Roundup: Four Gaming Cases Under $150

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Thermaltake Element V

The only true full-tower in today’s roundup, Thermaltake’s Element V should be able to support the greatest variety of performance-oriented hardware.

Unfortunately, much of its extra height is wasted space between the power supply and motherboard. The Element V doesn’t natively support an internal radiator, and the motherboard is located too close to the top panel to allow easy modification for radiator installation.

However, two knock-outs within that otherwise-unused space support the included grommets for external radiator installation. At least part of the left-over space could be useful for anyone placing a double-slot graphics card in a motherboard’s bottom slot, but again, it appears wasteful for Thermaltake not to make this an eight-slot case when so much unused space exists.

The Element V’s top panel supports up to two 200mm fans, though only one is included.

This is one of the first enthusiast-oriented cases we’ve seen without an old FireWire interface, though so few users now require the connection that some motherboard manufacturers are also dropping it. The Element V retains headset jacks, eSATA connectivity, and four USB ports. It has also added power, reset, and fan controls to the top panel.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
104 Comments Comment from the forums
  • skora
    Good article. But I'm a little surprised that the Element actually found the Buy award. Usually seems like that's set aside for superior products that don't have the QC issues this did.

    I'm sure there will be request for this case and that and across a lot of price ranges.

    If you do enough of these, you could do a "Best Gaming Case for the Money" series. Or is that peeing in Don's yard?
    Reply
  • sarsoft
    No Antec Nine Hundred case...
    Reply
  • p1n3apqlexpr3ss
    That wouldnt be a bad idea tbh skora, would like to know what the best budget case is out there... not excactly a fan of the antec 200/300
    Reply
  • 4ILY45
    No CM 690 II??
    Reply
  • bk641
    the cm doesn't have a fan control option, afaik.
    Reply
  • Gosh, that Zalman is butt-ugly.
    Reply
  • zoemayne
    ANTEC 902?
    Reply
  • sarsoft
    More cases need to be added. There are other case under $150 that are better choices.
    Reply
  • bk641
    the lancool (lian-li) k62 is a very, very good case for a sub $100 range. i'm using one, and it has pretty much everything you'd want in a mid-tower case. i especially like its HDD bay system, which can be configured to have the hard drives straight on, or perpendicular. in addition to that there are four quiet fans (two on top) and room for two 5870s.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    sarsoftNo Antec Nine Hundred case...No OLD cases. The Cooler Master case ended up in here by mistake, it was supposed to be for stuff released from November onward.
    Reply