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Designing a new case, input requested

H

hegulator

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 27, 2005
Messages
302
Hi,

I've been lurking here for a little while now, and just recently signed up. I'm a senior mechanical engineering student at UW-Platteville, and for one of my design classes, my group will be designing a new mid-tower case from the ground up. At this point, we're just at the brainstorming stage. I have a lot of ideas of my own, but i'm sure there are a lot of people on here with a lot more experience with different cases than I do.

So what i'm asking for is any suggestions and input into thing you love about certain cases, things you hate, must-haves, pet peeves, etc. Anything that bugs you about cases, any feature you really wish more cases had, anything.

I'll probably start a seperate thread in worklogs if/when we actually start the design process, but i'll update this thread with ideas I am serious about until then.

I appreciate any input and bumps! Thanks! :)
 
1) Ease of use - For me a case needs to be very easy to get into and to swap hardware out. Motherboard trays are a big plus, but really I would love to see some extreme cable management built into cases such that everything is extremely easy to remove. An extreme example: let's say you want to take out your hard drive, simply pull it out, the connections are fastened to the case and when you slide a hard drive back into the rails it will make the connections. You could take this idea as far as you care to, but this is a big thing for me.
2) Build quality - There are a lot of cases out there which suffer from poor build quality. make sure you have angle brackets in corners for example, fold edges to avoid nasty cuts, and so on
3) Aesthetics - depends on your personal taste. for me simple is beautiful. i hate the pre-mod fad that is going on right now
4) Airflow, airflow, airflow... make sure you have really good airflow, you may even want to compartmentalize the various components (PSU and HDDs in one compartment, everything else in another compartment for example)
5) Noise - this goes along with airflow, really. I suggest using larger fans, 92 or 120mm, and setting them on low speeds such that you have decent airflow with little to no noise. Panaflo, among some other companies, make good quiet fans.

I'm quite tired so that's about all you're going to get out of me at least for now :)
 
Thanks for the input.
1) This is definitally going to be part of the design. Having been frustrated with poor mounting hole placement, poor PSU mountings that interfear with cpu HSFs, among other things. I have a few ideas in this reguard already. One is using more slots for optical and hard drive mounting, give you better control over positioning. I'd like to take this farther and come up with a better mounting idea than just the standard screws, though.

2) Folded/protected edges are definitally a must. Last build i did out of a cheap powermax midtower left my fingers with half a dozen cuts and a few drops of blood on a few components.

3) Aesthetics is a tough one, since everybody has wildly different tastes. I'll probably end up going with a simple design, a la lian-li, just for ease of design/manufacture, but I'll try to put some subtle styling in it at least. One thing I was considering was built-in drive stealthing. Having all of the 5.25" bays covered with flip-up covers and a mechinism to allow basically any tray optical drive to be mounted behind the cover and function as stealthed. I'm not sure if this is really feasable, or desirable, though.

4&5) You brought up a good point with the bigger fans. I'm also considering a re/movable hard drive cage that can mount in a few different locations in the case, to take airflow into consideration for people who are going to fill the rack with a RAID array. I'll definitally shoot for as many 120mm fan mounts as possible. I'm also thinking of having it come with some panflow or other high-quality fans pre-mounted.

Keep 'em coming! :)
 
the "slide in" hardware thing, i have been wanting for years. thats a MUST. i want to see cases that have compartments in them that are hidden where you can run wiring and stuff. have holes in the mobo tray pre-cut so you can stick a SATA cable through them,etc. lots of fans @ 120mm or 92mm. if you will have fans mounted in the front of the case, i want that area to be a cage that can be taken out for cleaning. in my wave master the two 80mms that i ahve in the front are uber dusty, but iam not in the mood to unscew the entire case to get in there. its a pain in the neck. i like that stealthed idea. cases should come with those in the first place. but companies like cooler master, make them optional. both of my optical drives are black so i dont need the front bezels. well hiden USB 2.0s,firewire,headphone jack, mic jack in the front of the case is also a plus. but i dont want some door in the front of the case. it should be a small push panel, thats hard to see.
 
