I hope I’m not in the wrong community but I really wanted to get some opinions on that.
In short, it may be a it of an unpopular opinion, but I really hate the gaming aesthetics with all the RGB lights and glass and in general how modern 3rd party PC cases look like. On the other hand I really enjoy the look of a most of the recent Lenovo ThinkCentres and ThinkStations as well as Fujitsu’s Esprimos. There is just something about this industrial matte black with red accents I can’t resist.
What I would love to do is to take some cheap Lenovo Thinkcentre, slap a GPU in it and have a budget Linux gaming PC, but the problem is most of the parts in these office systems are proprietary. It seems that I can’t easily upgrade the PSU to handle a proper GPU, nor can I swap the motherboard for a new one if I wanted to.
Does anyone have any idea on which models of ThinkCentres/Stations are easily upgradeable or of any cases that have this understated industrial office look to them? The only case I kinda like is the Fractal North, but I get really discouraged when I compare their prices to a fully equipped Lenovo office PC and it just doesn’t look as good.
Also, I’ve looked into Lenovo Legion and HP Omen prebuilts, and while they’re not as bad a 3rd party cases, I just don’t like them as much as say a P520, which unfortunately comes with some awful proprietary motherboard supporting only Xeons from 2017.
Anyway, I’m sorry for the rant. I’d love to hear your opinions and suggestions.
You almost certainly won’t find an upgradable case from Dell or whoever. Have you looked at Silverstone? I have the PS08 and I’m pretty happy with it. It’s a nice cheap compact case. It sits under my desk and I hardly even see it.
My only complaints are that because it’s compact, I have to make sure a GPU will fit, and I’ll probably have to wiggle it around to get it into place. And I don’t really have much cooling in the case so I leave the side panel off, but that’s only because it’s easier than proper fans and ducting. (And quieter, too.)
Hey, thanks for the suggestion! I’ve never looked at Silverstone, but most of their designs are not half bad.
Also, having the side panel off is the coolest thing you could have in a case. Reminds me of my childhood when my much older brother and my much much older father, both of whom were computer engineers at the time, were constantly tinkering with the home computer so the side panel was always off :D