Need a good air-flow case (NOT fancy)!

[Copperplate]

Hello all,

My first post here. I'm going to be upgrading to a new system very soon, and I would greatly appreciate any advice on a case that's affordable with good airflow and space for at least 8 x 3.5" (or 6 x 3.5" and 2 x 2.5") drives. I'm pretty sure I'll be using a card with an ACX (open air) cooler, so I heard that puts the burden on the case to remove the heat. I am not looking for fancy at all... in fact, if the case has glowing LED fans in the front, I would definitely want a way to turn the lights off! I would find that kind of stuff incredibly distracting, especially when I'm editing video.

I'm considering the Antec Three Hundred Two Case, the Fractal Design Define XL R2, or whatever else you might suggest. Here's what I'll be putting inside:

i7 4930k
Asus x79-DELUXE motherboard
Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler SE2011
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB w/ ACX Cooler

Thanks so much for your advice!

~Adam

 

[Tweakin]

Welcome to the Forum!

First things first...what is your budget? Do you prefer Towers or Mid?

 

[Copperplate]

Welcome to the Forum!

First things first...what is your budget? Do you prefer Towers or Mid?

Hi, I think about $150 max, less is preferable. I don't care about size at all... as long as it meets the cooling/expandability requirements.

Thanks for your response.

 

[stahlhart]

Based on your drive mounting requirement, you might want to check out this one, which I just picked up this past weekend:

http://www.microcenter.com/product/418428/Obsidian_Series_750D_Full_Tower_ATX_Computer_Case

It has four separate 2.5" drive caddies mounted vertically behind the backplate / drive bays, along with a couple of internal assemblies for 3.5". The 3.5" bays also have mounting provisions for 2.5".

Very clean design, and no illumination apart from the power and drive activity indicators.

 

[Copperplate]

Thanks stalhart for your response. It seems that case has no side vent... so I wonder how it would be with the cpu's air cooler?

 

[stahlhart]

The full top panel of the case is open, and there are provisions for mounting fans -- it looks like either 2 x 120mm or 140mm; I haven't measured or otherwise checked yet.

My CPU and GPU temperatures actually dropped a couple of degrees after moving into this case from a HAF X, which had a pair of 200mm fans exhausting out up top, in addition to the front and side (intake) and back (exhaust). The 750D comes with a pair of 140s in front and a 120 in back.

 

[fralexandr]

Rosewill Thor V2
Anandtech's review of it
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4648/rosewill-thor-v2-the-god-of-cooling-and-silence
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...rder=BESTMATCH
It's a nice case, lots of fans, the LEDs can be turned off via a button on the front (close to the front intake)
2 analog fan controllers (can be set up for intake & exhaust -> positive or negative pressure)
I built my brother's PC in one a while ago and called it Mjolnir
It's HEAVY though hah.

 

[Fallen Kell]

See no reason to not just get a Fractal Designs R4. Has a side vent if you want (removable covering), 8 3.5/2.5" bays, 2 dedicated 2.5" mount points, fits 295mm length graphics cards with all hard drive bays installed (EVGA 780 you posted is only 267mm in length), fits the NH-D14, and is pretty darn quiet. Oh and it is only $90-100. I think I have now done 4 builds for myself or friends/family with this case.

 

[Copperplate]

Thank you everyone for the responses. Can you completely remove the front panel on the R4 if you don't want it?

 

[Fallen Kell]

I believe you can, but I never have done so (never had the need and the difference in sound level is noticeable). I think the door is held on by 4 screws that can be accessed if you take the entire front panel off (this will be a little work as you need to pull all the front connector cables out of the way they are routed, but nothing too bad, maybe 5-10 minutes to do).

 

[Copperplate]

Okay; thanks for that info!

 

[TFchris]

Yuck, considering an Antec? They kind of got left in the dust in the case business about two years ago to CM and Corsair...

 

[TFchris]

Since the Antec 200 is around the $60 range, I assume that is somewhere near your budget.

Check out the Corsair 230T or 400R

Although some may have glowing red fans, you can probably turn those off. Or just straight out switch the fans.

 

[Tifosi248F1]

I can whole heartedly recommend Fractal Design, whichever one fits your needs best. I love my Arc Midi R2. Plenty of space, lots of fan mounts, and not exceptionally loud. Removable filters are real nice as well.

