IN-WIN BUC: Just How Much $100 Can Buy
by Dustin Sklavos on May 9, 2011 4:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- In-Win
- mid-tower
Conclusion: A Lot For a Little
While a hundred bills is more than entry level cases tend to go for, it's also a world away from the more expensive enthusiast cases on the market. What's impressive is that in many ways IN-WIN has given those cases a run for their money.
The IN-WIN BUC is a tremendously flexible piece of kit, full of features without seeming to be overrun by them. The hotswap bay is a little problematic with some drives, but it's also there on a $100 case, and it does work. Likewise, there's USB 3.0 connectivity, a drive/key tray on the top of the case, and a largely toolless assembly. The plastic/steel construction can feel on the chintzy side, but it also keeps the case comparatively light. Every time I've needed to work on my tower when it was in the Antec P182 and now the Corsair 600T, I've felt like I was going to throw my back out trying to move the thing. The BUC is frankly incredibly light compared to those two monsters.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows, though. With that construction you do get an enclosure that's not as effective at dampening noise. There's a lot you can do to mitigate it by using quiet fans and employing fan controls, but it just doesn't have a whole lot to really keep all that noise in and with a video card like the GeForce GTX 580 it might get a little louder than you'd like. The BUC also seemed to struggle a little with our overclocked setup; while it never locked up, it certainly ran hotter than we'd like. If your system is more conservative you're not likely to have any issues. I'm also not a big fan of the gamer-centric styling and I'm not sure how many gamers like their computer cases ostentatious. That may just be me, as I tend to prefer builds that look more austere, but many or our readership appears to feel the same. The Corsair 600T is about my limit. Finally, the hotswap bay works great in theory, but in practice the plastic trays bow so much with 3.5" drives installed that they become extremely difficult to actually remove.
What I'm left with, though, is a pleasant surprise in the form of a case that's inexpensive but feature-packed. IN-WIN clearly tried very hard to produce an enclosure that offers a tremendous amount of value and in that respect they succeeded. I know a lot of boutiques will tend to cut corners a bit on their case selection, so I'll spell it out: boutiques looking for a case that's comparatively inexpensive should go with the BUC. But what about you, the end user? Well, if you need a workhorse case that's feature rich, relatively easy to work in/with, and you don't have a lot of bread to spend on it, the BUC is an excellent choice and it made a believer out of me.
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stratosrally - Monday, May 9, 2011 - link
"Just curious ... how much content do you have to steal to fill six harddrives?"That's a naive and needlessly antagonistic comment.
I have over 217GB in my Steam folder alone and am currently using almost 500GB of a 750GB SATA HD. I have no movies on my pc and the only music I have is purchased online or burnt to MP3 from my own music CD collection.
My new build has a 120GB Corsair SSD and 2 1TB WD Caviar Black drives in RAID 0, with an external 2TB WD backup. I won't need more space than that in the forseeable future, but I will be converting my entire CD collection to MP3 - so the additional space will be useful. Also, I'm sure Steam will have sales on new PC games that I want in the future and they just keep getting bigger!
I'm 46yrs old and don't steal content, thank you very much.
robd420 - Monday, May 9, 2011 - link
I'm 25yrs old and i do, thank you very much.bji - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
So it sounds like your total need is ~500 GB, plus you anticipate some future need for backing up your CD collection and buying more games. Sounds like a 1 TB drive is all you'll need for some time.You are clearly a person who would be fine with a case that only takes 6 hard drives. My comment was directed at the O.P. who was lamenting not being able to put more than 6 hard drives in a case. Even with cheap 500 GB hard drives, 6 slots gives you ~3 TB. Who exactly is filling up 3 TB of data with legitimate content except people shooting a hell of alot of high definition home video? And how many people actually do that versus people needing the space for warez?
Chalabala - Tuesday, July 5, 2011 - link
Go read up on raid 60 =DStormyParis - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
That was kinda his point, though: you barely fill 500 MB of HD right now, and have big plans to raise that to 2 GBs. That's, as you say, two drives, which most any case will fit. I personnally just bought a Thermaltake Element Q, which is slightly smaller than a shoe box, and will take up to 3 3.5" HDDs. Right now, my single 3TB drive sits barely a third full, though.doubletake - Monday, May 9, 2011 - link
0/10 troll. Your comment is beyond moronic. This is a tech enthusiast site. Keyword: enthusiast. As in, not your average Joe with a few pictures, movies and music files. You have no idea how fast you could fill up 300GBs with HD camcorder video files, or uncompressed recorded footage from games used to edit later. Try widening your perspective and thinking a bit more critically before opening that brain-mouth link.$tinkmitt - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
Well put. I was sure when he/SHE got his/HER @$$ handed to him/HER after the 1st comment he/SHE would just drift off into obscurity, tail soundly tucked.But nooooo. This "Genius" (and I fully mean the implication), has got an opinion we just missed the 1st go round.
I don't even think he/SHE knows what clearly means.
bji - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
Heh heh you're funny. I fully admitted that my comments were somewhat inflammatory; but if you think that anyone is going to run away from a discussion on an internet forum just because of some flaming (well deserved, probably), then I think you haven't been using the internet long enough.StormyParis - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
quick question: are you, parent and grand parent, saying that it's actually your case, or that you can imagine this being someone else's case ? Because I indeed, do not know of anyone one who uses more than 1 GB for legitimate stuff on a personnal PC. And usually, far less.StormyParis - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - link
that's TB, not GB. SOrry.