Which HTPC Case?

Hi guys,

I'm looking at building a HTPC sometime soon, I have a pretty good idea of what most of my parts will be. Something along the lines of:

AMD A6-3500
2x2GB 1600 or 1866Mhz RAM
A75 motherboard, preferably mATX
Intel 330 Series 60GB

That should be fine for me as I won't need an optical drive for now and I'll use external drives for storage until I build a NAS box.

The only thing I'm struggling with is the case and PSU. It has to be something small, quiet and good looking without spending too much. The 3 cases I have been looking at are:

Silverstone Milo ML03 @ ~£60 (Around £95 with Huntkey Jumper 300W 80 Plus Gold PSU)

Great price and very practical, it fits mATX motherboards and standard ATX PSU's. My problem is that the front bezel looks to be plastic so it might look a bit cheap and it's a bit on the larger side. I was hoping for something a little bit smaller.

Lian Li PC-Q09FB with 150W FSP PSU @ ~£70

This looks awesome and is very small, it is also extremely cheap considering the aluminium construction and decent PSU provided. It doesn't have any expansion slots though, I would like 1 at the very least. If this case was a tad wider so it could fit a mATX board and the expansion slots it would be perfect.

Streacom F1C @ ~£70 (Around £135 with 120W Pico PSU)

This looks like a very pretty and high quality case. It's also extremely small which is great. It will only accept a PicoPSU though due to space constraints so this makes it the quietest but by far the most expensive. (Once you include the PSU.) It is extremely restrictive for CPU coolers and is quite picky about the optical drive choice too.


I am leaning toward the Streacom case but if I could find a different small aluminium HTPC case with space for a mATX board and possibly a small SFX/mATX PSU, that would be fantastic. I am hoping for something with the looks and size of the Lian Li and Streacom case with some of the practicality of the Silverstone case if possible.

Any ideas?