since we did our video covering the different sizes of motherboards I have
received one metric buttton of requests to cover the same topic but for computer
cases the issue with this is that the way they're classified has actually
changed over time once upon a time it was all about how many 5 and a/ qu inch
Bays the case had then it changed to be based on the overall height of the case
but even now those standards are really more like the pirate code than actual
rules no one can decide on a standard
with antec abandoning the categorization on their site entirely Corsair throwing
their own ideas into the mix and Cooler Master doing random things like putting
the half XB in the midtower category on their North American website when it's
more correctly classified as a land boox on the global site but we're going to do
our best anyway so here goes starting with the main traditional PC case sizes
a mini tower is a great compromise between size and expansion it has one or
two external Bas stands 14 to 16 in tall
and hosts an matx motherboard usually
but a large ITX case that used a lot of its internal space for liquid cooling or
drive mounting could also be classified as a mini tower most mini towers are
only suitable for use with a single graphics card without quate cooling
while some are okay for two mid towers
are the most common PC cases for custom Builders and have 3 to four external
expansion Bays stand 17 to 21 in tall
and can almost always hold a full-sized ATX motherboard but without a ton of
extra space for drives and whatnot expect to find 6 to eight hard drive
mounts in a typical mid Tower and enough Cooling and space to comfortably handle
two graphics cards in crossfire SLI full towers are the SUVs of the computer case
World more on that in a moment they can have five or more external 5 and 1/4
inch bays and range and height from 22 in to 27 in they always support
full-sized ATX motherboards almost always support eatx and sometimes
support the only sort of a real standard XL ATX form factor as well the funny
thing about full Towers is that other than accepting more Drive expansion
providing better cooling for hot running inefficient setups like three-way and
four-way graphics configs and having ample space for Superfluous epen stuff
like custom liquid cooling Loops they don't bring much to the table in terms
of performance over a mid Tower but they do tend to be easier to work in
particular ularly if you've got big hands so back to the SUV analogy it's a
luxury item not a musthave only two more to go now before we get into some of the
non- tower stuff and neither of them is really a wellestablished standard a
super or Ultra Tower is Loosely defined as anything taller than 27 in and a mod
Tower is a case system whose height is actually difficult to determine because
you can actually adjust it by stacking multiple cases on top of each other to
add cooling capacity or drive mounting op options desktops are our first non-
Tower size case and while they used to be the dominant style and yes they're
slightly different they have feet on what would be the side panel of the
other one anyway these days they've been relegated to the htpc case Niche where
we'll find them in a variety of sizes from ones that are so small they need an
external power brick to huge ones that can hold server class motherboards and
large rate arrays of hard drives small form factor or sff cases can in almost
any shape from cubes to like equal sided Towers to desktops to normal Towers but
the one thing that they generally have in common is support for a mini ITX
motherboard Max with minimal Drive mounting options and only sometimes
support for an add-in graphics card and certainly only one of them our last case
type the cube case is typically characterized by its roughly Cube like
shape rather look that's what they are
if you think my job is so easy you try try to do it anyway there is no real
standard with respect to size and they're available in a wide variety of
configurations look their shaped like cubes deal with it that's all I can say
about them anyway speaking of a wide variety of configurations this is just
the beginning there's other stuff out there but these are the main ones but I
guess that's a topic for another day so before we wrap up as usual I'd like to
take a moment to thank our episode sponsor Cooler Master for giving us the
precious resources we need to make these videos for y'all if you've been
researching PC cases the odds that you've come across Cooler Master at some
point is pretty good given their wide range of cases for gamers and
enthusiasts and regular folks as well but if you appreciate what we do maybe
you'll consider checking out the sponsor Link in the video description and browsing their selection of cases to see
if there's anything that tickles your fancy thanks Cooler Master for sponsoring this episode as fast as
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