Extreme budget enclosures are interesting creatures. While the best balancing acts usually show up around the $100 price point, and going north of $150 will generally get you the best of everything, hanging out at $60 or lower means having to make a lot of sacrifices and lose a lot of niceties. For some users that's not a big deal; they just want a box to put their computer in.

Fractal Design has been making a lot of waves with their lineup of minimalistic but effective enclosures, but most of those kits have been $80 or more. Today we have their Core 1000, a fascinating-looking case that retails for just $39.99. Does it bring the same magic to this end of the market that Fractal Design has brought with their other efforts, or has too much been left on the cutting room floor?

One of the perks of this job is getting to see some up-and-comers get championed by our readership and then turn around and find out what the fuss is all about. Such is the "case" (pun wholly intended) with Fractal Design's Define R3 enclosure. This is a case that has shown up fairly regularly in comments practically since we started doing these reviews again at the beginning of the year, and now we finally have the Define R3 in house for testing. It carries the weight of the community behind it and to its credit, it's certainly an interesting piece of kit at first glance. Does it live up to the word of mouth?

The more enclosures we get in, the more amazed I am at just how competitive the market is for $99 cases. That market is made only more competitive by younger, hungrier companies like BitFenix and Fractal Design, along with new entries from Corsair and NZXT. In another welcome change of pace, these enclosures tend to be slicker, more streamlined, and less gaudy than the gaming cases of yore while providing oftentimes excellent thermal and acoustic performance. With those things in mind, today we look at our first of hopefully many cases from Fractal Design: the Arc Midi.

We've heard a lot of requests for a Fractal Design case review, and the company answered by sending us their $100 offering. Targeting the popular mid-tower segment with a reasonable price and good features, let's see just how well this newcomer can stand up to the competition.

The proliferation of mobile devices, multi-computer homes, broadband internet access, inexpensive mass storage, and the replacement of many other home electronics by the PC (such as media devices like DVD, BRD, and CD players by HTPCs) has resulted in ever-increasing interest in specialized file server computers.  Whether you're a typical home user with a desktop and a laptop or a power user with multiple desktops, laptops, netbooks, and tablets who also has remote access to home systems from work or on the road, your computing experience could likely be enriched by shared data access.  Whether your budget and storage needs are modest or extensive, we have you covered in the latest builder's guide to file server systems.