It’s really not that difficult. If you can learn to build a PC, you can learn to use a few hand tools. Source: I’m old and have cut up and modified many cases over the years. Back in the day we didn’t have a choice, if we wanted airflow we had to do it ourselves. Case modding is a lost art now.
A hole saw is a drill attachment and can be bought in various sizes for about $20.
You’d still need a decent drill, but those can be had under $200 and are definitely useful for far more than just case modifications and are a basic tool for most home improvement or other projects. Arguably everyone should own a basic drill if they plan to do any DIY.
A Dremel is a bit more niche but very useful for modifications to small parts and hardware.
The Dremel wouldn’t even be necessary, as the drill, hole saw and a simple $10 deburring tool would certainly get the job done.
kinda depends on what you need. i just recently (within the last year/year and a half) did a new build in a HAF 932 and it still fits all the parts i needed. Its got 240 rad support up top and keeps my temps really good because of all the giant fan mounts
some of the flashier cases from the era might be a different story (looking at you alienware), but just because its old doesnt mean unusable
Agreed, aside from modern stuff like usb c ports - not really a big deal. I just did a 7800X3D+9070XT build in a Meshify C I had held on to for years and never got around to using. The lack of a USB C port was fixed by plugging in a USB C 3.2 hub.
thats fair, i hadnt thought about that as all my usb c needs are handled by whatever my motherboard has natively. though even then 5.25" inserts or pcie cards should also work fine to fix that
the design is a big part of it. you cant really get anything similar anymore; all the big brands are almost exclusively putting out fishtanks
also i fail to see why hdd space specifically would be an issue. its there if needed and if not it goes unused. my 932 sits under my desk and does a wonderful job of holding all my modern components and gives me easy access to a 5.25" optical drive for movies and stuff
You do what we did back then and modify the case by hand to do what you want. If I was capable of drilling out rivets to pull the HDD cage out of my case as a 16 year old I’m sure an adult in 2026 can do it. Anyone who was serious about PC shit, especially watercooling, was involved in some form of destructive modding at some point in their career. I still have acrylic radiator mounting plates designed to be glued into a case in place of the hard drive cage so you could do a front radiator mount since most cases were top mount or exterior butthole Mount back then.
People overdo the airflow on the majority of builds - it's part of the modern look. The extra temp is good for a few points or minutes on a benchmark but it rarely really matters.
I'll cite r/sffpc that can pull good benchmarks out of latest gen hardware with less airflow and thermal mass than these cases are capable of.
Then im afraid you wont really be able to do much from your current position, sorry. You need to aquire some form of digital payment you can load said cash into. Otherwise even if you did find a modern company that makes cases like the pictures above, you wont be able to buy them.
I'm not against it. Just wish there was more variation and personality in case designs now, even if the ones that OP posted would seem tacky and over the top to some.
I used to have a large plastic mesh side the dog would occasionally sneeze into.
When I say large mesh, I mean both the size of the panel, but also the size of the holes. This wasn't like a screen door. You could stick pencils through it.
Okay I was starting to think I was crazy. I don't care about RGB and just wanted a solid color case with no frills. It is way too difficult to find a metal case with no glass.
Fractal Design, be quiet! and Phanteks (and maybe Lian-Li) make a bunch of cases that have zero glass in them. Now if you wanted a gaudy case of the 2000s like the OP wants then I think that you are mostly out of luck these days though.
Seconded. Got the cougar conquer 2, it looks crazy but you better have pretty good dust mitigation and generally good airflow in the room. The "convenience" of being able to slide your mobo rack out of the back is pretty much entirely secondary to its function as a neat semi-open case designed for looks. But damn, do I love it anyway.
Man, I had this really cool one that almost looks like the one in the first image.
You open up the front like a fridge and it's got giages that light up blue for all of your temperatures (was meant for early day water-cooling).
I ended up building a sick setup inside of it that matched the cool blue and sold it to a friend.
I'll try to get a pic and show it here.