The on problem I can foresee with "slide-in" type mounting things, is that it might limit the flexability in mounting if you have hard wire points for the IDE/SATA connection and power connection. I had a case once where you screwed the drive to some plastic mouting railes, then just slid it into the bay and it "locked" in, and the way you got your adjustment was by changing how you mounted the rails to it. The problem with that is that whenever you want to change the mounting position, you have to pull the drive fully out, then change the rail position, then put it back in. I remember that making it hard to get a good alignment with the front of the case, since you couldn't adjust it while it was in the case very well. I'm sure there's some good solutions to that problem, though.

I'm probably going to design the mobo tray around wire managment. I never understood why more thought was never put into this. I'm considering doing a very minimal tray... maybe just some very stiff cross-members where the mounting holes are, and some kind of plate behind where a CPU socket would be, but trying to leave as much open as possible for wire managment. Hopefully i'll also include some good built in wire managment, but i'm not quite sure what i'd do for that yet.
 
chronic9 said:
i want to see cases that have compartments in them that are hidden where you can run wiring
Click to expand...

This may be the wrong thread to put it in, since this is getting to more electrical than mechanical engineering. But seeing all the modular no-wire PSUs coming out recently, and Sunbeam's new 1-to-4 Molex "power strip" (despite its hideous 3-color lighting and amoeba-shape), I've been thinking of a "power bus".

Think about it: if you have an entertainment system where the nearest outlet is 10' down the wall, do you run the TV, DVD, amp, CD changer, and turntable power cables all to the outlet individually? No! You get a power strip (usually surge protected) and run one good thick power cable.

Basically, use a permanently mounted 3- or 4- core wire of really low gauge that terminates right at the front of your PSU cage or tray with a female jack. Then it runs along the top edge of the case (maybe even in a rolled metal edge "tube", but worst case it could be ziptied).

When it gets to the back of the drive cages (either size) it runs down the right-hand or left-hand side (not sure which yet) of the outside of the cage (again, maybe inside some kind of conduit) with a male plug coming off it at each bay location. Ideally, these plugs would be somehow hard-mounted to the conduit with some kind of bracket, but even just hanging there would work.

Thus, you'd just have to ship the case with a bunch of 3"-5" long Molex male-to-female pigtails. Make sure to include one low-gauge one to connect to the modular PSU. The others can be thinner for flexibility. Basically you'd have an almost entirely pre-hidden wiring system (except for any video card power). Don't forget to pre-wire conduits for the fans, preferably on a separate circuit for those PSUs with temp-controlled 12v-only fan rail!
 
Having slot mounted (screwless) hardware points would be a huge plus, especially if it was as modular as possible, eg someone with one optical drive and one HDD being able to mount them next to each other at the top (or middle or bottom) of the case. Even to the point of being able to move where the on/off/reset buttons are located. I'm envisioning a case sitting on a high shelf and with the optical drives at the bottom of the case for access.

Definitely keep the PSU out of the way of the HSF as much as possible. I like the HDD/PSUs in a separate compartment with their own intake fan (PSU handles the exhaust.) Perhaps some sort of coating to reduce vibration/noise. Silence is golden.

Removable motherboard tray and a second side door (for those that still run cables under the mobo).

Definitely clips/mounts for cabling and even a WC reservoir--might even want to design that so a leaky reservoir will drip on anything but those expensive electronic thingies inside the case. ;)

Easy access to PSU/RAM/PCI etc.

Aesthetics? Um, how about black? Heh. Depends on what you're going for, a good grade, functionality or 'pretty'.
 
Othersider:
It's a mechanical engineering class, but something like a powerstrip wouldn't be too tough, really. Mechanical engineers have a bit of an electrical backround, too, generally.
The idea of a built-in "powerstrip" is very appealing to me. The only issue I envision with this is people without modular PSU's. Personally, i've never built a system with one, so I don't have a lot of experience with them, but I know plenty poeple use them. It would be interesting to see how many people (percentage wise) actually have them. It would be a bit useless to have a built-in "powerstrip" without a modular PSU, I would think, since if you had a non-modular PSU, the only way I can see a powerstrip like that working is just plugging one of the 12v molex connectors into the powerstrip header, which would lead to pulling too much current through one little line from the PSU. Correct me if i'm wrong, but the way I see it working with a modular PSU is plugging a header from this built-in powerstrip right into a plug on the PSU? How much can you actually run off one of these plugs? How many PSU plugs are there for the 12v line on a typical modular PSU? Pardon my ignorance with modular PSUs, i'll have to take a good look at some of them.