One on the fans developed a wobble and awful noise after just 2 months, and they sent out a replacement no charge and quite quickly after I first contacted them. Top notch customer support.

 

[Copperplate]

Thanks for the additional advice! I've noticed lots of cases (including the Arc Midi R2) have no side vent. I assume that the cpu exhausts out the back of the case? How much impact on cooling does the lack of a side vent have? Thanks!

 

[Tifosi248F1]

I have no proper evidence to say, but I wouldn't think it's a significant impact. I'm using the 3 included 140mm fans of the Arc Midi and an additional 120mm. I moved the top installed 140 to the front and put the 120 in its place, so I have two front 140 intake, a rear 140 exhaust and a top 120 exhaust. My computer room can get quite dusty so I went for positive case pressure over exhaust performance.

On a stock 3570k with a very old Zalman 9500 cooler, idle bounces between 25 and 28 degrees and my EVGA 760 sits at 29-30 in a room that's roughly 20 degrees. When gaming or doing heavy encoding the CPU might touch 60-62 and the GPU stays under 65.

I'd think a side vent/fan mount would be more useful for providing cooler fresh air to the GPU. Warm air rises, so having more top exhaust would facilitate the removal of the heat inside the case better than a side vent.

That's just my thoughts and experience. Different situations produce different results.

 

[Copperplate]

Okay, thanks for sharing that info!

 

[smitbret]

I bought a Fractal Design Define Mini about a year ago to house my server. Love it. but if I had to go back again and do it all over, I would have gotten the R4.

Dead silent

 

[Copperplate]

Thanks for sharing. I think Fractal Design is a good way to go, but I'm worried about those thermals. Anandtech's testing showed the Arc Midi keeping CPU temps @ 56.5 deg.C under load, while the R4 was 68.5 deg.C!

I'm thinking this was due to having the front door and upper flaps on the R4 closed... otherwise, one should get much better cooling, right?

 

[Tifosi248F1]

Likely yes. The Define R4 is built around less noise with the padding and vent flaps, plus it comes with just two 140mm fans. The Arc Midi sacrifices quietness for better cooling with 3 fans and no vent flaps. Even just adding a 3rd fan to match the Arc would help cooling.

One other thing to be cautious of is the integrated fan controller. It's quite simple and does the job, but it might not play well with some hardware. I've seen a few threads on a few forums about BSODs when changing fan speed. I can confirm it does happen. In my case I can go from 12v to 7v or 7v to 12v without issues, however dropping down to 5v causes some instability with my GPU. I'm guessing that in the split second it takes to adjust the voltage, there's enough of a hitch to cause the GPU to think it's losing power. This is with a Seasonic M12II 620W, so not a junk power supply and one you'd find recommended on here at times.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Thanks for sharing. I think Fractal Design is a good way to go, but I'm worried about those thermals. Anandtech's testing showed the Arc Midi keeping CPU temps @ 56.5 deg.C under load, while the R4 was 68.5 deg.C!

I'm thinking this was due to having the front door and upper flaps on the R4 closed... otherwise, one should get much better cooling, right?

Keep in mind those temps on the R4 are with only using the stock 2 fans (1 intake and 1 exhaust). There is room for a second 140mm front intake fan, 2 top 140mm fans, 1 side 140mm fan, and 1 bottom 140mm fan. Now I wouldn't recommend using that many fans, as you don't have hardware that comes close to needing that much cooling. But that is something to take into consideration when you are comparing temps in reviews. The R4 out of the box is designed to be dead quiet and perform well even with overclocking. If you simply want overall best possible cooling, you add more fans.

In my gaming system R4, I only added a front 140mm. It is an older i7-3770k overclocked to 4.2GHz (Noctua NH-D14 heatsink). My CPU temps (last I checked) were in the 64-68C range at load (and that is not over ambient, ambient is 20-23C), well below the 105-110C that the chip's thermal throttling kicks in. But my GPU is only an EVGA 670 GTX FTW (blower style exhaust).

 

[Copperplate]

Thanks for the additional responses! Sorry I've been away from this thread for a while.

 

[SolMiester]

Another vote for the Define R4, built one month ago, lovely case, quiet and great cooling options with space for your 8 x 3.5 & 2.5 disks as well.

 

[Copperplate]

Thanks for your response!

 

[alkemyst]

EDIT: sorry this posted in the thread, not as a new one. Coming off a 20 hour work day