To Any Case Manufacturers - More Options for ATX Please

[JacobFW]

So I'm aware that there are occasionally representatives from manufacturers on the forum, so I would like to take a second to rant about an issue I've had with pc cases for several years now, and which does not seem to be getting any better.

ATX Cases are f*@#ing BORING.

 

Look at the variety of designs that are available for M-ITX and M-ATX cases, and I don't just mean in size (although yes, more slimmer atx cases would be nice; just look at the review for the Thermaltake Core G3 ATX Slim). 

You can get Tube cases

Monitor stand cases

Cases that mount on the back of monitors

just to name a few.

Meanwhile, if you want an ATX case, the manufacturer apparently assumes you're going to have a triple graphics card setup AND water cooling, under pain of death.

 

Now I'm guess some of you reading this have already jumped to the comments to call me an idiot, and say, "well duh, why did you buy a full size ATX MB then you idiot???"

Well, consider these for a second.  What if:

• I already bought/built the pc a while back, and am still happy with the performance, but want a cooler case?
• What if I have some older parts I'd like to do something with, but I don't want or have room for a giant ass regular atx case?
• What if I'm on a budget and am buying older parts off of ebay, and the full size atx motherboards are the best deal?
• What if there is a brand new M-ITX/M-ATX mb I want, but it's either consistently out of stock or significantly more expensive than the ATX one?
• What if there's a f*@#ing pandemic going on affecting supply chains, and I'm just trying to make the best with what I have/can get?

And again, I've had this problem for several years now, BEFORE the pandemic.

I think the issue here is that these manufacturers seem to think they HAVE to design an ATX case that supports all or nearly all of the possible features, but that's true. 

Some of those weird M-ITX/M-ATX cases place huge restrictions on what you can build in them.  Those motherboards all have at least one PCI-E slot, but many of the cases don't give you an expansion slot at all, and that's completely okay.

Even the Thermaltake Core G3 I mentioned above, supports full size ATX mb, but only gives you enough room for one dual slot gpu, and *gasp*, not only has the world not come to an end, but it even has a 4.4/5 on Amazon.

 

So again, to any case manufacturers out there, please start coming out with some more interesting designs for ATX motherboards.  As new versions of Ryzen come out and more and more of the older generations go onto the 2nd hand market, that's also going to include many APU's as well, so I think that at bare minimum, there needs to be a slim case that takes an ATX mb, has no expansion slots, and takes an SFX or an external psu.

Again, it doesn't have to support all the features, but at least give people with them more (and more interesting) options.

 

 

 

 

 

[suedseefrucht]

9 minutes ago, JacobFW said:

ATX Cases are f*@#ing BORING

I get it, you are upset.

 

Now, to get to a solution... Just tell us, what you would like to put into your  dream ATX case (A Dark rock pro 4 will not fit in a slim case), so that we can give you some recommendations.

 

Solid front panel or mesh?

Closed sides, or tempered glass?

[suedseefrucht]

18 minutes ago, JacobFW said:

at bare minimum, there needs to be a slim case that takes an ATX mb, has no expansion slots

jonsbo RM2

[mariushm]

The problem with cases is the cost of tooling and the shipping.

It can take hundreds of thousands of dollars to make the tooling for a case so typically a manufacturer wants to be able to reuse some or most of these for other cases, and therefore design cases that can be tweaked or changed just a bit to make other designs (ex case with front mesh, case with plastic in front, but the metal structure is the same)

 

Then it's the problem of shipping. You're shipping empty cases, and they're heavy so they take up volume and they fill up shipping containers, and shipping costs have skyrocketed lately.

 

You have more diversity on ITX and small cases because it costs less to ship and because people seem to be more accepting of higher costs (the ITX motherboards are more expensive, so a lot of people assume it's perfectly normal for ITX cases to have higher cost)... also they don't have to bundle 3+ fans on an ITX cost which would cut down on their profit.

 

 

[OhioYJ]

56 minutes ago, mariushm said:

  ITX motherboards are more expensive

 

I would say size this is due to size and maybe this is a small part of it, but it's more likely due to volume of sales. High end boards tend to be ATX. Sure you get "nice" boards in any form factor, but most of the higher end ones are ATX. 

 

I don't get most cases today anyways. 

• Many are including drive bays under the PSU shroud. This is great except they have gotten so small there is no real room for them. You better have a modular PSU. Worse yet, most don't have any airflow to speak of under this panel.
• Why are so many cases slimmer than most of the common coolers. There are many popular air coolers that are right at 160 mm roughly and so many cases 156-158 mm, would a few more mm be that bad. 
• Glass on the right side? (Motherboard tray side). I get the "show side",  why the side that's supposed to hide the wires. Even a wire managed case doesn't look that good. Not to mention all glass cases generally = bad cooling.
• I'm willing to accept I maybe in the minority here... However lack of optical drive bays. Is having a blank plate that bad? I still use my optical drive regularly. Oddly enough I've built many PCs for people and end up telling them they can use USB drives as they end up missing the drives as well. The problem is USB drives are expensive and unreliable. 

Those are the ones that jump out at me. I back when I was looking for a new case I wanted one that could fit a NH-D15, glass side panel, still had an optical bay, and had to hold at least two hard drives. I ended up with the Phantek Enhtroo Pro M. 

[mariushm]

You'll find that a lot of your dimensions questions end up at optimizations for shipping 

You have case size + foam size to protect corners and glass + cardboard size) = SIZE

Then you have a pallet of let's say 2 by 6 cases , and then 2 or 3 levels so a total of 24-36 cases per pallet, then you have pallets stacked in a shipping container that's 20 foot or 40 foot ( ~12.1m long, 2.45m wide, 2.9m high)

 

Half a cm of extra width on the case could be just enough so you can't have 6 cases on a pallet, once you account for protective foam and cardboard thickness, raising the costs of shipping of the case.

