The full-tower case is an extreme solution for extreme setups. They take up a lot of space, but they’re the perfect choice if you’re crazy about high-end water cooling or need space for a ton of hardware. If you’re looking for the best full-tower case possible to match that crazy parts list, you’ve come to the right place.

Our picks cover a lot of ground, from an old budget favorite to the newest kid on the block. These cases offer excellent component compatibility and room for even the craziest multi-radiator liquid-cooling setups.

Our Favorite Full-Tower PC Cases

1. Fractal Design Torrent

Fractal Design is no stranger to airflow cases, even if the silence-focused Define line has been their signature product. The company’s kicked things to a new level with the Torrent, offering class-leading cooling and airflow with their signature combination of high-end materials and attractive design.

The biggest talking point with the Fractal Torrent is those two 180 mm front intakes. These are Fractal’s own Dynamic GP-18 fans, which boast a max airflow of 153.7 CFM and a max static pressure of 2.26 mm-H2O. They can push a ton of air through your system, and the 180 mm diameter means that the fans can do so at relatively low speeds for reduced noise.

Another interesting feature is the Torrent’s top-mounted PSU, which eliminates the now-standard PSU shroud. This design choice offers a couple of benefits: firstly, it opens up room for bottom intake fans to help cool your GPU directly. Secondly, the fully-open interior eliminates the issue of the PSU shroud stopping the bottom intake’s air from getting to your components. Combine all of this, and you get some of the best stock thermals you’ll get from a case:

An 18-degree Celsius delta on the CPU in 3DMark is impressive and bodes well for standard gaming workloads. Granted, the Intel i7-6700K that Gamers Nexus tests with is a bit old, but it’s still runs quite hot overclocked to 4.4 GHz. GPU temps are solid, too; a 47-degree delta should keep any modern GPU well away from thermal throttling.

Fractal advertises good support for water-cooling hardware too, although that arguably defeats the Torrent’s whole purpose. The Torrent is an air-cooling case through and through. Happily, it’s also one that you can happily use with its stock fan setup. Two 180 mm front intakes and three 140 mm bottom intakes should be more than enough for almost all builds, even without an exhaust.

One downside of the Torrent’s total commitment to airflow, though, is that it’s not a particularly good case for actual torrenting. With a maximum of two 3.5” drives, this isn’t the case if you need a lot of cheap mass storage. This is a big departure from Fractal’s previous cases, most of which offered a storage layout for a ton of 3.5” drives.

But that’s a small issue and one that most performance- and cooling-minded gamers won’t care about much. Overall, the Fractal Design Torrent is the full-tower case to beat in 2022, and we’re excited to see what other manufacturers come up with to try and knock it off its throne.

2. Corsair 7000D Airflow

Corsair’s 7000D is a massive airflow-focused case, much like Fractal’s Torrent. However, the 7000D packs one extra trick up its sleeve: top-notch radiator support perfect for complex water-cooled rigs. It’s pricey, but if you want the rad space without going up to a super tower, you’ll want to check this case out.

The 7000D Airflow has the room and internal layout to fit three massive radiators at once. You can max out the front and motherboard tray radiator mounts with 480 mm units and still have a 360 mm radiator up top. You miss out on the top mount’s 420 mm maximum in this setup, but we’re pretty sure the dual 480 mm radiators make up for that.

The 7000D also has the Torrent beat in one potentially important aspect: drive mounts. The 7000D’s 23.6-inch height (just under 3 inches taller than the Torrent) means that there’s room for a six-drive 3.5” drive cage under the PSU shroud. This gives you the best of both worlds: an open internal layout for airflow or water cooling and enough drive mounts for all but the most storage-hungry setups.

There are PSU length compatibility issues to watch out for if you want to install all six drives, so read the manual and do your research before committing. You’ll want a 7-inch or shorter PSU at the very least, and you might have to double-check radiator thickness too.

Gamers Nexus put the 7000D Airflow through its paces and recorded 45.6 and 58.5 degrees Celsius over ambient in their CPU and GPU torture tests. A good result for the CPU, but less so for the GPU. The 7000D’s stock temperatures are safe, but nowhere near the Fractal Torrent’s 40.5 and 50-degree Celsius deltas in the same test.

The relatively limited stock fan setup compared to the Torrent likely plays a big part in this gap. Which does sting, considering the nearly $70 premium that the 7000D commands over the Torrent. That premium is why this takes the runner-up spot in our list, as it’s a slightly more niche product than the Torrent.

