Best air cooled case, your opinions(on these) or suggestions.

[sman789]

Right now i have a 120mm as an intake and i can barely feel it as it passes over my 3 HDDs. I have a tornado on the side powered by a separate psu. But i'm looking to cool my system down more. i have my AC at 75f/24c and my pc temps are

Total number of readouts: 16020
CPU Speed: 3008 MHz
Running from: 8/5/2003 7:28:57 PM
until: 8/6/2003 5:48:09 PM
Sensor Current Low High Average
Sensor 1 33° C 30° C 36° C 32° C case >> temp by probe = 30 idle
Sensor 2 45° C 40° C 55° C 44° C cpu >> temp at heatsink bottom = 31 idle
Sensor 3 34° C 30° C 41° C 34° C pwm

i have 3 optical drives, 5.25 rheobus, 1fdd, i 3.5 temp display, 3HDDs.

Heres a raidmax i'm lookin at
Raidmax

and an Icute, i've never heard of them tho Icute

which one do yall like? or do yall have any suggestions? These are both relatively cheap too (30 range)

 

[0roo0roo]

i find the airflow from antec/chieftec cases quite adequet. esp since they use very decent fan mounts. the case grills don't block air like a lot of cheap cases with their tiny tiny holes. that with the sheer size of the interior of the antec/chieftec ases allow for very good airflow. with all 5 fans on max, the interior is like a wind tunnel straight airpath from front to back is quite nice.

 

[Blooz1]

I see Raidmax has finally admitted that they had NO airflow through the front of their cases! They still have the single 60MM exhaust that can't be modded without major work. At least there's a possibility of a decent flow with that large grill on the intake. (the other case has many of the same problems..)

You should look at the Compucase LX-6A19 if you want good airflow. (LINK to Case) It's available at Directron for $39 without a PS. This is a case with 2-120MM fans for cooling, and the chassis is identical to the Antec SLK-3700, with a different front bezel without a door.

It's very well made steel, has tons of room inside, removable floppy and HF racks, front USB and audio ports. The HD rack (which is grommeted for no vibrations from the drives) sits directly in back of the front 120MM fan, so drives get plenty of airflow!

It's an excellent case at a good price.

 

[0roo0roo]

not to mention the antec/chieftec cases actually bother punching out the fan grill a bit on the rear exhausts so the grill snt' up against the fan. lower turbulance less noise!

add all the screwless drive rails and screwless fan mounts.. and its just a very well engineered case. i don't like cases without doors either. most cd drives don't match your case, and your case will just look ugly exposing stuff that doesn't match. not to mention a door muffles cd/dvd noise quite well, and the locks on the side door and front door allow you to keep the pc on and not have people/kids mess with it heck, even the reset switch is behind the locked door

some cases look half decent empty. but who has a case without optical drives

 

[sman789]

i'll prolly puch out the grills since i've done that to my current case and a doored case ay not be right because i have a rheobus

 

[0roo0roo]

i have 3 rheobuses in different cases. it fits behind the door quite well.

 

[sman789]

ahh

 

[Icewind]

Antec/Chieftec cases have a great way to cool HDD"s. Not only do they slide out with a simple latch, but they also have a fan attachment to allow airflow directly over them. I just created a new cooling method to push more air towards my CPU/RAM/NB and it works really well, my temps have dropped nearly 4c as a result.

Ice Flow
Ice Flow 2

 

[0roo0roo]

yup, they have built in bay coolers quite sweet. the absolutely newest chieftec, i forget what its called but it certainly looks odd, even has holes all over the drive bay covers and the drive bay cages for circulation quite nutz! ussually they only come with one 80mm hd bay mount because only one has vents to draw air from outside the case. you can buy a 2nd for the other cage if you realy want though.

 

[bootoo]

I have the chieftec aluminum too and love it - thought I'd hate it and it had been overdone but love it - but that raidmax looks a lot like the black x-dreamer case over at svc.com for $58.95 w/a decent power supply. The x-dreamer is better ventilated and also comes with a few drive covers so you don't have to paint your drives; the stealthing is supposed to be easy according to the reviews I read.

If you don't go chieftec, go xoxide x-dreamer! Go black either way (just joking; I like my case a lot obviously!)

 

[sman789]

how is the X better than the raidmax....it has an open front with just a filter...oh yeah i also need no psu and stealthin is easy for me to do myself