Three Gaming Cases, With Power, Under $100

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Case and power supply combos always look like a bargain, but bargain-basement parts have always seemed to chase experienced builders away. Today, we consider three budget-enthusiast models to determine if any of them can meet our basic gaming needs.

Building With The USP 100

The star of the USP 100 show might be its 550W power supply, though 16A limits on each of its 12V rails won’t encourage its use in SLI or CrossFire systems.

A cable access hole next to the power supply allows most cables to be easily hidden behind the motherboard tray.

The mid-sized USP 100 swallows our full-sized components easily, while leaving enough room for additional drives and larger graphics cards up to 11.42”. That means big, single-GPU cards like the Radeon HD 5870 and GeForce GTX 480 fit, while the supersized Radeon HD 5970 doesn’t.

Builders who run out of drive clips or simply want a more secure installation will find extra screws in the installation kit. The motherboard itself requires screws, as do all expansion cards.

The finished system doesn’t shine brightly, though its blood-red intake fan shows much more flamboyantly once the case is moved to a softly-lit environment.

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.
65 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Vic84
    Good review
    Reply
  • gordo_46
    yeah good review
    Reply
  • xc0mmiex
    In "Measured Test Results", first chart, temperature over ambient in degrees Celsius... even at freezing temperature of 0C, CPU would be at 67+ C.... and on a hot day of 30C your CPU would be approaching boiling... i think its a little too toasty so there gotta be a mistake in there somewhere; wrong unit or math
    Reply
  • dirtmountain
    Good article, i really enjoy these articles about squeezing the biggest bang for the buck out of builds. We'd all like to be able to drop big $$$$ on our systems, but sometimes reality (or the wife) puts a pretty low limit on how much we can spend.
    Reply
  • Just to confirm, are you guys using a dual channel RAM for a 920 build?
    Reply
  • JonnyDough
    Unfortunately, Cooler Master does not include an exhaust fan.

    I would not only prefer not to have one if not necessary due to noise, but I would also prefer to purchase one of my choosing so this is not necessarily a bad thing.
    Reply
  • falchard
    I think in cases more people are looking at aesthetics and ruggedness over temps and acoustics as nearly all cases have acceptable values. When it comes to this NZXT and Rosewill have really seperated themselves from other cases under $50.
    Reply
  • JonnyDough
    I agree, but as an enthusiast I'm really loving that Cooler Master case. I tend to like front to back air flow just because it helps direct noise away from me and I can cool my hard drives first and my GPU last since that seems to be the order of coolest to hottest operating temps.

    I suspect with a bit higher power draw Cooler Master's PSU may perform a bit more admirably on efficiency. The only way to really know is to test the PSUs against each other and measure power draw of the PSUs themselves (until they power off preferably!) under load/idle. If you're going to make a statement about energy efficiency at all then it is my belief that you should test them.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    xc0mmiexIn "Measured Test Results", first chart, temperature over ambient in degrees Celsius... even at freezing temperature of 0C, CPU would be at 67+ C.... i think its a little too toasty so there gotta be a mistake in there somewhere; wrong unit or mathNo, it's an overclocked Core i7 at eight threads of Prime95, if you find those numbers shocking you're thinking of the wrong CPU.
    falchardI think in cases more people are looking at aesthetics and ruggedness over temps and acoustics as nearly all cases have acceptable values. When it comes to this NZXT and Rosewill have really seperated themselves from other cases under $50.These are basically $40 cases in this article. Two of the cases in the review are already far better than this one:
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-computer-case,2579-5.html
    That is to say, two of these $40 cases are vastly superior to that $100 case. So you can say what you like, but words alone will not convince me.
    Reply
  • grossemesser
    Why in blazes you did NOT include in this... comparison the amazingly incredible HAF 922??? Its way better than any of these and costs only $90 Plenty of space, cable management space and of course AIRFLOW! it even has slots in the door so you can fit one big or two small fans... Anyways what can i say, you should have included it

    ... ummm sorry didn't get the WITH POWER part hehe... well i can just add that this is a great case and it is worth saving up the extra bucks for the added money you'll have to pay for the PSU
    Reply