If you want a roomy case that you can build in without worrying about optimizing airflow, get the Fractal Torrent. But if you’re OK with spending extra on fans or want a case specifically for liquid cooling, then the 7000D is worth putting on your shortlist. That said, you may also want to consider the Corsair 1000D we discuss later on if extreme water cooling is your thing.

3. be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 Rev. 2

Be quiet!’s Dark Base Pro 900 Rev. 2 has been around for a while, but it’s still one of the best silent full-tower cases available. Its great sound dampening, decent temperatures, and modularity make it a case worth checking out even as it enters its fourth year on the market.

Silence is, of course, the Dark Base Pro 900’s main selling point. It comes with three of be quiet!’s Silent Wings 3 140 mm fans as standard. These are silence-first fans that only output 15.5 dBA at 100% load, putting them in the ballpark of the best silent fans from companies like Noctua. The Dark Base Pro 900 can go as low as 32.4 dBA at its quietest, literally whisper-quiet.

Further helping you fine-tune your rig’s noise performance is the Dark Base Pro 900’s dual-rail fan controller. It lets you choose “silence” and “performance” modes for two sets of fans independently, mixing and matching fan speeds to find the perfect combo of noise and temperatures.

Gamers Nexus tested the Dark Base Pro 900 and recorded decent temperatures overall. The 31.6-degree CPU delta is slightly higher than we like, but GPU temperatures are fine at 48.8 degrees. This probably isn’t the case you want to run an ultra-hot overclocked CPU in, but most users should be OK here.

But as we alluded to earlier, there’s more to the be quiet! than pure silence. It boasts a relocatable motherboard tray that’s adjustable to three different heights. Not only that, but you can swap the tray around and install it on the left panel for an inverted layout. It’s also removable if you want to use it as a temporary test bench.

The Dark Base Pro 900 Rev. 2 also boasts a ton of drive mounting options, supporting two 5.25” drives, five 3.5” drives, and ten 2.5” drives by default. And since the Dark Base Pro 900 has modular drive mounts, you can buy extra slots from be quiet! and run a maximum of 7 3.5” drives and 14 2.5” drives. Need an ultra-quiet rig that doubles as a NAS? Start here.

All in all, the be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 Rev. 2 is an excellent silence-first full tower. But what sets it apart is that it’s not just a silent case; it’ll also be of interest to anyone who needs a lot of storage or wants something modular they can experiment with and make their own.

4. Phanteks Enthoo Pro

Phanteks’ Enthoo Pro is relatively plain and somewhat old-fashioned as far as full-tower cases go. But behind the dated exterior is a case that offers all the main benefits of a full-tower layout, including great cooling and storage potential, at a relatively budget-friendly price.

It’s important to manage expectations with the Enthoo Pro. You won’t get a finely-tuned airflow design or modularity here; instead, it’s simply a huge box that can fit a lot of hardware. To that end, the Enthoo Pro supports legitimate server-grade hardware, with room for SSI-EEB motherboards and enough intake fans to keep even dual workstation CPUs cool.

Drive support is great, too. Six 3.5” drives and seven 2.5” drives should be more than enough for most users, and then there are the three 5.25” drive bays that you can fill up with optical drives or adapt to fit even more 2.5” or 3.5” storage.

One unique touch that we appreciate is the presence of fan mounts on the drive cage itself. This helps overcome the usual issue of front-mounted drive cages blocking airflow. If you’re planning on installing a lot of storage, you might want to consider installing the drive cage fans to help actively pull air through all the obstructions.

The drive cage does limit GPU compatibility slightly, although 13.66 inches should be enough for everything except certain high-end RTX 3090 or RX 6900 variants. That’s really the only technical issue we have with the Enthoo Pro; beyond that, this case will accommodate anything you throw at it with room to spare.

Phanteks’ Enthoo Pro might be on the budget side of the spectrum, but it’s still a good full-tower with excellent flexibility and component support. It’s not a particularly good-looking case, but we think that’s an acceptable compromise at its price.

It’s worth noting that Phanteks has released a sequel to this, the Enthoo Pro 2. However, that case retails for around $200, pushing it out of the “budget” category.

5. Corsair Obsidian 1000D

Is a full-tower case just not enough for what you have in mind? Do you need two 480 mm radiators for some sort of monster build? If that’s the type of build you’re dreaming of, then the Corsair Obsidian 1000D might be perfect for you.

The 1000D is known as a “super tower,” and it’s easy to see where that comes from. At 31.5 inches tall and 20 inches wide, it’s significantly larger than the average full-tower case. The 1000D uses this massive size to offer a triple-chamber layout designed for running dual systems simultaneously.

