Bitfenix Nova PC case

With two 120mm fans, heaps of space for storage, and a tempered glass side panel, the Bitfenix Nova is shooting above its weight class. It's true that this case does have a lot to offer for its size, and even manages to squeeze in support for disc drive for the dozen or so people still rocking one of those in 2022.

For its large storage capacity, the Bitfenix Nova offers a slightly less than optimal layout. A top-to-bottom storage cage takes up most of the front of the case, leaving a lot less room than some for your graphics card and no space for a liquid cooler or more than two fans. With a couple of drives installed the airflow can be restricted, too. 

That said, with only an NVMe SSD installed for testing, the CPU and GPU do run at okay temperatures. That lack of space up front is not a major issue in my testing, anyways.

It does rattle something fierce, though. The HDD trays are the main offender, as they wobble so much within the bays that they can quite easily fall out entirely. And that's without any weighty drives in them whatsoever. I wouldn't trust this case to hold up well during a move or while being transported.

Cheap case airflow test

The main ingredient for an impressive PC case is airflow, but you'd be surprised by just how many case designs don't get this quite right. Ideally, we want our case to draw in cool air from a handful of high flow intake fans at the front, over our PC's components, then out the exhaust. Cheap cases, however, don't always come with the ideal number of fans for this optimal setup, so it's extra important to find one that is smartly designed to work with limited cooling potential. 

To test the thermal properties of these six cheap cases, I built a PC into each of them. Then I ran a handful of benchmarks to put the CPU and GPU under day-to-day stress and collated the average results into this graph.

The lack of space for a radiator does mean there's nowhere to install a liquid cooler larger than 120mm, however. Since there's no top ventilation on this case, and the cages at the front are bolted in, it's not possible to install a 240mm radiator anywhere. That's likely not an issue if you're going to stick to stock cooling or a cheap air cooler, but something to bear in mind.

This large storage cage also means the PSU cables are a little tough to organise, which means that you might have to work extra hard to get your build looking neat and tidy with that large tempered glass window.

This isn't the prettiest case of those I've tested, even with the large tempered glass side panel or white colourway that was provided. The front of the case is plain and old-fashioned, and the white paint used on the case doesn't match across its entire construction.

The Bitfenix Nova is a case with a lot of room for storage expansion, and in that sense there are no others I've tested that are a match for it. However, it's a little bland to look at, and the ill-fitting nature of the drive bays, and the position of them, does make me wonder how practical this case will be once it's filled up with precious kit. Combined with the lack of options even for air cooling and I'm afraid this case doesn't make the cut.

Our group test: A budget PC case is a great way to trim costs on your next PC build, yet many of the brands we're used to seeing in the top case round-ups aren't anywhere near cheap enough for what we're after. That's why I asked our friends at Overclockers UK if it would lend us its cheapest cases to see which is worth your small pile of coins, and of the seven cases they sent my way, I made my conclusions.