Computer Case Accessories

The computer case has undergone a lot of modifications over the years, but a few things never changed. When the first ATX motherboard was developed by Intel in 1995, dimension and cabling standards were set that still stand today, 15 years later. A full size ATX board measures 30.5 cm × 24.4 cm, so a computer case that supports ATX motherboards will support all smaller formats derived from ATX, such as the mATX 24.4 cm  x 24.4 cm, mini-ITX and others.

In 2009 Intel tried to introduce a new standard that’s basically the mirroring of ATX, it’s called BTX. It didn’t quite catch on because it doesn’t really offer any advantages over the format designed back in 1995. To date only a few manufacturers adopted the BTX format for their factory-built systems. Coincidence or not, this way the user can’t change the motherboard of the computer, because only ATX boards are available in stores, so it means some extra profit for the manufacturer’s repair shops.

Most computer case accessories have to do with cooling. The curse of all electronics is that they generate a lot of heat. Without going into details, theoretically almost every application of electronic components is very inefficient. A big part of the power needed for electronic circuits and chips leave in the form of heat, so we can conclude that most of the power isn’t used to get the required result from the circuit, it is simply wasted while it is traveling over mile-long inefficient conductors in the (integrated) circuit.

Although technologies are significantly improving every year, manufacturers didn’t commit to reduce the power consumption of computer hardware to improve efficiency. Instead they agreed upon keeping a power consumption limit for specific components. A desktop processor can consume maximum 140Watts, a graphics card up to 400Watts, an optical drive up to 35Watts … and so on.

The sad part of these applied theories is that computer case accessories can’t keep up with the fast development of other computer hardware parts. The biggest problem is caused by the graphics card, because manufacturers raised the maximum power limit in the last few years, while at first it was only around 40Watts for AGP slot cards. Computer case structure didn’t change that much over the years, but now it has to handle about 10 times more heat.

The single GPU card nVidia Geforce GTX 480 didn’t have a chance with its 250Watt power requirement. As the picture shows temperature goes up to 97 degrees Celsius, not even the biggest case fans can deal with such a heat source.

Manufacturers have even gone to extremes, making one side of the case from a huge fan, but even these noisy extreme solutions can’t cool down a 250-400Watt card by more than a couple of degrees.

Smaller and less powerful systems are the future, which can operate with the smallest coolers, for example the Pentium & Celeron Dual Core processor families E1xxx, E2xxx, E3xxx, E5xxx and E6xxx (or any Athlon II or Phenom II with 45-65Watt TDP), combined with an ATI Radeon 4xxx series card up to 4670 (that doesn’t require extra power cords). Such a configuration might actually function properly with passive cooling on the CPU and GPU, and with only one slow&quiet fan in the power supply that takes out the hot air.

In conclusion you save a lot of money and power if you choose a moderate PC configuration, while buying high-end stuff always leads to heavy electric bills and hundreds of dollars spent on expensive cooling system (possibly even refrigerator-based).

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