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CoolIT Boreas MTEC

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Prices for the Boreas MTEC chassis do vary depending on how many CPU and GPU heatsinks you want - they start at around £550.

Essentially, this is water-cooling for the lazy. In the box is a Silverstone Temjin chassis with CoolIT's most powerful TEC cooler installed and all piping ready filled and completely sealed.

Effective cooling

Attaching the cooling blocks to CPUs is relatively straightforward, while connecting to graphics cards is just a little trickier.

It's a tad disappointing that there's no power supply included in the astronomical price, mind, but the theory is clearly that if you're designing this kind of system, you'll probably want to choose your own PSU anyway.

The case itself is excellent - a very roomy design and with plenty of fans. Placing the hard drive mounts in a closed, individually cooled compartment at the bottom of the case is particularly innovative. The TEC unit sits where you'd normally expect drives to be, and plugs into a control unit which itself can be mounted anywhere inside the case.

Lack of control

It's a little disappointing that the control unit is a fairly dumb affair, and all cooling must be controlled via a driver interface. Having no manual controls on the physical unit means sacrificing a USB header for wiring it up.

Worse, when we booted into Windows, something confused the sensors which decided to send cooling into overdrive. Instead of heading for a target of 25°C, the Boreas unit almost managed to send a QX6850 CPU under load into the single digit temperature range. Needless to say, that's some impressive cooling.

With the driver problem sorted out things were certainly a lot quieter - as quiet as six case fans and two blowers on the TEC unit can be expected to be - and the Boreas almost won our hearts.

Almost, because for some reason northbridge coolers don't come as standard with the unit, and to make the most of the enormous overclocking potential here, they will be mandatory.

Despite that, what we have here is a straight-out-of-the-box kit that will give your processor and graphics card the mother of all ice cream headaches. It's not perfect, it doesn't come with a PSU and it's pricy - but damn is it frosty.

Gigabyte Poseidon 310

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There's a statement on the Poseidon's box that says it's 'not just a case'.

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting - maybe Poseidon himself would come leaping out of the box and running around the office, trident aloft?

Sinister-looking case

It's not a bad-looking case, a bit like Darth Vader's fridge, with a nice, heavy, brushed-aluminium front door and a mildly sinister lighting system.

It has an interchangeable side panel, which can be switched between metal gauze for cooling and a perspex window for gazing at the pretty lights within.

The case also includes a 9in back fan with some of the aforementioned pretty lights, and there's an additional fan at the front to blow cool air over hard disks and maintain front-to-back throughflow.

Flimsy components

The only downsides are the drive bays, which use rather flimsy metal teeth on one side of the drive to lock it into place.

I couldn't get a 3.5in hard disk to lock in at all, and after a bit of wriggling our DVD drives popped out too. But still, it took a fair bit of wriggling...

So the Poseidon is actually just a case, and the box is essentially lying to us. For a mid-priced case, though, it's remarkably solid, and perfect for a budget build.

Just don't expect any surprises. Or Greek sea gods.

Hiper Anubis

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Like a cross between a heatsink and a flight case, the Hiper Anubis will sit next to your desk, either frightening the mice or drawing them to it like some ancient monolithic structure for worship.

If you do find a cult of PC worshipping mice making camp next to your chassis then it's definitely £130 well spent. Otherwise it's tough to recommend this case for over a ton.

Stylish and spacious

The design is slick and stylish and the flight case latches on the two side panels are far more labour-saving than the traditional thumb-screw method, making it easy to get at your PC's innards.

Inside, the case is clean and fairly spacious for a mid-tower with the now requisite little rubber water-cooling anuses at the back for reservoir piping. The accessory kit is fairly comprehensive, with all the thumb screws and mobo riser screws you could ever need.

There's also a long-haired brush, which is absolutely vital as the top of the case is going to attract dust like Facebook attracts muppets. But the uncomfortable fact remains that you can pick up equally functional cases for half the price, such as CoolerMaster's CM690.

