The beauty of the Mini-ITX platform is that it enables case designers to arrange all the various different components into chassis in vastly different ways. This means that many different shapes of Mini-ITX cases can make sense, whereas for Micro-ATX or ATX cases, a tower design only really ever works. Over the last two years, a guy named Ray started working on his own chassis, the Inverse case, and a few days ago it finally made it to its launch on Indiegogo.
The Inverse case features a wide but slim design, and it's built around a “sandwich” principle. The steel internal chassis of the case splits in two, and you can mount components on each side, after which you sandwich them together. After that, you simply re-apply the aluminum external panels to complete the build, and that’s it.
Following a minimalist style, the outside has no branding or logos that you’re immediately aware of–only the front of the case has "Inverse" written in Braille and mirrored (because Inverse). Even the power button is hidden underneath the front I/O at the bottom of the chassis to maintain a clean appearance.
Next to the Mini-ITX motherboard, inside the chassis there is room for a handful of different hardware configurations. These range from accommodating a full-size dual slot graphics card (it ships with the required PCIe riser cable) along with a 240mm liquid cooling radiator, to housing a bunch of hard drives so you can build a media server. The choice is yours. However, consider that in going down one route, you’ll sacrifice another, so do study the case well before deciding on which hardware to purchase for it.
The Inverse case measures 72 x 464 x 308.5mm (HxWxD) and has a total size of 10 liters, which is roughly two liters more compact than the smallest Mini-ITX cases that house similar amounts of hardware. Even so, because of its narrow design, it’ll fit right underneath your monitor or sleekly on the side of your desk using a stand (although Ray doesn’t know how much the stand will cost yet).
If you’re quick, you can grab an Inverse case in black or silver for $129 plus shipping, but once the first 100 are sold, the price will go up to $149. That may seem a little steep, but considering the materials used, ease of building, and prices of other custom Kickstarter-type Mini-ITX cases, it’s actually not too shabby.
