The Tom's case reviews are nice, insofar as they go, in that a lot of cases get reviewed, and it is good to know if we'll get cut building a system, and what sort of board sizes and drives can be mounted, and so forth. However, I would really like to see the reviews extended to include a couple of very important factors:
1. Thermal
The ability of the case to cool the CPUs, Video, and hard drives is very important, particularly with the advent of dual core CPUs and SLI.
2. Noise
A second critical characteristic, for most users, is how loud is the case. If its fans are noisy, or it lets a lot of the internal fan noise out, or there are rattles or harmonics that are a problem, then these are important things to know.
I've noticed that Anandtech has started to rate these characteristics in its reviews, but that site does not always have the currency and quantity of case reviews that Tom's does. Granted, this is more work, but it seems like a good idea. You build a system once, but you have to live with the thermal and noise characteristics for a long time.
1. Thermal
The ability of the case to cool the CPUs, Video, and hard drives is very important, particularly with the advent of dual core CPUs and SLI.
2. Noise
A second critical characteristic, for most users, is how loud is the case. If its fans are noisy, or it lets a lot of the internal fan noise out, or there are rattles or harmonics that are a problem, then these are important things to know.
I've noticed that Anandtech has started to rate these characteristics in its reviews, but that site does not always have the currency and quantity of case reviews that Tom's does. Granted, this is more work, but it seems like a good idea. You build a system once, but you have to live with the thermal and noise characteristics for a long time.
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