“Portable” and “desktop PC” don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. You could even say that anyone who needs a portable PC should just get a laptop. But definitions of portable can differ; not everyone’s looking to work on their novel at a Starbucks after all.

Say, for example, that you want something to take to a LAN party or you occasionally shuttle between a few different houses. It doesn’t make sense to sacrifice the power and bang-for-buck of a desktop PC if you’re only moving it a few times a month.

To that end, we’ve listed the six best portable PC cases perfect for building a rig that you can carry with you from time to time.

Our Favorite Portable PC Cases

1. Hyte Revolt 3

The Hyte Revolt 3 combines the portable convenience of a handle with enough room for a high-end graphics card. If you want a beast of a portable PC, then this is the case to check out first.

The Revolt 3’s Xbox Series X-style tower design means it has room for a 13.18-inch, three-slot GPU like a high-end RTX 3080 variant while still coming in under 20 liters. CPU cooler clearance is a decent 5.5 inches, although the Revolt 3’s single 80 mm top fan isn’t ideal for raw airflow.

TechPowerUp tested the Revolt 3 and recorded 89.2 degrees Celsius on their Intel i5-9600K CPU and 75.8 degrees on a Zotac RTX 3060 Ti Twin Edge OC. That’s an acceptable GPU temperature, but the CPU is on the hot side. So you’ll likely want to take advantage of the Revolt 3’s radiator support and install a decent 280 mm AIO to keep CPU temperatures under control.

Hyte put a lot of thought into designing the Revolt 3, which shows in the internal layout. You get small but helpful features such as a hinged cooler mounting bracket for easy motherboard access and PSU and GPU cable management plates. These make building and maintaining a system in the Revolt 3 much more manageable.

Overall, the Hyte Revolt 3 is an excellent portable PC case that will fit some serious hardware. It’s equally at home on a desk as it is shuttling around from LAN party to LAN party, making it a great pick and one of the best mini-ITX cases overall.

The Hyte Revolt 3 is available in black and white. You can also buy the Revolt 3 with a pre-installed PSU if you’d rather not worry about finding the right PSU for your rig.

2. Lian Li PC-TU150

Lian Li is no stranger to making PC cases, being well known for products like the O11 Dynamic and their range of desk PCs. While they’re definitely more focused on bigger cases, they also make the PC-TU150. It’s our pick for the best Mini-ITX case with a handle that you can buy right now.

The PC-TU150 is a bit too big to qualify as a “proper” sub-20L small form factor (SFF) case, but that comes with some benefits. The PC-TU150 has enough room to fit GPUs up to 12.6 inches long and CPU coolers up to 6.5 inches high.

This means you’ll be able to pick from almost any high-end graphics card on the market now and pair it with a chunky CPU cooler like Noctua’s NH-D15S. You’ll still have to go for an SFX or SFX-L power supply, but that’s a small sacrifice to make for such effortless compatibility elsewhere.

The PC-TU150 has some thoughtful airflow features, with perforations down the sides and across the bottom of the front panel. The PSU even gets its own dedicated grate. If you opt for the windowless variant, the case also has a grate specifically for GPU cooling.

Fan-wise, it has four 120 mm fan slots, so you shouldn’t have any trouble feeding fresh air to your components. PC TU-150. There’s enough space to hide your cables on top of or behind the motherboard tray, helping you ensure a clear pathway for the air to flow.

Top it all off with a nice brushed aluminum finish and a retractable magnetic handle, and you have one of the most stylish and practical mini-ITX portable PC cases on the market now. It’s a bit big for a Mini-ITX case at 23 liters, but it’s still a great case regardless.

3. Jonsbo T8 Plus

The Jonsbo T8 Plus is an updated version of the T8, which was one of our previous favorite portable PC cases. The T8 Plus retains the clean, angular design and built-in handle of the T8 but expands its dimensions slightly for much-improved component compatibility.

Despite its increased size, the T8 Plus is still a bonafide small form factor (SFF) case with its 12.5-liter volume. Jonsbo has made clever use of the room here, giving you ATX PSU support alongside space for 10.62-inch GPUs and 5.31-inch CPU coolers. The T8 Plus has enough room for a high-end card like the Zotac RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC and a compact CPU tower cooler like the Noctua NH-U9S. That’s some beefy hardware for a sub-15 liter PC.

One of the main motivations for the increased height also likely has to do with improved GPU cooling. The old T8 only had a single 140 mm top fan, but the T8 Plus has room for two 120 mm bottom intake fans. This should help keep GPU temperatures in check without resorting to the front intake fan mods commonly performed on the T8 non-Plus.

You can also repurpose one of those bottom 120 mm mounts to install a single 2.5” SSD, giving you 4 SSD mounts in total. That’s quite impressive for a small case and makes this a good candidate for a relatively storage-heavy build if you also install an NVMe SSD in your motherboard slot.

However, there’s one noticeable downside to the T8 Plus: the 90 mm rear fan mounting holes. This uncommon size means that you won’t be able to install a 120 mm AIO to cool your CPU without some creative mounting.

AIO issues aside, there’s a lot to like about the Jonsbo T8 Plus. Yes, it’s no longer in that sub-10 liter category that die-hard SFF users love, but that makes it a more usable and appealing case overall. The T8 Plus is available in silver and black.

4. Sliger Cerberus

If you want to build a portable micro ATX rig in an exceptionally compact and premium case, the Sliger Cerberus might be the case for you. It pulls off the trick of supporting mATX motherboards while also being small enough to qualify as a bona fide SFF case, coming in at 19.64 liters.

