Computer Case Styles

Computers come in two main case styles – the tower, and the desktop. The tower is designed to sit on the floor while the desktop is flatter and designed to sit on a desk.

A tower case is much bigger so it is able to hold more drives. There are three main tower case sizes.

The full tower is the largest and stands 2 to 3 feet high. It can hold lots of drives and comes with a larger power supply that is capable of running these additional drives. The full size tower has lots of room for expansion and because it’s such a roomy case it has excellent cooling.

The mid size tower case is the same width as the full tower but somewhat shorter measuring 1 ½ to 2 feet tall and it’s roomier than a desk case but still a good size to place on the desk.

The Mini tower is the smallest of the tower cases and does not have as much room for extra drives but it also doesn’t take up a great deal of space. It measures around 17 inches tall and 8 inches wide.

The tower cases are the most popular style of cases they are often recommended by microprocessor manufactures because they are better able to dissipate the heat generated by the computer. However there is still a demand for desktop cases as well.

The desktop case easily fits on a desk and to save desk space you just put the monitor on top. It’s space saving design is very popular however it’s biggest disadvantage is it doesn’t have adequate cooling and the disks are often installed sideways in order to fit which works but isn’t an ideal installation.

Which ever style of case you choose it has been built with a form facto” built into them. This means that they’ve already been designed to fit the appropriate motherboard. The slots on the back of the cases as well as where the power supply goes varies depending on the style.

There are generally two main forms that are used. They are called the Baby AT and the ATX. The Baby AT is modeled off of the original IBM AT design but it’s smaller. To use this style of case the board must be an AT style motherboard and power supply.

The ATX is the newer design which was released by Intel. To date it’s not mainstream but it has been growing in popularity. In this style case the openings are built to align with an ATX style motherboard and power supply. The ATX power supply is actually designed to be controlled by software. There are other bells and whistles or as Intel calls them advancements built into the ATX case. The end result is a fancier case that costs considerably more.

All computer cases have a reset button and a power switch but the power switches do come in a variety of styles including toggle and push button styles.

Many of the cases also come with a turbo button but by today’s standards this button is obsolete. The majority of people think that pushing the turbo button speeds up the computer but actually it’s quite the opposite. Pushing the turbo button slows down the speed of the computer so that some of the older programs that couldn’t cope with the speed were able to run. Modern software is much more sophisticated than this because it is able to detect the system speed and run appropriately.

Some cases also have a security feature called a key lock. When the lock is turned on the keyboard becomes disabled. This is also become a rather extinct function since one can now use screensavers and a host of other methods to secure their computer.

So when all is said and done there are really only two computer case styles to choose from – tower or desktop. Which will it be?

Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.