As some of you have read, I decided on the Diablotek TITAN case for my current new build. This is largely because it was available at one of the small computer build/repair shops in town, and I could look at it, and see what I was getting. I have most of the build complete, and thought I would give a synopsis of how this case is working out so far.
The only reason that I am not finished with the build is that I had not thought through the fact that my new board takes DDR3 rem, and that the ram in my current system is DDR2. You see, my plan was to put the 4 gb from my old PC into my new one, then put my old 2 gb stick back in the old case to keep it complete. This, of course, turned out to be impossible, and led me on yet another research project to find the best, most cost effective ram in todays market. I ended up deciding on the following, which, BTW, is officially supported by Gigabyte for my specific board:
(Edit: Switched from Ripjaws to Ares series Ram)
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ($65)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231544
__________________________
So, back to the case review:
At first blush, this case seems a bit lite, but as I worked with it, I found it to be well enough designed and built, and fairly easy to work with.
OVER ALL DESIGN:
The metal is all very nicely finished, leaving no sharp edges to cut yourself on. The inner frame is fairly robust and well designed, with structural folds, rolls, and bends very well thought out. The side panels are also fairly substantial with doubled over edges with rolls, again very well thought out, and there are plenty of slide latches to keep all 4 sides of the panels snuggly placed against the main box. The panels are not overly heavy, gut well enough made, and not that difficult to put on and take off. The front panel snaps off and on with a minimum of effort, and the snap in posts are also fairly substantial, and designed not to snap off easily, like I have read about on many other cases.
SPACE:
This is a smaller case, just what I wanted for this build, as it sets on top of my desk, and I am tired of the larger case that I presently have. It has just sufficient room, but no more, to install a full sized ATX motherboard with a minimum of fuss (in my case the Gigabyte 970A-UD3). Besides the 2ea 5.15 and 1ea 3.5 external drive bays, there are spaces for 6 internal drives. There is also a pair of robust plastic adapters parts to adapt to an SSD or 3.5 drive.
CABLE MANAGEMENT:
There is a bit of room behind the motherboard plate, but not much, and there are some metal strips to tie to, but you do have to work a bit to get the back panel on with cables back there. There is ample space to hide cables behind the hard drive support as well. The SATA connectors on my board are at the bottom facing the front of the case, not facing out to the open side, but with the back panel off it is very easy to get to them to insert the cable ends. On the advice of some in this forum, I used a SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W modular power supply so that I don't have all the extra, unused PSU cabling to deal with. So far, besides the two power cables to the board, I have used only the one (4 station) SATA cable, as I have a DVD-RW, a 240gb SSD system drive, and a standard 500gb data hard drive . There is another 2 station SATA cable as well, but it is stored away in the box.
COOLING OPTIONS: Edit - (Fans were listed as 140mm but are, in reality, 120mm)
It came as somewhat of a surprise to me how many 120 mm fans can be installed. There is a stock 120mm exhaust fan in the upper rear, just below the PSU, and space for three sizes of fans, up to 120mm on the lower front face. With the back panel removed, this front fan slips right in front of the hard drive frame and screws in from the front, with the front bezel off. A magnetic filter can be placed on the metal mesh that the drive mounts to as well, and can be easily removed for cleaning by popping off the front bezel. The front and rear 140mm fan locations were surprise enough, but the best is yet to come.
The vent holes on the side panel are perfectly seized and spaced such that the outer most holes fit exactly with the 120mm mounting holes. One fan can be mounted on the bottom half, and if you wanted to, you could put a second 120mm fan on the top half, and there is one extra row of holes between to leaving clearance for the fan frames. I will be using two filtered Noctua intakes fans, one each on the lower front, and lower side, with the stock 120mm and PSU exhausting at the top rear. This should give me ample positive pressure inside the case, and I can play with this with the different voltage options for the Noctua fans. If the stock, rear, fan is too loud, I will get another Noctua for there as well.
The case is just under 7.5" wide, so I should be able to install a fairly substantial after market CPU cooler when the time comes, and the CPU is mounted well above the lower side intake fan location so as not be crowded by it.
CONCLUSION:
All in all I am very satisfied with this case and would highly recommend it for any medium build.
The only downside, so far, is that one of the motherboard stand offs had bad threads and would not tighten. I had some old ones of the same size, from years ago, and it tightened up in the motherboard plate just fine. I am very disappointed in not being able to fire this thing up because of the ram situation that I mentioned at the top of this thread, so I wont be able to speak to the actual functioning of the system in this case until the new ram comes, and it should be here by the middle or end of next week. I will post back then, when I fire it up.