Our other micro ATX case, the Cooler Master Q300P, gives you multiple options for handle positions, case orientation, and the location of the I/O panel. On the other hand, the Sliger Cerberus offers you a lot of choices when buying the case itself.

You can choose the finish, the types of side panels you want, whether you want a handle, extra storage and fan mounting options, and so on. You can even choose to bundle in a low-profile AIO CPU cooler, which you’ll need if you want to install a standard ATX PSU in the Cerberus.

The Cerberus feels like a really well-thought-out case. It offers multiple PSU mounting options for flexibility and solid AIO support. There’s good support for 120 and 140 mm radiators, and there’s even room for a 280-mm radiator at the bottom. However, Sliger does note that “placement may be difficult” for that large a radiator.

We also like the Cerberus’ “infinite vent pattern,” which is a fancy way of saying that most of the Cerberus’ panels have perforations that accommodate case screws. This pattern lets you install 60 mm to 140 mm case fans “almost anywhere,” giving tons of flexibility. The Sliger Cerberus also has five expansion ports. With the right parts, you could build a dual GPU rig in the Cerberus if you’re feeling a bit crazy. That’s impressive for such a compact case.

The downside? The Cerberus isn’t cheap. Starting at $265 with a handle, the Cerberus costs a pretty penny compared to our other choices. Free US shipping helps, but it’s still considerably more expensive than the Cooler Master Q300P.

However, the Sliger Cerberus stands out as one of the most exciting and still relatively accessible micro ATX cases with handles right now. If you like what the Cerberus offers, there’s not much on the market that can compare.

You can get the Sliger Cerberus directly from Sliger.

5. SilverStone ML08

If you want to build a thin SFF case with a handle, there aren’t many better choices than the SilverStone ML08. Coming in at a dainty 12 liters, the ML08 is perfect for a portable HTPC that you can take with you on trips. It even has space for a dedicated optical drive, which the Blu-Ray fanatics out there will surely appreciate.

Don’t think it can’t be used for gaming, either. It supports 13-inch GPUs and enough CPU cooler space for something like Noctua’s low-profile NH-L9a or NH-L9i coolers. You’ll definitely have to go with a slightly lower-power CPU. However, it should still be enough for an enjoyable gaming experience.

Remember to keep an eye on the temperatures, though; the ML08 doesn’t have any space for case fans. So, you’ll have to rely on the ventilation and the fans on your coolers to keep things running at decent temperatures.

When you’re building a PC in something this size, though, you’ll definitely have to make more sacrifices than with our other options. On balance, we think the lack of cooling fans isn’t a deal-breaker for HTPC-style builds, especially when the case is this thin.

As a bonus, you can also position the ML08 horizontally, making it perfect for a console-style PC to put under your TV.

How To Choose A Portable PC Case

We’ve done our research and are confident that these five cases are some of the best portable PC cases you can buy right now. But we know that choosing a PC case comes down to personal preference more than anything else, and you may not be that keen on our picks.

So, to help you make your own choice and explain some of ours, let’s run through the most essential characteristics of a portable PC case.

Handles

All the cases in our list feature carrying handles. While you can get by without one, especially if it’s a micro-ATX (mATX) or mini-ITX case, a handle makes carrying your portable rig a lot easier. There’s less chance of it slipping out of your grasp, for one. It also makes it easier to set it down if you need to use both your hands.

If portability is your main concern, we think a handle is really a must-have.

Size

Let’s get it out of the way: yes, you can get mid and full tower cases with handles. And yes, that technically makes them more portable than similarly-sized cases without handles. But we think they’re still too big to qualify as a legit portable PC case. Do you really want to lug a mid tower, even one with handles, up and down flights of stairs? We guessed not.

That’s why all of our picks here are mATX and smaller. We think you should stick to the same form factors if you’re choosing your own portable case. Cases like the Lian Li PC-TU150 even support full-size CPU air coolers and GPUs, so don’t think you’ll be missing out by going with a smaller case.

Component Compatibility

There’s nothing worse than buying a case only to realize your components won’t fit. This can happen surprisingly easily, mainly if you’re reusing old parts like a PSU or GPU in a new build. We tried to pick cases with well-rounded compatibility to work with regular parts, saving you that particular headache.

Still, expect to need one or two new parts if this is your first ITX or small form factor (SFF) build. Depending on the case, you might have to get a smaller SFX PSU or a shorter graphics card. So, do your research and budget accordingly.

Airflow And Temperatures

It’s surprisingly easy to end up with a super-hot PC when you’re targeting compactness and portability. So we’ve gone for cases with features, be it fan mounting points or well-placed grates, designed to ensure adequate airflow.

Of course, small cases will almost always run hotter than a roomier mid or full tower. That’s just something you’ll have to accept in a small PC. That said, this can be a problem if you’re a stickler for temperatures or live in a hot climate. If that’s you, then small portable cases probably aren’t the right choice.

Conclusion

Out of the cases we listed here, we like the Sliger Cerberus and Lian Li PC-TU150 the most. Both feature compact size, classy aesthetics, and relatively flexible component support, making for a pair of excellent portable PC cases.

All in all, though, we don’t think you can really go wrong with any of our picks. Some may require more sacrifices than others, but it’ll all depend on what sort of PC you’re building in the first place. Just remember that you’ll be giving up some of the things you may be taking for granted in mid or full tower cases with any of these picks.

But the portability of a micro ATX or Mini-ITX case with a handle outweighs the sacrifices. As long as you do your research beforehand and confirm that all your parts fit, you’ll be fine. Have fun building!