Best PC Cases of 2025: $75 to $200 Airflow, Thermals, Cable Management, & Budget

The good news is that there are a ton of really good cases right now, and this past year, in particular has been stronger for the cases we’ve reviewed than most others in our history. The bad news is that the entire rest of the industry is on fire (see here), but at least we have a sanctuary in cases.

Overview: Best PC Cases for 2024

Genuinely, this year and last year have been some of the best years for cases we’ve seen in a really long time consecutively. This is awesome. There’s good innovation and interesting aesthetic designs that don’t sacrifice performance. 

For this story, we’re going to look at the best budget cases under $100, the best thermals, the best noise-normalized thermals, the best-out-of-the-box thermals, the most innovative, and the most mechanically complex cases over the past year. Specifically, we’re narrowing our scope to cases that came out towards the tail end of 2024 up until now. 

Best Overall Case: Fractal Meshify 3 

Fractal Meshify 3: Original review | Amazon

Our first award goes to the Best Overall Case for 2025. Like last year, this was difficult to figure out for 2025 -- and that’s great news, because the case market is thriving with excellent advancements in design and performance. We talked through the many options: The Best Overall has to be universally good, including for thermal performance, acoustic performance in the chamber, value and price, build quality, aesthetics, ease-of-installation features, and cable management, and again, it all has to be priced reasonably.

The Fractal Meshify 3 is our Best Overall Case for 2025, and in particular, the Meshify 3 Ambience Pro RGB (read our review) and the cheaper and less flashy Meshify 3 RGB. There are some better cases in individual areas, but we think this is a masterclass overall. We considered the HAVN BF 360 (read our review) for this category, but it just wasn’t technically the best thermal performer despite being good and is an expensive case. The Hyte X50 (read our review) was also in close consideration, as was the Lancool 217, but while they ticked many boxes, they didn’t tick all of them like the Meshify 3 does with its new price.

If not for the new price, the Meshify 3 would have lost it to one of these other cases. But now, the Meshify 3 Ambience Pro RGB is $130 to $144, a steep fall from the $220 launch price earlier this year. That instantly qualifies it for value consideration, especially with the $105-$110 price of the non-Ambience version (although we do think the lighting feature is key to the case).

The Meshify 3 Ambience Pro RGB brings back Fractal’s angular mesh front panel design and geometric pattern, using an ultra-fine mesh that breathes well while filtering dust as a byproduct. From some angles, it looks like a low-poly 3D render, and we mean that as a compliment. The way the light interacts with the case is well done, and Fractal’s use of the RGB lighting strips on its now $80-cheaper Ambience model shows care and attention put into something that we’ve memed on for a decade now, rather than just gluing an LED into a fan and calling it a day.

The attention to detail extends beyond the LEDs, for those who care more about function: The integrated scoop in the power supply shroud actually helps in thermal performance, which we showed in our benchmarking. The rear foot of the case serves as a handle for the power supply dust filter, which is completely unnecessary but awesome attention to detail and good usability. This trend of attention-to-detail is nearly everywhere in the case, including deep cable management channels with durable plastic clips for cable management, included velcro straps at the rear of the case for securing external cables, and a motherboard tray cable cutout that runs the full length of the board to give freedom of routing without sacrificing tray strength. We also liked the panel quality, such as the top panel for its excellent removal and installation process, including a sturdy frame to reduce wobble. The front panel uses pogo pins to socket into the chassis for the LED strip, avoiding a wire.

Clever functional features include flippable fan rail mounts that allow 120mm or 140mm fans to be mounted without either one being obstructed by the rails for the other. We see cases all the time that support multiple sizes, but block the flow of the larger fans with the rails that are present for the smaller ones. By using a mechanically clever and simple flippable rail, Fractal is able to leave both unobstructed without complicating the build process.

The two SKUs we’re recommending come with 3x 140mm fans pre-installed at the front. It’s this configuration that allowed Fractal to hit th e top slot in some of our charts back when we reviewed it earlier this year, and even as recently as our Hyte X50 and HAVN BF 360 reviews, the Meshify 3 held at least one of the top entries on the charts.

This is a resolute successor to the Fractal Torrent (watch our review), although completely different in the execution of how it got to the top of the chart.

