Cooler Master Elite 110
Great airflow comes at the cost of noise pollution.
At a mere 50 bucks, this is one of the most affordable cases on the market. That’s probably because there isn’t a whole lot of material used in its construction. Rather than having solid side and top panels, it uses mesh instead, which allows for a huge leap in airflow. Conversely, it also allows all of those various fan noises bounce right out without any hindrance, so it’s not so great if you want a silent PC that’s packing several noisy fans. It comes with a single 120mm fan at the front, but has space for two more 80mm fans at the rear, or even a 120mm radiator at the front.
This cubic case can only squeeze a mini-ITX motherboard inside, so forget about micro-ATX. Due to the small size, you’ll have to go for a smaller graphics card, as it’s limited to a maximum graphics card length of just 21cm, not big enough for the highest end cards. Your CPU cooler must also be no taller than 7.6cm, which isn’t too much of an issue. All of the external ports are on the left side, including twin USB 3.0 Type A, and audio in and out via 3.5mm minijacks. Despite the small size, it can fit an ATX PSU inside, which makes shopping around for a power supply that much easier. There’s room for three 3.5-inch drives, or two 3.5-inch drives and three SSDs, or four SSDs if you’d like to stick with an all solid-state storage system.
This is a very simple case, reflected by the price and lack of configurability. But if you’re looking for a cheap media box that will only be running a low-speed CPU with quiet fan, it could be just what your inner couch potato ordered.
Verdict
There’s nothing fancy about this case, but it’s a nice price basis for a simple media or productivity box.