As far as fans go, I think it would be pretty easy to have lines already run (and hidden, of course) from the PSU cage to the fan mount points. The problem I see with that approach is where to put all the extra wire from the fans, since the plug would be right by the cage, there would be all that extra wire just sitting there. I could mount a small compartment/tiedown by the fan mount points for that, though.

Eggrock:
Can you explain more of what you mean with the "second side door" for running cables under the mobo? Are you talking about running cables between the motherboard and the tray? Where would the second side door be located?
Also, when I said slot mounted, I was just refering to the optical drive cage having 2 parallel slots to screw into for mounting, rather than the handful of holes you have to line up in most cases. What do you mean by screwless?
The modular thing is what i'd like to shoot for, but i'm not sure if I could do something like put the optical drive mounts on the bottom, since i'd have to have front covers on the top and bottom of the case then. I suppose it's possible... not sure how good it would look, though.
 
Hrrm... innovative features...

The Stacker has a bunch of the more recent ones - perforated frontpanel, 4x3 fanned drivecages (I want to kiss the engineer that came up with those), ATX->BTX conversion.

Definitely a sliding mobotray, front USB/mic/headphone/firewire, some sort of cable management system[harass some of the better examples in the cable management thread for details], an integrated large handle (that can be grasped with one hand), fan management.

And another one: I've recently fallen in love with the idea of drive suspension via elastic cord, I was thinking you could build this into a case by putting two [not solid, perforated or just a cage] plates on either side of the 3.5" drive.

Magnets where possible, for door close/open, etc, and make as much as possible of the case tool-less (thumbscrews are your friend).

Material will take some consideration - ideally probably a mix of aluminum and steel.
 
hegulator said:
Othersider:
It's a mechanical engineering class, but something like a powerstrip wouldn't be too tough, really. Mechanical engineers have a bit of an electrical backround, too, generally.
The idea of a built-in "powerstrip" is very appealing to me. The only issue I envision with this is people without modular PSU's. Personally, i've never built a system with one, so I don't have a lot of experience with them, but I know plenty poeple use them. It would be interesting to see how many people (percentage wise) actually have them. It would be a bit useless to have a built-in "powerstrip" without a modular PSU, I would think, since if you had a non-modular PSU, the only way I can see a powerstrip like that working is just plugging one of the 12v molex connectors into the powerstrip header, which would lead to pulling too much current through one little line from the PSU. Correct me if i'm wrong, but the way I see it working with a modular PSU is plugging a header from this built-in powerstrip right into a plug on the PSU? How much can you actually run off one of these plugs? How many PSU plugs are there for the 12v line on a typical modular PSU? Pardon my ignorance with modular PSUs, i'll have to take a good look at some of them.

As far as fans go, I think it would be pretty easy to have lines already run (and hidden, of course) from the PSU cage to the fan mount points. The problem I see with that approach is where to put all the extra wire from the fans, since the plug would be right by the cage, there would be all that extra wire just sitting there. I could mount a small compartment/tiedown by the fan mount points for that, though.
Click to expand...

Well, you could just spec it for modular PSUs only. Far more proprietary things have been done and gotten away with. Alternately, you could leave room for an optional clip-on clip-off "cable slack stowage box" directly in front of the PSU. If it kept dimensions in-line with the PSU cage, it might even look better as a permanent emplacement, even with a modular PSU.

Use the same idea with your fan cages; make them a tiny bit taller than the fan and that's where you shove the slack wire to hide it.

If you find that it's pulling too much from 1 of the 12v & 5v rail pairs, you could always run a second 4-conductor in the same conduit to a second connector on the PSU and use it to power, say, the bottom half of the power strip.
 
