Cases are so subjective (beyond the need of having enough room to fit all your hardware), but I prefer cases that are mostly metal and feel like they're built to withstand a blast of some sort (nuclear, chemical, etc -- Whatever dangers are in your area).
I've never felt like I was a fan of Cooler Master cases because their stuff just kinda looks like it's a big piece of plastic. I've used a lot of 'cheap' cases in my computer-building life, and it wasn't until I moved to my
Silverstone Fortress that I saw the light. Now, this thing is very heavy duty, but it's probably a tad small unless you only have a single radiator that houses a 120mm fan (although they do provide instructions for using a triple radiator with this case).
If you want a serious case, then here are some manufacturers to check out:
- Silverstone
- Builds heavy duty cases that look and feel like they can withstand any aforementioned blasts
- I wanted to go with the TJ-11 for my newest build, but the case was way too expensive (but it's a beast!)
- Mountain Mods
- These guys make ridiculous sized cases like the double-wide 'cube' cases
- Lots of room for any water cooling you may have
- Corsair
- I've heard good things about the 800D/900D cases and I was looking at them (in addition to the TJ-11) for my latest build
- Fractal Design
- I actually feel like these guys are kind of 'hoity- toity' and they try to be fancier than they really are, but I put them up here anyway since they are a well-known manufacturer
- Lian-Li
- Another manufacturer that's well-known. I owned one of these full tower cases back in the day and I wasn't prepared for how big it was, so it went highly under utilized (TWSS)
- I feel like because they gained their fame years ago that you're now paying for the name and you might be able to get better cases for the same price or less (This is an old opinion of mine and wasn't re-checked when I wrote this)
But budgets are budgets and not everyone can afford a new $300 or $600 (FML) case when they want to upgrade. You may already understand the heavy-duty factor because you are moving away from a 4U rack case (which is actually what I would like to move to in the future).