The only reason that I am not finished with the build is that I had not thought through the fact that my new board takes DDR3 rem, and that the ram in my current system is DDR2. You see, my plan was to put the 4 gb from my old PC into my new one, then put my old 2 gb stick back in the old case to keep it complete. This, of course, turned out to be impossible, and led me on yet another research project to find the best, most cost effective ram in todays market. I ended up deciding on the following, which, BTW, is officially supported by Gigabyte for my specific board:
(Edit: Switched from Ripjaws to Ares series Ram)
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ($65)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231544
__________________________
So, back to the case review:
At first blush, this case seems a bit lite, but as I worked with it, I found it to be well enough designed and built, and fairly easy to work with.
OVER ALL DESIGN:
The metal is all very nicely finished, leaving no sharp edges to cut yourself on. The inner frame is fairly robust and well designed, with structural folds, rolls, and bends very well thought out. The side panels are also fairly substantial with doubled over edges with rolls, again very well thought out, and there are plenty of slide latches to keep all 4 sides of the panels snuggly placed against the main box. The panels are not overly heavy, gut well enough made, and not that difficult to put on and take off. The front panel snaps off and on with a minimum of effort, and the snap in posts are also fairly substantial, and designed not to snap off easily, like I have read about on many other cases.
SPACE:
This is a smaller case, just what I wanted for this build, as it sets on top of my desk, and I am tired of the larger case that I presently have. It has just sufficient room, but no more, to install a full sized ATX motherboard with a minimum of fuss (in my case the Gigabyte 970A-UD3). Besides the 2ea 5.15 and 1ea 3.5 external drive bays, there are spaces for 6 internal drives. There is also a pair of robust plastic adapters parts to adapt to an SSD or 3.5 drive.
CABLE MANAGEMENT:
There is a bit of room behind the motherboard plate, but not much, and there are some metal strips to tie to, but you do have to work a bit to get the back panel on with cables back there. There is ample space to hide cables behind the hard drive support as well. The SATA connectors on my board are at the bottom facing the front of the case, not facing out to the open side, but with the back panel off it is very easy to get to them to insert the cable ends. On the advice of some in this forum, I used a SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W modular power supply so that I don't have all the extra, unused PSU cabling to deal with. So far, besides the two power cables to the board, I have used only the one (4 station) SATA cable, as I have a DVD-RW, a 240gb SSD system drive, and a standard 500gb data hard drive . There is another 2 station SATA cable as well, but it is stored away in the box.
COOLING OPTIONS: Edit - (Fans were listed as 140mm but are, in reality, 120mm)
It came as somewhat of a surprise to me how many 120 mm fans can be installed. There is a stock 120mm exhaust fan in the upper rear, just below the PSU, and space for three sizes of fans, up to 120mm on the lower front face. With the back panel removed, this front fan slips right in front of the hard drive frame and screws in from the front, with the front bezel off. A magnetic filter can be placed on the metal mesh that the drive mounts to as well, and can be easily removed for cleaning by popping off the front bezel. The front and rear 140mm fan locations were surprise enough, but the best is yet to come.
The vent holes on the side panel are perfectly seized and spaced such that the outer most holes fit exactly with the 120mm mounting holes. One fan can be mounted on the bottom half, and if you wanted to, you could put a second 120mm fan on the top half, and there is one extra row of holes between to leaving clearance for the fan frames. I will be using two filtered Noctua intakes fans, one each on the lower front, and lower side, with the stock 120mm and PSU exhausting at the top rear. This should give me ample positive pressure inside the case, and I can play with this with the different voltage options for the Noctua fans. If the stock, rear, fan is too loud, I will get another Noctua for there as well.
The case is just under 7.5" wide, so I should be able to install a fairly substantial after market CPU cooler when the time comes, and the CPU is mounted well above the lower side intake fan location so as not be crowded by it.
CONCLUSION:
All in all I am very satisfied with this case and would highly recommend it for any medium build.
The only downside, so far, is that one of the motherboard stand offs had bad threads and would not tighten. I had some old ones of the same size, from years ago, and it tightened up in the motherboard plate just fine. I am very disappointed in not being able to fire this thing up because of the ram situation that I mentioned at the top of this thread, so I wont be able to speak to the actual functioning of the system in this case until the new ram comes, and it should be here by the middle or end of next week. I will post back then, when I fire it up.
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