I've always loved a few things about the Antec/Cheiftec/etc cases that make it really easy to install some components. The rail system for the drives is great, the removeable cages for the hdd's with the fan pop-in adaptors is phenomenal. If you're not familiar with that stuff, check it out here.

While I also like the idea of the wire management, I'm not sure how much of that you'll be able to do, while keeping everyone happy. You know how much fun that can be!! :p

Maybe having a method where you could put a cable clip easily in various places, where you want something like that to hold your wiring? If you can add them where you want, and move them around easily, that might be the easiest way. Dunno.....worth a thought.

One thing I'd like to see is removeable stamped fan grills. So many cases have the fan grills stamped into the metal of the case, and for your average joe, that's just fine. But how many of us have cursed those same stamped grills, and wished the case manufacturers would stop doing that, and just put a darn fan hole there?? So why not make it so that the stamped grill is only held in place by 4 (or 6, or 8....who knows?) thin metal pieces that can be easily snipped off to remove it??? For the "average joe", they can keep the stamped fan grill in place, and be fat, dumb and happy. For the modders, a minute's time with a wire cutter, and that stupid thing is gone, without having to break out the hole saw (tin snips, dremel, etc). Now that would be awesome!! :cool:
 
so thats what you go to school to do? I build cases and dont pay for school, do I get a degree? noooooooo :D
 
It is good to get a designer to ask what the enthusiast wants, and not have the designer tell us what we want :)
 
Ahhh but the people may have never thought of a computer, this is what happens when Bill Gates shoves the new Windows era down our throats and we gladly accept it. That's the people adapting to the designer's wants. :D

-J.
 
Well, I was a computer gamer/modder/builder before I was ever a designer. I just want to bring my passion for computers and my passion for design together. Makes design projects a lot easier when you're designing something you like and want to design.

Since this is for a class, it's not like this is something I have to market and make money off, either, which makes things a lot easier. ;)
 
how about a spherical case? i haven't seen one designed yet... unless that totally different from what you want. i suggest round becuse every case i see is primarily rectangular. i could design one in cad but i wouldn't have the time to build one.
i'm a cad/designer (non-licensed architect) at an Arch firm now, but i used to love my design classes. we designed glass houses and buildings that were 8 feet wide, ahhh good times.

if you look at Apple now, you would know that the reason their hot now is because of their simple streamlined designs. :rolleyes:
 
Well, granted the streamlined designs like the iMacs and such do sell well, and people like them, that's not really the market i'm after. I'm going to keep the rectangular, mid-tower style because I think it's just the best shape for the components that go in it, honestly. From what i've gathered, most people's computer desks and office layouts nowdays are basically geared around a midtower going somewhere.

Not to mention something spherical or a complicated external design would be hard to fabricate and machine. I'd like to keep that aspect of it fairly simple.

Thanks for the input, though!
 
Well i bought what i think is the best case on the market currently the Chenbro Gaming Bomb 2. The GB2 might not look it, but it's one of the biggest cases on the market, identical in size to the CM Stacker.

Other than the features of the GB2, the things I would design into the "perfect case" would be:

(1) DUAL 120mm fans front and rear.
(2) It would have a large removeable motherboard tray with a "bottom" so that you could mount your entire watercooling rig, including your dual 120mm radiator to the back of the tray, your pump and resevoir to the bottom of the tray.
Thus being able to pull the whole thing out at one time.
(3) Dual PSU capability.

The only problem is this would be a very large case, not as mid tower, a full tower over 27" high.
 
CAD OC'er said:
if you look at Apple now, you would know that the reason their hot now is because of their simple streamlined designs. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...


Apple sucks. They hardly put anything into design. How many idiots does it take to come up with those designs really?

I could out design them as for as case building goes :D
 
hegulator said:
Well, granted the streamlined designs like the iMacs and such do sell well, and people like them, that's not really the market i'm after. I'm going to keep the rectangular, mid-tower style because I think it's just the best shape for the components that go in it, honestly. From what i've gathered, most people's computer desks and office layouts nowdays are basically geared around a midtower going somewhere.

