Smart Home Blog

nMediaPC offers to HTPC enthusiasts and professional installers absolute special case – HTPC 8000. It’s completely wooden. Just has a metal plate on the front. The case is suitable for ATX and Micro ATX motherboards and offers four 3.5″ and one 5.25” bays. Up to seven full size expansion cards can be installed in the HTPC 8000. To chill equipment inside it’s used 140mm case fan. The front panel hosts optical drive door, VFD display (optional), e-SATA, HD Audio, couple USB ports and card reader. And, thank goodness, there is no any blinding lights there!

The HTPC 8000 is too big to fit into ordinary A/V stand – 500mm(W) X 365mm(H) X 280mm(D). But the stylish antique red wood design helps to integrate it into your interior. I’d like to mention that case is not a concept for some exhibition. You can buy it just for $120! Moreover, the wooden case makes less noise than ordinary metal one.

Not sure that I’d buy the wooden HTPC 8000. But it can be right choice for some non hi-tech interiors.

HTPC case AVC-S1 produced by Korean company GMC doesn’t look like a PC at all. It supports Micro ATX motherboards. The aluminum front panel of AVC-S1 sports 16 X 2 VFD display, menu navigation jog button and enter button. Detachable internal 3.5″ drive cage allows to install HDD easily. The AVC-S1 has four expansion slots for low profile cards. Additionally it can be equiped with IR receiver and remote control.

The price of the GMC AVC-S1 is about €150 which is very reasonable for such kind of HTPC cases. By some reason GMC products are not available in Europe but I found a lot offers in Russia. It looks a strange a bit for me.

American company A-Tech Fabrication offers interesting cases for HTPC and NAS. The stylish aluminium cases include integrated HeatSync cooling system for CPU and video card. That system uses side panels as radiator. So, it doesn’t need coolers with fan. Also, cases are equiped by HDD Isolation System to eliminate noise from vibrations.

The price is not so cheap as we’d like :). For example, the price of the case on the picture is $749 + additional options.

P. S. I was really surprised when I found the suggested dimensions for the expansion cards to use with A-Tech Fabrication’s cases. Usually the proper hardware can be found by testing only.

Recently I found that Silverstone case – Milo ML02MXR Multimedia MoDT Slim HTPC / Desktop Case. It’s shipped with fanless 120W Power Supply, multilanguage LCD, IR, remote control and iMON media center software. It’s situated for Micro ATX, Mini-ITX and DTX motherboards. It’s slim (just 82mm tall) and stylish but not cheap – $249.99. Anyway, I hope that you’ll get exactly what you pay when you decide to buy it.

floppyhead.com offers three nice-looking HTPC cases with a price less than $100:

• nMediaPC HTPC 100 Silver Steel ($99). A microATX case that is rated as being only 38 decibals.

• Antec Fusion ($95). Being 17.5″ wide, this case would look great with other stereo equipment. It has two internal drive bays for hard drives.

• nMediaPC HTPC-200 ($99.99). This case is also a microATX case. Many reviews indicate that you should use a DVD drive that is shorter in length from a manuafacturer like Lite-on or Benq.

Note that all prices are from Newegg.com on November 21, 2006.

The only one very important (IMHO) feature is not presented in those cases. This is an IR receiver. This means that you have to use some external IR receiver to control your HTPC via remote. I don’t like this. In my mind, it’s better when it’s built-in. For example, into VDF display. But anyway, one of those cases is definitely good option to build home HTPC.
[via PVR Wire]