Aluminium or Steelcase?

Besides weight, is there any differences? in cooling mostly..

The most important reason I choose Lian Li over other case is because it looks cool.

Know of any that aren't too flimsy? And curious...why does it matter if it's flimsy if your just gonna have it sitting around most of the time? Just asking in general... I don't think i'd ever stand on top of my case (even when i know it can hold me up fine)

I move my computer often too. Aluminium case is a lot lighter than Steel case so it is better if you want to move you computer often. Aluminium case is more than stong enought for move around. Even you have a steel case you do not want to drop it or hit something when you are moving. You can scratch the case and damage the components (especailly the hard drive which is a lot more fragile than the case) inside your computer.

I used to dent panels regularly on my steel cases, Aluminum is much easier to dent.

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In reply to:

Aluminum cases are not designed nor built better. Look at the Chieftec SOHO style cases, the Aluminum and Steel cases are identicle. I have serveral high quality steel cases sitting around that are far better than similarly priced aluminum cases.

Just as you said the only "good" reason I can see to buy an aluminum case is for the looks.

You can also make steel case look exactly like the Lian Li case so it will look as cool. If their make a steel case with the same design and is cheaper then I will likely to get it. The problem is that I do not know any steel case that have a design that is as good as Lian Li case.

Ah, OK. Well I've seen several server cases I like better, including some that have hot swap trays (me thinks I can make them work with IDE drives if I make custom cables). Then again, old SCSI drives are cheap, and I do have that RAID card...

SuperPower makes some nice, extremely heavy duty cases. Now let me look at that Lian-Li case and get back to you. I like my PLASTIC case because it's quiet and dent resistant.

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In Reply to:
The Lian Li cases look an awfull lot like my friend's Inwin.

The case does not look nearly as good as Lian Li's case. Not of the case design is as good as Lian Li case. Not of them have motherboard tray, the cases cannot handle as many drive as Lian Li case and most of them does not even have fan in front to cool down the hard drive. To me hard drive is the most important part of my computer. Most other parts of my computer I can replace easily but data on my hd cannot be easily replaced.

Nothing can beat the aluminium case im getting in less than a week... Its a ripper.

In GENERAL though, having looked at ALOT of different cases, both steel & aluminium, the Aluminium ones tend to have more fans and better fan holes. There are steel cases of course that are just as good, but they seem to be pretty few in number... So aluminium cases are cooler by nature of the fans they have.


P.S. for viewing pleasure, here is my case. Anodised black, inside and out, with 6 casefan holes.
<A HREF="http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/show_product_info.php?code=CA-CSSF201B*" target="_new">http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/show_product_info.php?code=CA-CSSF201B*</A>

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<b>Serving THGC for over 2 years.</b>

in my expirience, computers are not as fragile as we were lead to believe. video cards are tested for durabiltiy by dropping them from a certain distance, usually about 3 feet, onto a concrete floor. hard drives are designed to withstand 60 g's of shock in non operational mode. and power supplys, they are like rocks. the only thing to really worry about is a heavy heat sink busting the lugs off the motherboard. i have dropped several computers at work, dropped a monitor off the top of my car, all still work.

how do you shoot the devil in the back? what happens if you miss? -verbal

Yeha Aluminium cases run cooler, but not by much. Besides weight, the only real difference is the looks. Yes aluminium is more flimsy, but most of the good aluminium cases (Super Flower, Lian Li, Coolermaster, Enermax, and Skyhawk to name a few) re-inforce their cases well enough so that they're stronger than most cheap steel cases. They mostly use sheets of aluminium about 1mm thick (enermax make a case that uses sheets twice that thick). If you're not interested in looks or weight, I'd go the Aopen cases. They pretty much have the same kind of functionality as the Lian Li type cases (including extra cooling fans) but at less than half the cost.

On the other hand, I just bought myself an aluminium case, and I'm very impressed with the quality of it.