Best micro-atx case?

[perdomot]

Trying to decide between the Lian Li and Silverstone small cases and wanted some opinions about which would be the better buy. Leaning towards this one right now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112222

Opinions?

 

[Zargon]

thats a good looking case

wonder how quite the fans are?

 

[llee]

The lian li supports a dual rad if you wanted to upgrade to water-cooling. If you like the 'boxy-ish' look, you could also check out Da Box 100 from Lan Gear. Otherwise, you're left with Silverstone HTPC cases or their Sugo tower line-up. Which cases are you comparing the V351 with?

I'm an SFF guy, so predominantly look at Mini-ITX and smaller form factors. But hey, I've looked at M-ATX before too.

 

[Skott]

What do you plan to put into it? The components you will want to load into it will partially dictate the case choice. Will you overclock? Will you air cool or water cool? Do you want to run dual GPUs or a single GPU? These questions also will partially dictate the case choice. Also are you trying to find one as small as possible? This will effect choice as well possibly. I'm personally not a huge Lian-Li fan (They are pretty good) but if I wanted a V35x model I'd probably wait for the V354 model thats suppose to come out this year. It looks to be a really good case from the info availble so far. Slightly larger than its predecessors though.

Silverstone makes some good cases too. SG01 and SG02 and its variants. If you like tower style there is the SG03 and SG04. Same questions above will influence the Silverstone decision as well.

There is also The DaBox as leonless mentioned. Small as possible package, high performance, and yet highly moddable for real enthusiasts. Pricey but worth it to some.

 

[perdomot]

I plan on putting the rig in my sig in the new case but will have to change the cooler to something smaller than my tower style cooler.

 

[Kantastic]

NZXT Vulcan

 

[perdomot]

NZXT Vulcan

I looked at this case but its taller than I want.

 

[Massive Overkill]

NOTHING beats the Lan Gear:

Cogage Arrow:

H50 in push/pull with 38mm/25mm fans:

 

[FishAk]

I prefer a tower for the airflow, and the Silverstone TJ08 has an extra internal bay.
Its 4.5" taller than the V351, but nearly 3" less wide. In any case, you will want to use the H50 for the cooler, due to space concerns.

 

[darkewaffle]

I just built a HTPC in a Silverstone GD05B and I thought it was an absolute pleasure. The case itself feels so solid, but not heavy, and every part that moved or slid did it smoothly.

However if you're going for a performance rig, it's not really ideal because the optical drive sits just above the CPU, and thus the heatsink, so you'd need something pretty low profile. I went with a Scythe Big Shuriken.

Honestly, relative to the experience, I liked the Silverstone better than my Lian Li PC-9F midtower; admittedly they're completely different case styles and builds, but I think the Silverstone felt better. The Lian Li panels just felt like I had to force them all the time and seemed more fragile.

Edit: Crap, I said SG05, I meant GD05B.

 

[perdomot]

SG05 is a mini itx so that's out for me. I'm surprised to hear that you found the quality of the Silverstone better than Lian Li given their excellent rep.

 

[CurseTheSky]

If you want something more performance oriented (rather than small-size oriented), look at the NZXT Rogue. It's NOT small (though much easier to carry than a normal midtower) and can be fairly heavy. The best selling point is how much you can cram in it: it can fit a tower heatsink with ease, can hold up to five (or was it six?) 3.5" HDDs, two 5.25" drives, five 120mm fans, a full-sized ATX power supply, medium-sized graphics cards (9" and under should be fine), and still have room to spare. The removable motherboard tray and front eSATA port are both icing on the cake. The quality might not be up to the same standard as Lian-Li or Silverstone, but it is extremely sturdy and an absolute pleasure to work with. It even comes with a carrying strap for easier transportation.

Overall, I'd choose that one if I was looking to build something powerful, but still portable, as it has excellent cooling and you're not limited to smaller PSUs, low profile coolers, etc. I'd probably go down to mini-ITX if I wanted something much more portable, or just get a gaming laptop.

The going price is around $120, but I picked mine up on sale around $70 or so. Nothing could compete with it at that price, IMO. Check out some pictures here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146044.

 

[darkewaffle]

SG05 is a mini itx so that's out for me. I'm surprised to hear that you found the quality of the Silverstone better than Lian Li given their excellent rep.

Well, it may be mini ITX compatible, but I built it with micro ATX with zero problems. I used a ASUS M4A785-M board.

And yea, I'd only ever heard excellent things about Lian Li but I was kind of underwhelmed by it. By all means its a good case, but you can get a 'good' case for much cheaper from Antec, CM, and co.

I just liked the feel of the aluminium in the Silverstone much better, and the only thing that really annoyed me was the absolute rat nest of cables for the front media panel (if only they could make modular it would be exceptional though) and how removing the panels usually felt jerky / difficult.

Edit: Doh, just realized I said SG05. What I meant was GD05B. I built in the Grandia case, not the Sugo.