Most of our criticisms of the case were related to its price, but that’s now resolved entirely. We had some smaller complaints, like the cable cutout in the power supply shroud being undersized. Overall though, the Fractal Meshify 3 performs excellently and is a chart-topper in some cases, or top 5 in all cases, while also executing with solid build quality and now competitive pricing against its peers.

Fractal’s Meshify 3 Ambience Pro RGB and non-Ambience RGB are deserving winners of our Best Overall Case of 2025 award. The runners-up are HAVN’s BF 360, which engineered the hell out of a unique case, and HYTE’s X50 for its manufacturing feats. Both of these still get separate awards, though.

Best Mechanical Design: HAVN BF 360

HAVN NF 360: Original review | Amazon

The next award is for the best mechanical design. This is given to cases that innovated the most on design execution for complicated mechanical elements, masterful simplifications of complex features, or other well thought-out improvements that might not earn a spot elsewhere in the awards, but should be acknowledged.

This year, we’re giving the Best Mechanical Design award to the HAVN BF 360 Flow. Read our review. The BF 360 is a $190 case highly focused on airflow and performance, with extensive engineering behind it.

The case has a lot of smaller mechanical attention to detail: HAVN fine-tuned the bottom ramp for cooling and experimented with different curvatures, bowl shapes, flat ramps, and angles, ultimately settling on what they shipped for its ability to better project air straight into the GPU-side of video card coolers. The case also includes a re-circulation prevention plate (similar to a server rack), so you can plate-out and block the empty area of the front panel after adjusting the fan location. 

We tested this in A/B benchmarks and found that the backflow prevention plate actually works and does help with thermals. 

In smoke testing, we saw a slight recirculation effect on the inside of the case behind the plate, meaning that this air would likely exit and re-enter without it.

Likewise, the panel design uses large slats that are carefully shaped to minimize plastic obstruction at the blade tips of the fans while still maintaining structural integrity of the panel. This is something a lot of companies don’t pay attention to when placing structural support for panels. 

The BF 360 also has rubber grommets at nearly every metal-to-metal contact point in the case, which we’ve come to appreciate. Panel materials are also of high quality, like the front panel with its faux stone coloring and speckled pattern, which just happens to align with older keyboard and case plastics.

HAVN also has a number of areas of finer attention to detail and mechanical design, such as carefully-placed cable routing pathways that we almost never found ourselves disagreeing with. 

These are even labeled and, despite a typo on literally all of them that reads, "Recommendned," we appreciated the thought for newer builders who may need the help.

The case’s fans are a big part of its engineering. Although there is a $160 fan-less version, a lot of what HAVN is doing comes down to the fans. The Flow variant includes 2x 180mm front fans that run 40mm deep, which helps with static pressure performance and gives the fans a wide area of impact. The rear fan is a 120mm x 30mm deep solution. 

This 3-fan configuration performed well overall, but didn’t quite crack the best rank in our charts. 

Adding two more 180mm fans to the top situates the BF 360 Flow as the best air-cooled solution we’ve tested yet for our case reviews, though.

Our review included fan tests on our fan testing machine, including A/B comparisons with the Fractal Torrent for P/Q. 

This was in addition to our thermal benchmarks for the BF 360 Flow, which had it overall competitive. It’s not the best, but it’s up there with the best and its mechanical design is excellent.

Overall, we liked the BF 360 Flow for its design and mechanical complexity. We’d even say we it is “recommendned.” 

Best Sub-$100 Class Case: Lian Li 207

Lian Li Lancool 207: Original review | Amazon

Our next category is for the best case under $100. Despite the lack of competition in the $50-$60 price point in the last 5 years, the sub-$100 point has continued to see competitive releases. If you’re buying closer to $50-$60, we think you should buy used instead if possible.

So, for Best Sub-$100 Case, Lian Li holds onto the award for a second year in a row due to its still unbeatable thermal performance and its aggressive, cutthroat pricing. Lian Li continues to show a level of pricing aggression that its competitors struggle to match, at least, until Thermalright finalizes its plans to bring PC cases to the market -- it had promised a $45 case earlier this year which, to Lian Li’s credit, it also mentioned.