Not to mention something spherical or a complicated external design would be hard to fabricate and machine. I'd like to keep that aspect of it fairly simple.

Thanks for the input, though!
Click to expand...

blasphemy! fabrication is what its all about. Making a regular case just lumps you in with the rest of the case manufacturers.
 
Qtip42 said:
Apple sucks. They hardly put anything into design. How many idiots does it take to come up with those designs really?

I could out design them as for as case building goes :D
Click to expand...

It takes one person with the right mind.
 
"It is good to get a designer to ask what the enthusiast wants, and not have the designer tell us what we want"

I disagree. Such a restriction would stifle innovation. I believe it is the designers duty to show us what we want...we may not realize it at first with many a good design...but to suggest otherwise suggests that the consumer knows more about case design than the designer...this is not always the case. Features need to be invented and tested. For instance, all the criteria listed above are very "mainstream". Good Flow, Good accessability, quiet, dual 120mm fans front and back, looks, removable mobo tray, etc. That $1000 Zalman case has neither good airflow, nor ease of installation, no removable mobo tray, no 120mm fans all over...but it is an engineering feat that kicks @$$. Be open minded. There may be more than one way to make this work.

I, personally, would love to see a zalman-like case where instead of heatpipes, the case body is still a heatsink/radiator, but with a water-cooling setup built into the case. A res built into the top panel, passive radiators on the side panels/doors, and a pump hidden in some corner. Fans? Nah, just passive venting out of the top through modder's mesh. Build that, and you would be the first. Removable mobo tray...who cares. I use it like once or twice, and then thats it. Who wants to have to unplug everything just to swap out ram. A case with fold away top, bottom, and front panels (like some of the old dells and apples) would be nicer. Imagine being able to 'unfold' your entire case flat on a table with multiple hinges so the whole thing is easy to work on.
 
These are all very good ideas and points being brought up.

undertheradar:
That's a very good point, and I agree with it to a large extent. Obviously, a designer does want input from the target market, but that's not necessarily defining the design, just input into functionality... at least that's how I take it. I'd love to come up with a breakthrough in design, but I have a few limitations in that reguard. I do only have a single semester to go through the entire design process on this, and it is a mechanical design class, so things that rely very heavily on thermodynamics might not make it in. A pre-installed watercooling setup is still a possibility i'm considering, though. I honestly haven't put that much thought into details of the design, yet, since we still haven't finalized what direction we're going to go with this project, yet. The professor hasn't made it clear yet if we're going to have to produce a working, "shelf-quality," or any other kind of prototype yet, so that is going to have a big impact on how we design the case. Being a poor college student, I couldn't exactly afford to drop a lot of money to manufacture something that I may think is a very good design idea.

Obviously, though, I don't want to make "just another case." I want to have a unique, innovative design. This sunday the design group and myself are meeting to finalize the direction we're going to take, so I'll start posting some more spacific ideas of mine to toss around then.

Thanks for all the input so far! Having a community like this is a big help.
 
Admittedly, I only took a quick look over the other posts and cooling with 120mm fans and being able to take off the fan grills have come up more than a couple times. Howerver, I dont remember anyone talking about good air intake / grille on the bezel. I hate having to dremel the bottom plastic edge of a crappy cases bezel (after removing the fangrill from inside the case) to help inprove air flow. The Antec Super Lanboy has a decent intake. Also there are the chenming/chieftec cases that have a good front grill.

One more thought... Rubber gromets all around for hard drives and fans to lower vibration.

PS: *no* floppy drive mount =)
 
Rune75 said:
Admittedly, I only took a quick look over the other posts and cooling with 120mm fans and being able to take off the fan grills have come up more than a couple times. Howerver, I dont remember anyone talking about good air intake / grille on the bezel. I hate having to dremel the bottom plastic edge of a crappy cases bezel (after removing the fangrill from inside the case) to help inprove air flow. The Antec Super Lanboy has a decent intake. Also there are the chenming/chieftec cases that have a good front grill.

