James C. Liu's Weblog

Thursday April 10, 2008

A head case over 2 Antec cases

"Too many cases." That's what I thought when I walked into my garage. But I'd like to get more of the right cases.

My latest case obsessions

Last Friday, Fry's had a sale on the new Antec Minuet 350. Regularly, $90, they had them on sale for $70. I already went and checked out the Sunnyvale store. Only the older minuet 300 left. Maybe more coming. But Palo Alto store had two left and I bought them both. This is my new favourite case; this new Minuet 350 now includes a 80+ certified power-supply with active PFC. While efficiency isn't 80+% down below 60 Watts, it's still quite a bit better than lots of cheap power supplies bundled with a case. Plus, because of the efficiency, less waste heat means quieter and cooler PC. It's a low-profile desktop case that only takes low-pro add-on cards, and micro-ATX motherboards, but that's perfect for me, since I've got a lot of microATX and mini-ITX boards.

The sale on the minuet 350 looks like it ended Tuesday, but I would expect it to happen again in the next couple of months and I'm ready to buy a couple more. When I do the calculation on savings over just 1 year for a system I leave on all the time, a good rule is to price it at $2/Watt saved per year. I've put the same board into a cheap case/PSU before and typically have been surprised that the total system eats 75 watts. But in an efficient case/PSU, the total draw is just 50 watts. If I save 25Watts on average, that's $50/yr!. That pays for the difference in just one year over a cheaper case. Makes lots of economic sense to me.

For the folks who want a bigger box to hold full sized/full height option cards, a sale I'd look out for would be the Antel NSK-4480 and NSK-4480B. (Latter one is a black version of the same case). Both are quiet cases and come with an earthwatts 380 PSU, also 80+ certified. And I picked up 2 of these at Fry's in the last few months for just $49.99. Regularly, they're around $89.99, still a great deal, because you'll save money as well and enjoy lower noise.

What to do with the old cases?

I have quite a few cool-n-quiet cases still new-in-box and for a hoarder like me, it's a great feeling. But computer cases are a lot bigger than fishing tackle, so the shelf space they're occupying is very conspicuous and running out. As a volunteer teacher for a Grade 3 - 5 PC building class, I'm actually seriously thinking about giving away the computers at the end of the class. Only, while I do stock a lot of parts, I don't quite have 15 - 20 systems to give away twice a year. But the kids do always ask on the first day if they get to keep the computers. I'm just not sure what a 3rd grader is going to do with a Solaris box. Anyone out there want to help write a bunch of educational software or port EDU software to Solaris? April 10, 2008 10:25 AM PDT Permalink