

I have no excuse. I was weak.

meljor wrote:

Doesn't take much to make one yourself, does it?

I like that idea but I guess many don't have access to a workshop, tools and skill to do this 😊

Holy mother of... pearl.

That shipped quickly. It took me about 2 hours to finish putting the case together and slotting some components in there. The Newegg reviews are not lying about the complexity of the build; the instructions are garbage (low quality pictures, can't tell orientation of parts, or type of screws to use), I had to measure the screws with a ruler to tell them apart.

Once the thing is done, it looks pretty good BUT: it doesn't include front USB and audio headers. That's a ~$25 dollar option. Bringing the total for the case up even more unreasonably high. And the 80-100 MSRP is already pretty high given the function of the case. Mostly you're paying for materials; the black aluminum looks great and clean.

It also doesn't route cables well. Or at all. I didn't expect it to have much in the way of cable management, but power supply cables cover up one of the 5.25" drive slots (so much for a second optical drive), and at least in my case, IDE ribbons cover up the other one. You'd also probably need an extra long set of IDE cables in order to use more than one IDE HDD on the same channel, and I had to streeeeetch the IDE cable to the ODD over the side of the CPU HSF.

Oh, and the last big negative: IT'S NOT A TEST BENCH! It's a classy way to display a system. Probably big with the Litecoin miners. It is next to impossible to swap out the ODD (you'd have to remove the whole motherboard, which is LESS convenient than any kind of tower or desktop case). The hard drive caddy is kind of quick release, but the drives are not toolless, so there's more time spent screwing.

That's still not a deal breaker to me, since I planned to build a one size fits all mainboard system that can swap in different expansion cards and CPUs. Lucky me, since those are the only two components that will ever come out again after being put in. 😉 And that's my review of the Lian Li "Pitstop" T60 case. 2 out of 5 stars. Anybody want some pics of the thing?

Thanks for the honest feedback!

I remember my neighbour having purchased a test bench but I don't remember the type / model.

Damn, really sorry about that, as I was the one to mention it in the first place. Guess you have to spend big to get anything worthwhile with these things 🙁.

I had my eye on it already, actually. It was the case that inspired the topic.

Here's what it looks like with some spare parts slotted in.

Compact, lightweight, seems durable. But where's the practicality, Lian Li? Where is it?!

I too was recently looking at some of these testbench cases, but decided to make my own. I used one of those old drawer style media cases and some screw in standoffs. I need to add something for cable management, but otherwise it works pretty well. Not bad for $3.

Looks good! And it matches your custom hand-made Sim City case. 😀

Repurposing a small shelf or drawer could be a good way to go about it. It'd be extra cool to have plastic standoff pegs with one normal one so you can quickly lock it down.

I also use a Lian Li Pitstop T60.
However for older AT form factor test setups I have a simple wooden table from ikea, which can be folded.
(similar to ASKHOLMEN)