One more thought... Rubber gromets all around for hard drives and fans to lower vibration.

PS: *no* floppy drive mount =)
Click to expand...

I'm definitally with you on a real intake. I hate that in cases... so few have any sort of decent intake. Built-in rubber washers on the drive mout holes and fan mount holes would be a great idea for sound dampening.

I'm not going to nix the 3.5" external bays, though. People use them for other things besides floppys, anyway.
 
hegulator said:
I'm not going to nix the 3.5" external bays, though. People use them for other things besides floppys, anyway.
Click to expand...
True, but if I were designing a case, I'd drop the 3.5 inch bays, and put a couple of extra 5 1/4 bays in their place and use bay convertors.
I think that would look much cleaner, and be easier to construct since bay convertors are easily available as an aftermarket item.
If someone isn't using the 3.5 bays, they're just wasted space, whereas 5 1/4 bays can be used for lots of other things.
 
i'd say take the basic layout of a lian-li, but with a 120mm exhaust and 120mm intake standard. be sure and make it a WTX . removable harddrive cage, nix the 3.5" cage. keep the PSU where it is, and holes in certain parts for routing cables easily. ouh and a case plug in for the fans, that is so you can plug the PSU into basically the case itself, and the case now has power for fan cables and etc. as far as finishing touches, rounded edges on the outside. and SILENT. another thing i'd like to see, limit the 5.25" bays to two, and put another 120mm fan in there. thus having 2 120mm fan intakes, and 1 120mm exhaust by the CPU. this way, b/c of the flipped ATX, the video is still getting adequate airflow. (this, assuming that video cards start having exhausts themselves.
 
hegulator said:
I'm not going to nix the 3.5" external bays, though. People use them for other things besides floppys, anyway.
Click to expand...
Ok... But just dont *call* it an external floppy bay... How about Multimedia Card Reader Bay or the like? heh

Oh and those cases that have that cheap stench about them with the little flip down cdrom covers a'la new HP cases, please dont =)
 
Rune75 said:
Ok... But just dont *call* it an external floppy bay... How about Multimedia Card Reader Bay or the like? heh

Oh and those cases that have that cheap stench about them with the little flip down cdrom covers a'la new HP cases, please dont =)
Click to expand...

Heh, alright, i'll call them "externally exposed 3.5" multimedia expansion slots" :D
 
Eggrock:
Can you explain more of what you mean with the "second side door" for running cables under the mobo? Are you talking about running cables between the motherboard and the tray? Where would the second side door be located?
Also, when I said slot mounted, I was just refering to the optical drive cage having 2 parallel slots to screw into for mounting, rather than the handful of holes you have to line up in most cases. What do you mean by screwless?
Click to expand...

Second side door: A door on the right side of the case (as viewed from the front) so people can get at the back side of the mobo/tray to route cables.

Screwless HDD mounts: http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027171975&postcount=12 <----like he said, rails (or somesuch). Snap on, snap off. No screws (well, the rails would need to be screwed onto the HDD I guess.)

The modular thing is what i'd like to shoot for, but i'm not sure if I could do something like put the optical drive mounts on the bottom, since i'd have to have front covers on the top and bottom of the case then. I suppose it's possible... not sure how good it would look, though.
Click to expand...

Dunno if that would look good or not but the concept should be basic enough. The front of the case would have a number of plates that compose the entire cover when snapped into place. Eg. one 'plate' would be the cover for an optical drive, another with the power/reset buttons mounted on it, and so on. Snap on, snap off, and arrange them at will. The cages for HDDs/optical drives etc. would have to be moveable as well. (Probably not a very useful idea overall, I admit.)
 
Yeah, I see what you mean now with the 'screwless' mounting rails. I built a system with a case that had those once. I found them more of a hassle than anything, since you had to screw the rails to the drive, anyway. I didn't see it really doing me any good.

The idea of the movable plates sounds pretty good now that you explained it more. That's definitally something to think about.

Thanks!
 