In the year since the 207 (read our review) won this award last time, it has faced some new competition. We’ll cover those first since this is a repeat winner:

The Fractal Epoch (read our review) case is a Fractal North (watch our review) with a different, cheaper front panel. Otherwise, the tooling is almost entirely the same, the case just loses the panel. Our viewers said Fractal should have called it the South. The price has come down since launch, with the RGB variant including 3x 120mm fans now priced at about $90 on Newegg. That makes it a serious competitor to the 207, but the North was primarily special for its front panel (with the rest of the tooling standard) and the thermal performance of the Epoch can’t beat the 207 in our noise-normalized testing. As for the XT Pro Ultra from Phanteks, we thought the case was simply “fine,” but was otherwise mechanically and thermally unremarkable. The Corsair Frame 4000D RS ARGB (read our review) is a strong competitor, as is Lian Li’s own 217.

But, of all of these sub-$100 cases that we’ve tested, the 207 is still the best. The 207 includes 2x 120mm bottom-mounted intake fans that pull through the ventilated side panel and the rear of the case, where typically the power supply would sit. These push air straight into the GPU, helping it achieve some of the best cooling on our charts -- even against cases 2x the price. The 207 also has 2x 140mm front-mounted fans and, given the short nature of the case, the air doesn’t have to travel far to hit the CPU cooler and GPU.

The 207’s noise-normalized CPU thermals put it ahead of the G400A D-RGB, the 4000D RS ARGB, Antec Flux non-Pro (and it’s tied with the Pro), Phanteks XT Pro Ultra that competes on price, and significantly ahead of the Montech XR (read our review) in a similar price class. The noise-normalized GPU thermals also keep it up in the top 3 of our X50 review chart, right behind the Flux Pro (read our review), long-king Fractal Torrent, and within error of the Lancool 217.

A lot of the 207’s cooling performance is achieved by moving the power supply to the front of the case, giving room at the back for better-positioned intake fans. The downside to this is the additional complications for power supply installation and cable management, including a sharper bend of the cables and limited depth for packing them all in. In our Lancool 207 review, we talked about how the side panel can bulge without snapping the center snaps if not strictly managing cables, which is resolvable, but requires additional effort and can be annoying -- particularly in cable-heavy builds or with thicker custom cables.

Other than this key downside, the case executes nearly flawlessly on its thermal goals for its price and its price does let it get away with a lot of other tiny annoyances. For example, although it supports larger, we recommend a 150mm-deep power supply as the maximum size to help with some of the cable issues. We still also recommend adding an extra dust filter to the rear former PSU vent, basically the intake vent for the bottom fans, just to help with dust management since it has larger holes than a front panel.

Even with the thermal focus at the price, the case still manages to include a relatively full feature set of velcro straps, USB type-C, ARGB fans, and relatively good build quality.

Best Mid-Range Case: Corsair Frame 4000D RS

Corsair Frame 4000D RS: Original review | Amazon

Our next category is for the Best Mid-Range case. This category is awarded to a case that isn’t too expensive and sticks to the usual playbook for making just a good, mid-level priced case. This year, we’re giving it to the Corsair Frame 4000D RS ARGB.

Corsair had a rough few years of case launches, but the Frame series turned it around by reviving the successful 4000D and 5000D cases and overhauling them. 

The Frame series cases are most interesting for their modularity. This includes a fully removable motherboard tray with a few screws, a power supply shroud that can be easily removed to fully open-up the case, a removable PCIe bracket that can rotate for vertical or horizontal GPU installation, and fan rails with fixed width spacing but free vertical spacing for precise positioning of the fans.

Corsair has managed to make its Frame case modular without it becoming overly gimmicky, and more importantly, unlike many of its contemporaries, it’s done it without ballooning the cost for a feature most will only use once. Back when we reviewed it, we criticized Corsair for launching its expansible case without any expansions or spare parts. Now, it has a page full of replacement components, extra fan rails, fan clips, glass panels, and so on. Corsair still hasn’t taken full advantage of its plans for alternate panels, though. Its store has spare parts available, which is nice, but the bold vision for alternative panel designs that can just be ordered from Corsair seem to have largely fallen flat.

The Frame 4000D deploys a strange 3D Y-shaped front panel that manages structural rigidity while also having some of the highest percent porosity of any of the cases we tested this year, which helps with airflow. It’s not as clean-looking as the original, flatter 4000D, but does manage to open up the chassis for flow performance without making it so perforated that it becomes flimsy. Corsair also heavily ventilated the top of the Frame 4000D, the rear, and the lower side panel (below the glass). 