Antec P190

tech.co.uk staff — 1190847600

Building a PC is not something to be undertaken lightly. You'll end up swearing at inanimate objects, invariably get cut to shreds and probably end up wanting to smash the thing to bits. Which makes it all the more surprising that building a system inside this impressive monolith is such a calming experience.

Without getting all Zen, the attention to detail and wonderful sectioned-off design instills a feeling that you're building something beyond the norm. You want to do everything right. You want to use the space well, route your cables properly and generally make a kick-ass system.

We've never felt like this when building a PC - which is why we cleansed our souls by fragging ourselves senseless the moment we'd finished. It didn't stop us being all serene and smiley, mind you.

There are downsides: it's massive, and heavy as well. Then there's that gulp-inducing price, which is only justifiable if you spend a fortune on components.

That said, it does come with a pair of impressive power supplies, offering up 1200W of raw juice. So at least that's close to £200 you don't have to fork out and it is a really awesome chassis.

Cooler Master Xcraft Lite RX-3SB

tech.co.uk staff — 1190674800

Installation isn't exactly the Xcraft's strong point. It's a sleek enough case - ours came in fetching piano black - and your hard drive will certainly look special once it's tucked away inside and partially illuminated by the blue LEDs on the front.

The big problem is getting your drive in there in the first place. Prising the lid off is a struggle despite the unit being tool-free, and once you've plugged in the cables by hand and balanced your hard drive on the springy mounting pegs, you're tasked with getting the lid back on. It took us 20 minutes.

The English instructions - apparently translated by a non-English speaker - just compounded our pain.

Once the drive's in, though, it's a relatively quiet assembly, and the case seems well ventilated. Its sturdiness is its undoing in a way, however, because the Xcraft is basically a big hefty rectangle.

It's narrower than the Icy Dock by a good inch, and lighter too, but we don't get the same sense of style as we do from rival enclosures.

Antec MX-1

tech.co.uk staff — 1186009200

Antec's enclosure is another biggy, but can be tilted on its side to save space.

It's one of the more awkward chassis to use, too.

Having to unplug the control board and slide out the internal disk caddy is a bit of a fiddly task, but once it's in you've got the joy of eSATA to contend with.

The MX-1 comes with a handy eSATA breakout slot for the back of your case if your mobo can't handle it.

Cooler Master X-Craft 250

tech.co.uk staff — 1186009200

This diminutive fellow is a gem. It looks dead classy, and is very compact, making it perfect if you're after a portable drive.

It takes IDE 2.5inch drives rather than SATA, so it's the perfect way to recycle drives from old laptops, comes with its own soft zip-top carry case and features CoolerMaster's excellent Press&Go backup software.

What's not to love?

N4CE Combo ZX-9

tech.co.uk staff — 1186009200

This enclosure comes with the bonus of being able to house a 5.25" drive as well as a 3.5" hard disk.

It may only support IDE connections, but if you're a hoarder like us chances are you'll have an old IDE drive knocking around with nothing to do.

Twenty-odd clams isn't much to ask to get a bit more use out of an old drive even if it is a bit chunky.

Synology iUSB 250

tech.co.uk staff — 1186009200

Synology seems to think that because its device is prefixed with an i, it can charge a premium; this is pretty pricey for a simple enclosure.

Still, it's nice enough, but it's prone to scratches, and doesn't come with any kind of carry case to protect it.

A reliable device, but there are definitely better - and less costly - solutions on offer.

Enermax Glory Box

tech.co.uk staff — 1186009200

One of the elder statesmen in the ranks of hard drive enclosures, we decided to include the Enermax Glory as we've used one for the last year and set great stock by it.

While it's limited by its IDE interface, it's got some neat tricks up its sleeve, in the form of the three backup buttons on the front.

Like most 3.5inch enclosures of this type, it comes with its own power supply, too.