Stop Buying Huge PC Cases, Smaller Builds Are Awesome

• Full towers are often overkill, as most PC owners don't need that empty extra space.

• Mid- and mini-towers hit the sweet spot, as they're compact, practical, and cheaper.

• Aside from initial build difficulties, small cases don't have any major downsides.

If you're building a new PC, it's tempting to go for a huge case, thinking you'll need the extra space for water cooling, storage drives, and extra fans. However, in reality, most of us rarely use that space, which is why you should probably opt for a small case.

Bigger Isn't Always Better

There are several good reasons why full-tower cases are so popular. For starters, they can house basically any component, regardless of its size. Whether it's an EATX motherboard, an abnormally tall and wide air cooler, a monstrous 480mm water cooling radiator, or one of those super-sized RTX 5090 graphics cards, a full-tower case can house all that without even breaking a sweat.

On top of that, building a PC is much easier when you have plenty of room. As someone who spent hours managing the cables of a non-modular power supply in a small case , I know those pains first-hand and wish I had more space to tuck everything away.

However, realistically, how many of us actually use all that extra space? Do you know anyone with six storage drives, ten case fans, an AIO cooler, a fully populated ATX motherboard, and a graphics card that won't fit in anything smaller than a full tower?

Chances are, unless you or one of your friends is obsessed with overkill PC hardware, you probably don't. And even those who buy extra components rarely end up needing or using all of them.

I personally was frustrated with a small proprietary HP mid-tower I had as a teenager, which is why I switched to a full-tower in 2017. Many years later, I never ended up doing anything with all that extra space. In fact, I even put a budget mATX motherboard into that huge case, which looked kind of sad.

Despite my attempts to fill the case with a large air cooler, chunky graphics card, and five case fans, it still looked just kind of empty. In the end, I didn't do anything with all that extra space whatsoever. Friends who own or have owned full towers shared the sentiment. They wish they had gotten a smaller, more reasonable case instead.

This is one of my main arguments against full towers—unless you have a legitimate reason to get a full tower and fill it with useful expansion devices, cooling, and storage, it'll just look unbalanced.

Another drawback of large cases is the sheer size and weight. They take up more desk space, which may force you to move the case to the floor, where it'll run hot and accumulate dust more easily. They're also not very portable, meaning you can't bring them with you or move them easily when rearranging your room. It even demotivates you from taking the case outside and dusting it regularly , resulting in neglected maintenance.

Mini and Mid-towers Are the Sweet Spot

Now that we've established that you probably don't need a big PC case , what should you get instead?

If you're used to large cases, I suggest getting a mid-tower case. They're significantly more compact than full towers, but still much larger than mini-towers and tiny SFFs (Small Form Factor/Mini-ITX) that are barely bigger than a PlayStation 5.

Even within the mid-tower segment, you have plenty of options to choose from. If you need an ATX motherboard for extra expansion slots, you can get a mid-tower that supports ATX motherboards.

However, ATX motherboards are overkill for most people. If you don't have a way to take advantage of it and would like to go even smaller, opt for an mATX (microATX) motherboard and a mini-tower case.

Mini-tower cases have an even smaller footprint than mid-towers, but they still retain most of their practicality. While building the PC, fitting components, and managing cables can be a bit more time-consuming, the end result looks much better, at least in my opinion.

Also, if you do a good job at selecting your components and building the PC, you won't have any empty space or awkward gaps in the build. The most important thing is to pick a case that can fit your graphics card and CPU cooler.

My Thermaltake Versa H16 TG ARGB case fits both my large RX 6800 XT and dual-heatsink Deepcool AK620 Digital cooler, with a few extra centimeters of clearance in case I ever want something even bigger. The only drawback of this case is that I can't remove the graphics card without taking out the CPU cooler first, which is admittedly a design oversight. Looking back, I think I would've bought the popular ASUS Prime AP201 instead.

On top of saving money by choosing a smaller case and a microATX motherboard, perhaps the best part is how good my PC looks on my desk. Its small footprint means it doesn't take up much space, yet it still manages to be quite the attention-grabber. Now that I see how good it looks, I know I'd choose a mini tower packed with powerful components over an empty full tower any day.

If you're concerned about cooling in such a small case, you really shouldn't be. While a full tower technically has the potential for better airflow since it usually offers more fan mounting points, you won't benefit from that unless you actually install all those fans.

As long as you have a few decent case fans, you won't ever need to worry about temperatures, no matter the case size. I use the three pre-installed fans that came with my case, plus a couple of Arctic P12s at the top, and I never have any cooling issues, even with a heavily overclocked CPU and GPU.

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Instead of trying to get the biggest case possible to future-proof your system, you should ask yourself how much space you realistically need for your use case.

Remember, even mini-towers are surprisingly expandable. Most of them have enough room for a few PCI cards, several SSDs and HDDs (in addition to the NVMe slots on your motherboard), and large air coolers and graphics cards. As long as the case can physically accommodate your most important components, you'll be fine. As a nice bonus, your case won't feel as empty as full towers often do.