The unfortunate part of living in South Africa is that we’re so far away from Europe, America and China. As consumers we often lose out because of this – after all its quite costly to ship things across such a distance, especially when those things are large, low-volume goods such as high-end PC cases.
Importing your own case is also possible, but extremely costly, and if it arrives here damaged, getting it sent back is a massive headache.
With all of this in mind, here are some case manufacturers you’ve probably never heard of before, because you can’t buy them in South Africa – and man are they pretty.
Caselabs
Caselabs started off creating enclosures for the electronic, military, medical, and industrial industries; something they’ve been doing since 1971. They found these enclosures boring to make, so in 2010 the decided to try their hand at something a bit more complicated, a PC case.
The company’s original case, the M8, was a success among the modding community for its size and build quality, and is pictured below. It’s huge, and we like it.
Caselabs M8, just huge.
Akasa
Akasa have offices based in Europe, the US, China and Brasil. So everywhere except Africa really, which is a pity because their cases are pretty cool.
Pictured below is the Akasa Venom, a high-airflow case that has so little shame, it actually has a yellow and black case scheme. Yellow isn’t found on most cases because it looks pretty stupid, yet somehow the Venom pulls it off.
It comes standard with all the high-end features you’d want, including XL-ATX size support; dust filters; watercooling access holes; a top panel storage area; and support for ultra long graphics cards. Not that any of this matters, it looks so awesome I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
Black and Yellow Akasa Venom, ballsy.
Fractal Design
Fractal Design is a Sweden-based PC case maker which focuses on under-stated, classy designs. The Fractal Define R3 pictured below is a great example of their styling, as well as the attention to detail on the inside of the case.
A fan setup in the case can be changed around for either optimal silence or optimal cooling, and support for up to 8 3.5 inch hard drives comes as standard. Did I mention the sound dampening material along the case panels? Do want.
Fractal Design Define R3, classy.
Xigmatek
Xigmatek – if you think the name sounds like something our fellow tech enthusiasts over in Asia would think is cool, you’d be right. Coming straight outta Taiwan (yo!), Xigmatek has been making cases since they were founded in 2005.
A great example of their offerings is the Elysium, a super tower chassis capable of fitting HPTX and XL-ATX motherboards (really big ones). It has space for 420mm radiators, 12 x 5.25 inch drive bays (six of which are taken up by 4 to 3 drive bay converters for up to 8 hard drives), and support for four graphics cards thanks to the 10 PCIe slots in the back.
Xigmatek Elysium, roughly the size of Australia.
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Fractal Design is stocked locally. So we have heard of them and yes their products are great. Not too sure about the hard drive bays though