Building your PC:
The Case

Introduction

A graphics card (also known as a video card, v card, video board, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter) is a board that into a personal computer to give it display capabilities and is a computer component designed to convert the logical representation of visual information into a signal that can be used as input for a display medium. Displays are most often a monitor but modern cards can also connect to video projectors, TVS and HDTVs. At a basic level a graphics card is composed of a GPU (graphics processing unit) and dedicated video memory.

Cases:

Background:

A computer case (which can also be known as a chassis or housing) is the enclosure that contains (or houses) the main components of a computer. These cases are generally constructed from aluminium or plastic (often polycarbonate) though over the years many other fabrication components have also been used and there are hobbyists who design their own cases. In essence a case is simply a box in which to house all the main components of a PC. Cases can come in many different sizes or form factors. Currently the most popular form factor is ATX, although small form factor cases are becoming popular for a variety of different uses. The traditional designs of cases were almost all beige in colour (which spawned the term 'beige box' though modern case designs can be of many shapes, designs and colours.

Case Types:

In essence there are three main types of cases: desktop (bottom left); mini or midi tower (far left, top) and full tower (left). The desktop case is often used by OEM (original equipment manufacturers) in that it's low cost and can only house a limited number of peripherals. OEM manufacturers also use mini tower designs as, once again it's fairly low cost and can only house a limited number of peripherals. If building your own PC then it's better to purchase a mini or a full tower case as these can house far more peripherals which means that they're far more upgradeable for future additions.

Case Internals:

The image on the left shows a bare case with its side fascia removed. The hole visible on the bottom right is for the power sockets and the fan output of a power supply (though this is often built in to many modern cases). The motherboard sits in the large space at the top right of the case so that the aluminium slots at the top right can be punched out to allow add-on cards to sit in the slots thus exposed. The brackets on the top left hand edge of the case house drives that need to face the outside, such as CD drives, DVD drives, floppy drives, Zip drives etc. In this case the hard drives fit in the slots on the bottom left of the case, though in most cases hard drives would sit beneath the CD and DVD drives on the left hand side of the case. This case also has a built-in fan though on many cases this is an optional extra. The cables seen near the centre of the case are there to connect the buttons and lights on the face of the case (power, reset, HDD activity light, on light) to the motherboard.

Modern Cases:

Unlike the traditional bland boxes modern case come in a bewildering variety of styles and colours. Some have wholly or partly transparent which with light-emitting components can provide considerable colour. Others have shaped panels that attempt to divert the eye from the overall boxiness of a case and front panels can come with LCD displays and a range of colour swatches. However, the basic design of a case remains the same.

What to Buy:

When seeking a case for your own use buy the largest case with the biggest power supply that you can afford as this will allow you to run the best components without power problems and will allow you to easily expand the capabilities of your system at a later date.

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