With the Frame 4000D RS ARGB including its fans, the case landed in the top quarter of noise-normalized CPU thermal results (between some Fractal North XL listings – read our review), although it was more middling in our GPU thermal results when noise-normalized.

For these reasons, the Frame 4000D RS, which is about $90, didn’t get our Best Sub-$100 case. It’s just not strictly better than the Lancool 207 in that price category, but from a build quality standpoint and for its versatility, it’s still a good case that belongs on the list. The ARGB variant that includes fans puts it into the mid-range category at typically about $125, although lately, the case has been available for around $100 with fans. We don’t know if that’s temporary.

The Corsair Frame 5000D RS ARGB is basically the same case. But it is scaled up. That one’s closer to $180-$200 with fans. If the Frame 4000D is what you want, but too small, the Frame 5000D fills that segment; however, Corsair does have a ton more competition at the $180-$200 price point.

Best Noise-Normalized Case Thermals: Meshify 3, Lancool 217, & Flux Pro

Fractal Meshify 3: Original review | Amazon
Lian Li Lancool 217: Original review | Amazon
Antec Flux Pro: Original review | Amazon

Our next award is for Best Noise-Normalized Case Thermals, which combines acoustics and thermals for a simple, objective scoring. This time, there are 3 winners; one for 3 different categories. 

The winners are the Fractal Meshify 3 Ambience Pro RGB for CPU noise-normalized thermals, the Lancool 217 for VRM & RAM noise-normalized thermals, and the Antec Flux Pro for GPU thermals. 

For this testing, we position the cases in our hemi-anechoic chamber with a microphone 1 meter away, then adjust fan speeds of the case fans -- but not the system fans -- until it hits a noise-normalized target of 27 dBA. This is using the fans included in the case. This levels the playing field to show some nuance beyond full-speed fan testing. 

The Fractal Meshify 3 came out earlier this year and immediately netted itself a new best result on our noise-normalized charts. When we reviewed it, the case instantly chart-topped for noise-normalized CPU thermal performance with a 44-degree P-core result over ambient. The Flux Pro, which came out late last year, maintains rank in the top cases for this same chart. Objectively, the Meshify 3 Ambience Pro RGB won this result with its combination of its 3x 140mm Momentum 14 RGB fans and its highly perforated front panel design.

In our noise-normalized VRM and DDR5 memory thermal testing, the top performers are the Lancool 217 and BF 360 Flow. Objectively though, across both the VRM and DDR5 thermal tests, the 217 technically is the victor for these.

For noise-normalized GPU thermals, the Fractal Torrent is still the top performer, but it’s tied by the Antec Flux Pro (which was one of our winners for thermal categories last year). The Flux Pro is closely trailed by the 207 and 217 Lian Li cases, with the X50 equipped with non-Pro (Flux) fans following those. Considering the Flux Pro’s better performance in other categories than the Torrent (and the age of the Torrent), we’re giving the GPU-side of this award to the Flux Pro for one more year running.

Best Out-of-the-Box Case Thermals

HAVN BF 360 Flow: Original review | Amazon
Lian Li Lancool 216: Original review | Amazon
Lian Li Lancool 207: Original review | Amazon
Antec Flux Pro: Original review | Amazon

Next up is the award for Best Out-of-the-Box Thermals, a GN classic. 

The winner for Best Out-of-the-Box Thermals is split between the HAVN BF 360 Flow for CPU results, tied with the older Lancool 216, and the Lancool 207 for GPU thermal results, tied with the Antec Flux Pro.

With full case fan speeds and testing CPU thermals, the best performer for our data set is the HAVN BF 360 Flow with extra fans installed -- but that’s not out-of-the-box, and this is for out-of-the-box thermals. Stock, the older 216 and the HAVN BF 360 Flow default configuration (without the extra fans) are both at the top of the results. The Hyte X50 with Flux fans is also up there, but that was an arbitrary choice as the case doesn’t include fans, and so it isn’t eligible here because, out of the box, it doesn’t have fans. Like the Torrent, the 216 is old enough that we’re ruling it out; however, it and the BF 360 are at about the same performance level, followed closely by the Lancool 217, which is newer.

