It's 2015 - Why so few decent mATX cases?

There's a few nice cases out now without any front drives. The NZXT H440, Fractal Define-S... pretty sure the Bitfenix Aegis is mATX without any ODD.

At a cursory glance, that aegis could fit 2x 360 rads in it, too. Not exactly a small case then

 

Probably because the open gaping holes look really ugly if there are no covers on the unused bays.

As for the bays themselves, they are extremely useful to many people as a place to install easy to access ports and accessory devices including:

• card readers
• optical drives
• hot swap bays
• fan controllers
• temperature monitors
• reservoir and/or fill ports
• I/O ports (audio, usb, etc)
• lcd displays

These are commonly used by many (most?) builders. The ability to add front panel Audio and USB is especially handy for dumb-arse case designs where the standard ports are on the top or sides rather than in an accessible location.

What amazes me is that case designers make the covers so ugly looking. Why not have (say) 2 x 5.25" front bays in the chassis then have 3 front faces plates with 2, 1 or no holes, rather than making the front of the case look ugly for everyone except those who use all the bays?

I am pretty sure I saw a design the other day with a REAR 5.25" bay - now that was a stupid idea.

 

Wholeheartedly agree mate

 

The mATX case market is pretty droll without a great deal of options - but this was also just a giant whingefest without any acknowledgement that 'simple' systems like your child's are now covered more and more by the ITX market.

 

if you have 1920x1200 monitors, there is a good chance they are Dell u2410 screens and they have a card reader and two USB ports on the left side which negates the need for a card reader in the case. Also if you're putting a tower case of any description on the desk i reckon you're doing it wrong and with a tower case on the floor that has space to add a card reader - who wants to be reaching down to work it anyway?
I like a case (ATX Tower) to have a front door for the clean lines that that can bring, but I also like to access the insides without moving the case around so that necessitates that the case is place to the right of the seating position but, and it's a bug but, why the hell do so many cases with doors have the door hinges on the left? It just defies logic for me. To that end I've stuck with a GMC Infinity X-21 with all its flaws for a really long time now.
Of the other cases I have only one won't fit an ATX board, and that's a Silverstone Grandia GD04 for my HTPC which sits in the HIFI rack that happens to have a central rear pedestal which really limits the depth of what can be put in it. My server case is a Silverstone LC13-E which also lives in the lounge room with the TV and HIFI and is good because it crams in 6 x 3.5" HDD and up to two 5.25" optical drives plus a full size ATX board and PSU and still looks pretty good and is quiet enough. Heh.

 

Fractal dust filter clip off front of case problem? I solved it.


Click to view full size!



It's for my shed, what can I say? It works perfectly.

In addition to the OPs rant, I think cases are generally pretty ordinary. Why couldn't I buy a case with a decent, removable, replaceable and very high flow/low resistance filter?

 

I don't think putting a demci magnetic adhesion filter over a metal mesh intake on a black case looks that bad personally, not like metal mesh is that attractive anyway.
And in most cases these filters do a far better job of your run of the mill standard fit case filters anyway.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=12958&cPath=26

I use a double width one for the GPU side panel intake on my fractal node 304 (ITX) gaming rig, in a 3 cat household and being close to the floor because of this portable desk, its the only way to keep the thing clean.

They're easier to take off and clean than the majority of internal case filters, and you'll probably be more inclined to clean the damn things often because you can see the level of dust on the outside rather than it being tucked away behind a door.

 

No entirely true, house dust has a significant proportion of dry skin in it (plus hair and lint) which comes from humans living inside the huouse

 

I hope manufacturers are able to meet some of your requests.

But simply put I think you're in the minority.
Laptops & Mini ITX are quite popular. And Micro-ATX m/b can always fit in a Full ATX case.

I personally have been using a mid ranged laptop + Shuttle XPC for the last 10 years or so. So I would not need a fancy mATX case. I would got mITX if I want another small PC if shuttle don't have anything that interest me.

But I understand your gripes. The current trend is that most boards are mATX now, so cases manufacturers should move on.

 

This.

I went mATX not long ago and my only qualm is that small cases often sacrifice drive bays or CPU cooling room. I got a Node 804 and have been happy since.

The reality is that everyone wants a case with specific purposes. You cannot expect every company to know your config needs. You need to either make it yourself or compromise. My case isn't as small as I'd hoped but that's what I get for requiring 8 hard drive bays.

 

exactly my perspective at this point... esp. with compact cases... I do feel that with performance atx cases there are 2-3 layouts/setups that could satisfy everyone, and they could be acived in one semi-modular case...

however with compact cases i couldn't agree more... as eveyone is looking for something different,

as there is no such thing as a no-compromises compact case.... and everyone is looking for different things and is happy to give up different things.... which means that no number of cases would fully satisfy everyone

which is why im planing on scratch building my own mATX case in the long term, because nobody has made what i want (as tiny as possible, w/ handles, full aluminium construction (2-3mm thick), near indestructible, no drive bays, 2x 240mm rads and an sfx psu)