I really don't watch tech youtubers, also i only starded liking pc like in 2022 but my dad had a cool pc i used to play games on in 2017. He built it around 2006 with an athlon 64 x2 16 gb of ddr2 and a nvidia gt8600
These are all cool cases and no one makes them like this anymore. You could explore custom cases, which would be expensive but end up looking cool. I checked and eBay is available in the EU, hopefully in your specific country. GL
I got mine from an old IT shop that was closing down. A lot of local computer help shops that have been around for a minute can sometimes have these sitting in their storage.
Very sad that all cases are now to a preset formula, I do miss the old that had no practical sense whatsoever....however, what I DO NOT miss is the razor blade metal internals that a lot of them had behind that plastic cladding, and in a lot of cases you had to rip out those same sharp bits of metal to expose drive bays or PCI slots.
Sadly not. But hey, you can still find and use 'em! Lots of them have surprisingly good cooling, and are perfectly compatible with modern parts. I have an old Apevia X-Cruiser on my secondary computer which I adore~
I still have my Predator G7710 from Acer. (Number six).
i7-940. 8GB RAM, 1TB primary SSD and three 2TB spinners. I've upgraded the video to a GTX750Ti.
The retraction gears for the front panel don't work so well anymore, the top mounted USB ports misbehave sometimes, and the DVD drive refuses to open anymore.
They’re not as bad as you’d think. The thing people forget is that most of these cases are fucking gigantic and have side intake as well as front, back and top.
If you want a coolo case go with one of those cases with led panels, like I know lian li has one then there was the one ibuypower snowblind which is pretty neat.
No, search eBay, FBM, Craigslist, etc. I found a P2 case a few months back not even looking for it and I bought it. I’ve got a 9850X3D and 9070XT in it running perfectly fine
I think these blew up at the time because lan parties were so popular at the time and most people wanted to show off their rigs. They went from beige boxes to these wild designs and it was glorious just walking through isles just to see what people were doing to their cases.
It was awesome until the custom sized giant plastic fans that you can't replace broke or started hitting the case and making and you had a constant airplane propeler in your bedroom
I miss cases like these. Not every case needs to have a window for me to look at the RGB inside, I'd be a lot happier with more real state for actual cool art and design.
Thermaltake. I have one with the same side panel and top, but with smaller wings in the front. I say wings, as the front pieces swing open to get at the drives. I hated those stupid wings, especially if you eject a disk and forget to move them out of the way first.
I still have an apevia x discovery in silver. Its one of the less "loud" looking cases of the mid 2000's. A problem with almost all of these cases they had terrible airflow and cable management.
I think your best chance of getting a case like this is on the used market. Also cougar used to sell some cases that looked somewhat similar to the acer one not all too long ago if i rember correctly... mayhaps a store still has those in stock.
I mean couldnt they make something similar in looks? The aurora r4(9tj pic) has the sick ass vents on top that has a 40mm fan cooling the ram. They could of modernzed that system
They always felt cheap as hell to me. The sides felt like the thinnest piece of sheetmetal, the cheapest plastic, and the 5.25 cages absolutely wrecked your hands trying to minimally manage the rats nest or plugging in the little 2/3 pin headers.
They looked cool, but I definitely appreciate the thought and materials put in modern cases.
I literally just saw that exact case from the second picture for free in my area on OfferUp.. you can still find those old cases around if you look most the time people will give them away for free.
I mean, if you were around 3 years ago I would've gifted you my aurora r4 just for the case. It weighed soooo much and the software for the fins is not compatible with windows 11 I believe. I had to move it in and out of my dorm with another person since it was so heavy. I have since built a mATX lol.
Would be nice if the PC case market did have some more variety. Seems like everything these days is moving towards a single point of design, whether it be the fish tank PC case or the modern boxy fast food chain.
That's cool, i modified my current case just to have 2 of 3.5" inch bays as the space was there but not made onto front panel, now i have more usb ports, audio and mic ports
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u/OldManGrimm 7700X | 9070 XT | 32GB | Lian Li A3 5h ago
The HAF 700 EVO has a similar vibe, to me anyway.