For GPU thermals, the Lancool 207 and Antec Flux Pro hold the top of the chart. The BF 360 couldn’t quite make it to the top here, with its stock result landing down below the Lancool 217. Antec’s Flux Pro remains highly competitive now a year later, and we look forward to seeing what the Noctua version of the case can do once it comes out. Lian Li’s 207 manages better GPU memory thermal results than the Flux Pro and is tied in GPU temperature.

Most Innovative Case: HYTE X50

HYTE X50: Original review | Amazon

Our Most Innovative Case award is given to cases with the most different designs that take risks. That can be manufacturing, market, or performance risks, because innovation and risk pushes the industry forward. 

This year, the Most Innovative Case award goes to the HYTE X50 case. 

We’re giving a runner-up mark to the SilverStone FLP02 as well.

The Hyte X50 makes heavy use of metals, mesh, and curves. The case moves the power supply to its historic top-mount position and aimed to achieve top ranks in cooling performance with its perforations. 

Most notably, the manufacturing process involved figuring out how to edge-wrap fine mesh with moderate porosity to the corners of the panel, past the apex of the curve, and also figure out how to stamp and bend louvered slats to enable unobstructed exhaust while also strengthening the PCIe slot structure. We tested this with Schlieren photography in our lab and found that the louvered vents do actually work.

The case’s so-called “acoustic” glass didn’t do much for acoustics, although its lamination will help with containing shards in the event it ever shatters. 

Thermally, Hyte managed to achieve competitive performance when equipped with fans from the Antec Flux non-Pro, including beating the Flux non-Pro with its own fans in the noise-normalized CPU thermal test. It wasn’t the chart-topper that Hyte hoped for, but at least did acceptably. 

GPU thermals were far more promising for the Hyte X50 Air thanks to its mesh side panel, landing it toward the top of the chart with the Flux non-Pro fans. 

Our Schlieren photography showed that this was due, in part, to the mesh panel allowing GPU exhaust to exit and get away from the case more easily.

The case did OK overall, but that’s not why it gets an award.

The Hyte X50’s notably bubbly design gives it peerless differentiation in at least one category, which is its innovation on the manufacturing process to get there. Compound curves are a complicated manufacturing hurdle when trying to maintain structural integrity with thinner metals and high porosity.

Although easily achievable with cheaper plastic molding, doing this with metal meant that Hyte had to iterate through multiple trial-and-error manufacturing processes with its factories. This meant changing metal compositions to modulate strength, which sometimes resulted in rusting, changing the depth of the mesh wrap to increase structural rigidity, and changing with porosity of the holes (such as by reducing porosity at the perimeter to reduce tearing of metal, where the fan’s blades most need a porous surface). 

Although less challenging, Hyte also brought curved mesh to its side panel for one of the case variations, including mesh all the way up-and-around the top of the case.

In our technical discussion with Hyte product director Rob Teller at Computex this year, we learned about the process in-depth.

Additional manufacturing maneuvering included using a deep draw stamp for the power supply shroud, a process that’s more time-consuming, but allows more depth to a metal component with curves in it. The louvered slats also required close work with the factory to stamp and twist without ballooning cost or reducing yields.

There are areas that it still struggles, such as when our review talked about the creaking or flexing of panels in some locations. The panels can also be finicky when slotting them in place, requiring more attention to avoid an uneven mount. 

Even with that, we think the Hyte X50 managed to produce a different-looking case without sacrificing too much in terms of performance or other qualities. The $130 to $160 pricing also puts it in range of most of its modern competition, although lacking fans drives the functional price up.

Runner-Up: SilverStone FLP02

SilverStone FLP02: Original coverage

This category’s runner-up is the SilverStone FLP02, a retro-themed case that manages to modernize the functionality of an old look. We appreciated the concept of this case when we saw it at Computex. The case has 5.25” drive bays complete with retro-themed Floppy face covers, although you could complete the look with an actual IDE floppy drive. Center-front is a keyed power toggle, a “turbo” switch that boosts fans to 100% speed, and a reset button, plus a large seven segment display to show the fan speed.

The FLP02 lacks in some areas, like access to air, but still outdoes its predecessor inspiration while staying true to the style. The case modernizes the sleeper build, like with support for the large video cards of today and some radiator support. For these reasons, we give SilverStone the runner-up award for Most Innovative Case.