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State of the art in PC cases

F

frobnitz

Member
Am I missing something, or is the start of the art in currently available cases for hobbyists pretty low?

That is, look at what Dell, Compaq, HP and others ship as part of the products. They are quieter, cooler, and generally much better than what we can build custom systems out of. Cases that seem to approach the PC manufacturers in terms of these capabilities like the Palo Alto ATCX case and the Fong Kai 603 are 3 year old designs, are very hard to find from retailers, online or B&M.

Technology like fan ducting and noise insulation aren't that innovative, yet we hardly see anyone shipping cases that have these features, and yet tons of people keep posting in these forums and others about how to try and mod their cases for better cooling and noise minimization.

Ami I missing something here? Are their other products out there that do a good job that I just haven't noticed? Help me out here...

Frob
 
I agree with WAngtang. Lian-li and coolermaster cases are great especially the newer models. I would also like to add the whole line of rebagded CHeiftec/ANtec cases. They are pretty good as far as quality and cooling goes.
 
I agree with WAngtang. Lian-li and coolermaster cases are great especially the newer models. I would also like to add the whole line of rebagded CHeiftec/ANtec cases. They are pretty good as far as quality and cooling goes.
Click to expand...

Well, as I said before, maybe I am missing something, but what is so great about these cases? Granted, they look good, and seem to be sturdy, but what is their thermal performance like? There is an optional duct system for one of the coolermaster cases, but it's all aluminum construction doesn't seem to have any noise reduction technology used, and the lian-li's don't look to have anything special re: airflow and noise reduction technology either.

I would venture a bet that a Dell case running the same CPU and MB as any of these others would be quieter and cooler, though maybe it wouldn't look as nice.

I have an Antec SX-840 case - very sturdy and well built. But it doesn't help much in reducing noise or have any advanaced thermal technology.

Thanks,
Frob
 
It's difficult to include ducts in cases bacause the location of the socket isn't the same from board to board.
 
It's difficult to include ducts in cases bacause the location of the socket isn't the same from board to board.
Click to expand...

Granted, but the coolermaster optional duct is adjustable to help deal with that, and the shroud that comes with the Fong kai case is pretty large to accomodate a number of locations and heatsinks. Still, with a little work, it's not hard to adapt it and geta good seal. But I am disappointed that so few people try to even address it as an option.

And there is still the issue of noise reduction. Anyone can keep things cool with large numbers of howling fans - but what about designing the case to soak up noise. I have a older Dell system, and it's extremely quiet because of how they designed it.

Thanks,
Frob
 
I have a feeling you're overestimating the cooling efficiency of Dell cases. Remember, they are not running overclocked processors like many enthusiasts are. I think they manage to find a nice balance between noise and cooling, so that their cases are quiet and still rellatively cool. But I don't think their cooling is extraordinary by any means.

I would bet any money that my Antec 660B case (with thermally-controlled PS fans, 2 thermally-controlled case fans and 2 Panaflows) would be just as quiet as any Dell case and cool significantly better, assuming all the same components inside the case.
 
Originally posted by: WangButter
I think you're overlooking a really big problem here...

In order to get a Dell case, you have to buy a Dell computer.

🙂
Click to expand...

i think what frobnitz is saying here is this issue exactly.

dell has managed to make a pretty decent case. technology on the case is far advanced than these cases that are out on the market.
so why can these case manufacturers make cases with similar technologies... so we don't have to buy a dell just for their cases.

why?

personally, i'm resorting to building my own.
tired of waiting for others to do the job right. 😉
 
If you want it done right... do it yourself!
Click to expand...

Many of us do want to do it right. We spend lots of time, energy and research in tweaking our configs, hardware and software wise, to extract the maximum amount of performance we can from our systems. And by and large, so do the motherboard manufacturers, the RAM manufacturers, the video card manufacturers, the disk drive manufacturers, and even the CPU manufacturers. Just look at the enormous amount of progress made in all these areas in the last 3 years or so. And by and large, we can and mostly do BETTER than the PC OEM's in this area. We can do this because we can pick from the state of the art in each category, building a system with balanced sets of capabilities that yield superior performance.

But because the case manufacturers HAVE NOT been improving the state of the art, large PC OEM's have been doing the innovation, building great OEM products that we do have access to in our best in class approach to system design. The one area I see the OEM's have a significant advantage is in case design. And that advantage seems to grow every year.

While some have the tools and expertise to build their cases and fabricate them, advocating this as the solution to the market issue is like saying we should build our own video cards from the chipsets available. Almost no one tries to do this - you don't have scale economies here.

Look at how many posts are on these forums for quieter, cooler systems, and the amount of work that goes into this. Yet pretty much everyone does this on their own, repeating the same mistakes as others to some extent, and with a general lack of access to plastic and metal fabrication manufacturing capabilities that makes this very hard to do well.

If the community would demand from it's case vendors the same technologies widely used in PC OEM systems, we could change this annoying reality. We would never tolerate the kind of products we get from video card manufacturers if they acted this way would we? That your mom's dell would outrace your homebuilt config in frames per second in Quake? What an insult that would be!

Why do we tolerate this and buy from vendors who care far more about looks than real engineered performance? Why don't we come up witha list of the best in breed designs and make sure everyone knows what can be achiveved and make vendors who give us better products much more successful than others?

What other other way could we remedy this problem? Or as I said in my first post, maybe I'm just missing something.

Frob...
 
I'm surprised that you don't consider the sx840 to have advanced thermal properties. My own experience with the sx antecs is that they're usually very over-fanned, and that having front fans in one is rather pointless. An Alpha Heatsink and a little bit of creative ductwork lets one of the rear fans become the cpu fan a'la some of the Dells.

I do agree that cases in general haven't had a lot of ingenuity applied just recently- the side-blowhole designs are mostly an effort to compensate for poor front intake design.

I also strongly suspect that if you were to put a modern system in that older Dell case that the whole thing would run very hot or very noisy- you'd need some serious fannage to overcome the rather meager airflow design point they used in the first place. Used to be that keeping the front bezel tight and airflow low kept 'em quiet- the heat production was low, so they could get away with it. With high heat processors, vid cards, 7200 rpm HDD's & etc, it's a different ballgame.
 
I recently purchased a FK 603 case after reading all the positive reviews on it. After installing all my components (AK31A, 1.4 T-Bird w/Millenium Glaciator, GF2 Ultra, 1-WD 7200 rpm 40 gig & a Maxtor 2 gig, a floppy & a 24x10x40) and adding a front fan & using rounded cables, I was disappointed to see the temperatures climb (Motherboard Monitor showed motherboard temp @ 40c & cpu temp @ 52c...no overclocking). I replaced my 1040 with this case due to my needing a smaller case. I'm now looking into selling ths one & buying a different case as I can't see paying return shipping along with a 15% restocking fee.
I'm torn between a Lian Li PC52 and an Antec SX630.
 
Tullphan,

I'm curious ........... are you using the plastic fan duct on your F-K 603?
If so how is the air direction of your rear case fan set ............. how about the hsf fan direction?
Have you tried other options (changed direction) or adding/deleting the plastic duct?
 
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