The main chamber supports a full-sized E-ATX motherboard, while the second chamber fits a simpler Mini-ITX system. You also get a “French-door-style rear storage compartment” used for cable management and mounting all six of your 2.5” drives.

Radiator support is excellent, and there’s enough room for even the most complex water-cooling loop. You can easily build two systems in the same case (an ATX gaming system and a Mini-ITX streaming PC, for instance) and water-cool both without issue. Niche? Of course. Impressive? Definitely.

One feature we particularly like is the removable radiator and fan trays on the 1000D’s top and front. This makes installing new cooling hardware a breeze and is helpful since the 1000D’s tempered glass front panel isn’t removable. Fractal’s Torrent also has this feature for the bottom fans, but we’d love to see this become truly mainstream.

Overall, the Corsair Obsidian 1000D isn’t for everyone. If you can’t imagine the sort of build you’d pull off in this case, it’s probably not worth consideration. But if you’re an extreme hardware enthusiast who wants a water-cooled dual-CPU, dual-system build, look no further.

Before You Buy

Do You Need a Full-Tower Case?

When shopping around, the first thing to consider is whether you truly need a full-tower. Full-tower cases aren’t just heavier and larger than their mid-tower counterparts; they’re also significantly more expensive. Our budget option costs more than some of the best mid-tower cases, and that’s money you could spend elsewhere.

The main benefit of a full-tower case is the sheer amount of room you get. Generally speaking, full-tower cases will fit larger motherboards, more radiators, and more drives than their mid-tower counterparts. This makes them great for extreme water-cooling setups, multi-GPU rigs, or builds that use large server-grade motherboards.

However, if you’re not going to use all that room, a full tower is just a waste of money and space. Yes, the extra size makes installing hardware and managing those pesky cables easier. But we don’t think that’s worth the cost and size penalty, especially when most mid-tower cases are already straightforward enough to build in.

Generally speaking, if you’re unsure whether you need a full-tower case, you probably don’t. That said, nothing’s stopping you from getting one anyway if you want one; it’s your rig, after all. Need more info? Check out our guide to full- vs. mid-towers for a more thorough breakdown.

E-ATX (and Larger) vs. ATX

One big selling point of full-tower cases that we alluded to earlier is their support for larger motherboards. This includes the ill-defined “E-ATX” category (anything from 12 x 10.1 to 12 x 10.9 inches, depending on the manufacturer) and “proper” large motherboard formats such as SSI-EEB (12 x 13 inches).

There are a few reasons you would end up with a larger-than-ATX motherboard, depending on your use case. Gamers will most likely end up with an E-ATX motherboard simply because that’s what the manufacturer has opted for; this is quite common with high-end gaming motherboards, even if there’s often no reason for it.

For example, a board like the MSI Z690 MEG ACE measures 12 x 10.9 inches, with little to show for it specs-wise. You still get the standard four RAM slots and three PCIe x16 slots; other highlight features such as dual Thunderbolt and dual front USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 ports don’t really need the extra inch of width.

On the other hand, SSI-EEB and workstation boards justify their size by including dual CPU sockets, eight RAM slots (or more), and other high-end productivity features. These boards often stick to the “standard” large motherboard sizes such as SSI-EEB.

A good example would be ASUS’ Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI board, which gives you eight-channel RAM and seven PCIe x16 slots for the extra width:

Overall, the ”E-ATX” size of high-end gaming motherboards feels more like a marketing ploy than anything else. Unless you’re dead-set on owning an ultra-high-end board for the sake of it, you’ll likely be able to find a similarly-equipped ATX motherboard without too much hassle.

However, if you need a ton of RAM slots or dual CPUs for a server or workstation, you’re almost exclusively shopping for E-ATX boards. And that’s where a full-tower case will come into its own.

Closing Thoughts

Full-tower cases are the yin to the Mini-ITX case’s yang: both are for a specific type of user, one who knows what they want to build and needs a case to help achieve that goal. They’re not quite as popular as their tiny cousins, but that just cuts down the amount of shopping around you’ll need to do to find the best full-tower case.

If you want the best air-cooling money can buy, Fractal Design’s Torrent is the best full-tower case for you right now. It’s pricey, but the temperatures speak for themselves. However, if you just need a case for that giant workstation motherboard you’re getting and aren’t too fussed about features, the Phanteks Enthoo Pro offers a lot of space for not a lot of money.