The first thing I want in a case is high-quality, but quiet cooling. 120mm fan mounts are a big plus, so that it's easy to mount quiet but reasonable cooling, such as the Vantec Stealth 120mm fans. It'd also be good to design filters which allow a user to prevent a system from getting messy on the inside, but can be removed and cleaned easily. Make sure that the ratio of air entering/leaving the case is the same for good ventilation, and ensure that hot air exhausted from the CPU heatsink/fan is quickly directed out the back of the case.

Ease of mounting hardware is a must. This includes a removable mainboard tray, even better if the tray can be removed without having to remove expansion cards first. If you could invent a docking connector for all the case wires that would make it easy to remove the system board without having to do a lot of dewiring/rewiring it would be a bonus. Also, drives mount a lot nicer in cages or on rails, IMO. Rubber grommet mounts for drives and fans to reduce vibration and noise are a plus. There should be no sharp edges to cut one's knuckles on.

A good case should have front panel connectors for headphone/microphone/USB/Firewire, and should have the front mounted ports in a spot that is easy for the user to plug in (they shouldn't be at the bottom of a tower case so that I have to kneel to plug in my digital camera).

No-one has done an incredible job of making an internal cable-routing system for a tower case yet, IMO; if you could pull that off, it'd be a big deal. I've ended up sleeving my power supply, and routing remaining cables with plastic wire loom, which looks good, but took a lot of work.

If you could devise a design that could silence a lot of the noise from today's high-end power supplies, that'd be a big thumbs up.

Finally, keep the looks simple. Black or brushed aluminum looks nice (having faceplates for the CD-ROM drives that keeps them the same color of the case is good), don't try to make it look like a Ferarri, Borg Cube, or something with fifteen laser-cut biohazard grills. If looks are a big deal, get the aluminum anodized in a single color. It doesn't have to survive being dropped from six feet, but it should be strong enough to be moved around to the occasional LAN party.

I don't ask too much, do I? :D
 
Some things I would like to see in a case:

1. About a quarter inch more between the mobo tray and the side panel. Its pretty tricky getting a side panel on with all those wires stuffed behind there.
2. Definitely drive rails. The rails on my Silverstone dont get screwed in, they just snap on the drive and you slide it right in. They were quite ingenious once I figured out how to snap them on (On that note, dont include instructions. Real men dont need them and you dont want to condone being a sissy)
3. Absolutely no plastic added for "asthetics"
4. I dont know how you could do it, but if you can think of a way so the front usb ports were modular and could be either at the top or the bottom of the case, that would be awesome. I hate having the usb ports at the bottom of my silverstone when its way too big to be on my desk, but I hate having usb ports at the top when the case goes on the desk. Also, include enough wire for easy cable routing.
5. Lian Li has 5.25 to 3.5 inch faceplate converters. It would be a lot better to include maybe 1 or 2 of those instead of actual 3.5" external bays.
6. Leave enough room between the front fan and the HD bay to mount a radiator/fan there for water cooling. Or at least have an alternate mounting position farther back to allow for it.
 
A lot of good ideas so far, but I have a few that I'd like to add:

1) Instead of having the motherboard pushed all the way to the right of the case, have it in the center. You case will be wider than most, and some temp sensors will be thrown off a little, but I think it will lead to better cooling in the end. WIth the space you created at the backside of the motherboard tray, you could use that for routing cables.

2) I like the idea of a real intake. However, since there are drives near the bottom front of most cases, I think a fan at the top would be better for CPU cooling (you can have fans at the front to cool the dirves too). Instead of being flat on the top, like many top exhuasts, it should be diagonally angled so it blows past the CPU/heatsink towards the PCI slots, instead of blowing towards the case floor.
 
Don't have giant case feet that stick out the sides; rather have well designed and mechanically attached square rubber feet in the corners. Also, make the power and reset buttons and lights nice. The reset and power buttons should be identical. Rely only on steel springs for the spring action, the flexy plastic wears out quickly. The lights shouldn't be too bright either. Alternatively, just use Bulgin Vandals and call it a day. :) Lastly, don't place your name anywhere on the case--nobody cares what its called once they've bought the thing. Lian-li has the right idea with their removeable case badge.
 
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