I'm so ready for flat-packed PC cases
And not a moment too soon; our case cupboard can't take much more.
Plenty of PC gamers have a pile of boxes filled with fans, HDDs, and old PC parts. I would know, many of you sent me pictures of your hoards. But for us here at PC Gamer, nothing takes up more room in our storage cupboards than PC cases. We don't even have that many, they're just a massive pain in the ass.
That's why I'm particularly impressed with InWin's latest creations over at Computex: PC cases that come disassembled across a couple of flat cardboard boxes. No polystyrene in sight.
Now I know assembling a PC case sounds like a worse hellscape than struggling through Ikea furniture, and admittedly I haven't tried building one of these cases myself. But the two larger ATX PC cases that InWin was showing off over at Computex 2023 didn't look altogether complicated to put together on the face of it.
The front panel, top panel, side panels, motherboard tray, supports, and feet screw together with the included fittings, all of which are the same size, and once you're done with the tray of screws that can become an SSD mount for you to use in your machine.
Then you can just fold down the cardboard and recycle it. Job done.
Of the two ATX flat-packable PC cases InWin showed off, one features a metallic grey finish and an industrial design with a glass side panel, while the other was a more divisive yellow and gold job with leather-style handles. I wasn't too fussed on the latter one myself, and even InWin asked me what I thought about it as they decided what look to go for with the finished product.
These cases are expected to be ready to go by August. In the meantime, InWin has these colourful flat-packed PC cases that you have to build yourself by folding them "like origami," and there are new versions of these coming with support for liquid coolers.