 

I'm with you on providing trays for optical drives, even though I don't use anymore ... a lot of designs dropped them to make it more easy to support 360 mm water cooling, across the whole front of the case. They could make some sort of adapter square rectangle thing which has either a rectangle opening for the optical drive, or it's full mesh or with way to put a 120-140mm fan over the square.  But... tooling... for a very small percentage of people that still want those openings for 5.25 drives.

 

I'm surprised how nobody thinks of rotating the power supply 90 degrees so that the cables come out towards the motherboard tray. A small adapter cable for the IEC power socket would be needed, with a right angle power connector, to route to the case. 

The power supply would pull its air from the bottom of the case, and only a small amount of air would come out the back, so you could have some holes or something on the shroud to mask it, but having the cables come out towards the other side of the case would be worth the complications.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

 

The ITX platform isn't much more expensive these days anyway. So if you're wanting to go sff the premium is usually within $50-$100 more?

 

I'd argue that ATX has the most variety of options. The common ones are simply the ones that consumers want. You'll be paying a premium for anything out of the norm. Just like itx.

 

[tkitch]

@JacobFWYou're making some really terrible arguments here.

 

Firstly:  ATX will always be less expensive than ITX.  Always.  

 

ATX was the default design for decades, and it's going to stay that way most likely.  It's the most flexible design in terms of upgradability and expansion.  The extra board space makes it easier to install all the needed components on a board, while requiring fewer PCB layers.  

 

mATX generally has crappier components.  Because it's the "cheap" solution, usually.    

 

Second:  You're buying the largest "consumer standard" motherboard, and complaining about case sizing.  Guess what, your ideal case is going to be hella niche, so if you're complaining about motherboard costs?  You wouldn't spend the cash to get the case you're "dreaming about"

 

Third:  How slim do you plan to go and still have a power supply and heatsink?  There is a lot more than just one component that needs the space to function in a case.

 

Fourth:  You complain about cases being "boring" and yet you want weird configurations, and small size?  Well, to shrink sizing, they have to get rid of anything that makes cases look interesting.  

 

Here's the smallest ATX Case available:  https://www.sliger.com/products/cases/cerberus_x/  

 

It looks boring as hell, but that's because they trimmed every last mm of space to reduce the volume.  

 

Fifth:  No manuf is going to mass produce cases that don't support PCI Cards and voluntarily cut out half of the builder market.  Why?  Because if you build a Non-G Ryzen system, you are REQUIRED to have a GPU.  

 

It would literally be stupid to force people into not being able to add one.

 

So, overall?  I don't like any of your arguments.  

 

and @Kinda Bottlenecked...  that effing CPU Cooler is 150 bucks?!  HOLY SHIT

[JacobFW]

8 hours ago, tkitch said:

@JacobFWYou're making some really terrible arguments here.

 

Firstly:  ATX will always be less expensive than ITX.  Always.  

 

ATX was the default design for decades, and it's going to stay that way most likely.  It's the most flexible design in terms of upgradability and expansion.  The extra board space makes it easier to install all the needed components on a board, while requiring fewer PCB layers.  

 

mATX generally has crappier components.  Because it's the "cheap" solution, usually.   

Ok..... not sure what any of this has to with what I was saying but good to know.

 

8 hours ago, tkitch said:

Second:  You're buying the largest "consumer standard" motherboard, and complaining about case sizing.  Guess what, your ideal case is going to be hella niche, so if you're complaining about motherboard costs?  You wouldn't spend the cash to get the case you're "dreaming about"

Ah, I see.  You didn't read my entire post.  Always nice to see.

 

9 hours ago, tkitch said:

Third:  How slim do you plan to go and still have a power supply and heatsink?  There is a lot more than just one component that needs the space to function in a case.

Reductio Ad Absurdum

 

 

9 hours ago, tkitch said:

Fourth:  You complain about cases being "boring" and yet you want weird configurations, and small size?  Well, to shrink sizing, they have to get rid of anything that makes cases look interesting.  

 

Here's the smallest ATX Case available:  https://www.sliger.com/products/cases/cerberus_x/  

 

It looks boring as hell, but that's because they trimmed every last mm of space to reduce the volume. 

And/Or.  I think there need to be more options, and yes, I'm glad the Cerberus X cases exists.  There needs to be more options is what I'm saying.  I mention size simply because I think that's the easiest first step for manufacturers to make, but I'd like to see shapes as well.

 

9 hours ago, tkitch said:

Fifth:  No manuf is going to mass produce cases that don't support PCI Cards and voluntarily cut out half of the builder market.  Why?  Because if you build a Non-G Ryzen system, you are REQUIRED to have a GPU.  

 

It would literally be stupid to force people into not being able to add one.

Once again, as I mentioned in my original post, manufacturers have been making M-ITX and M-ATX cases for YEARS that don't have expansion slots because of integrated graphics, and shockingly those cases are still being sold and the manufacturers are still in business; who-da-thunk-it.  Intel's had IG for years, and AMD is still catching up in that regard in terms of having all their cpus come with it; that's one area where they still have their heads shoved firmly up their colons because they don't want to interfere with their D-GPU sales.

 

9 hours ago, tkitch said:

So, overall?  I don't like any of your arguments. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[andrewmp6]

Have you not seen the lian li 011 line up?All 3 sizes will take a atx board even the mini case can.