Best compact gaming case to put next to the tv

brianj

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Dec 7, 2016
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Hi everyone!

I'm really struggling to find the perfect gaming case to put in my living room. Here are the requirements:

- Compact Console-ish look and feel with decent airflow that can fit an MSI Seahawk 1080&6700k

- Has to support 2x 120mm AIO liquid coolers for both CPU&GPU for quiet operation

The corsair bulldog look like the perfect case for me but man.. That thing looks huuuge. :(

Dr. Zaber Sentry/Dan Case A4 are sexy as hell but they have not so good cooling options.. They will termal throttle and most likely be noisy with high end hardware inside :(

I could go with Ncase M1 and call it a day.. But it looks like your typical PC case, only smaller! Not really what you would want to put in your living room, next to your TV :(

That leaves me with the last option I could find. The RVZ01 from Silverstone. Support for 240 mm rad AND 120mm fan.. Does anyone know if I can fit a 1080 seahawk and a 240 rad for the CPU?

Of course I'm open to other suggestions:)


Thanks in advance!
 
Why do you have to have support for two AIOs? Do you already have the parts?
 
Full disclosure: I own an Ncase M1....

I honestly think that the M1 is leaps and bounds ahead of the other options**. I bought mine specifically because it is in full display in a tiny apartment and both the diminutive size and quality were the deciding factors for me.
The main thing though is the case quality. It doesn't look like a typical computer - it's all metal, the fit and finish is great and there are basically no logos. It also doesn't look like a cheap console clone either.

I'd say it has more in common with a nice piece of hifi equipment than a computer.

**Honestly if you're hell bent on silence - using an air cooler for your CPu will likely be quieter than dual AIO...
 
The NCASE M1 would be the best to fit these parts, but going air would be quieter.
 
I put my Ncase M1 in my TV stand next to some other set top boxes for over a year and most of my friends just thought it was some kind of speaker or sub-woofer, they were totally surprised when I told them what it was.
 
Dr. Zaber Sentry/Dan Case A4 are sexy as hell but they have not so good cooling options.. They will termal throttle and most likely be noisy with high end hardware inside :(

Both cases are targeted at mainstream-high-end components like i7-6700 + GTX 1070 - with that You should be able to play proper 1080p on TV and audibility will depend on the CPU cooler You choose and which model of card You pick.

Zombi is running his i7-6700 in Sentry on full load and flower styled stock cooler is unexpectedly not noisy at all. And when gaming You're not really pushing such CPU to the extremes in 1080p.

Also when You're running games with sound from TV or speakers then the pc noise will get suppressed by the sound of the game, unless of course You want to play with headphones and not disturb others.

However if You want to go for some enthusiast-ultra-high-end segment like the stuff that Linus put inside both Sentry and A4-SFX, then I don't really think that going ITX is a good idea. With that amount of cash invested into the hardware I'd go for some extreme cooling for the whole rig to get maximum possible boost clocks on the GPU and CPU, and that probably requires a full tower.
 
i7-6700 or 7700 with an L9i will be relatively quiet and will not thermal throttle.
 
I think the Fractal Node 304 looks fine in the living room. I've got one on the bottom rack of my media stand being used as a NAS, but it should fit large graphics cards just fine.

I would suggest removing (Don't plug in the header) the HDD LED light from the front of the case as it is bright white and flashes a lot.

i-z7LmCb7-XL.jpg


Node 304 is in bottom left barely visible behind white chair, sorry it was the best photo I could find of the current setup.

Edit: here is one at my old place that is likely more what you're looking for:

i-CVsqp7m-XL.jpg
 
I think the Fractal Node 304 looks fine in the living room. I've got one on the bottom rack of my media stand being used as a NAS, but it should fit large graphics cards just fine.

I would suggest removing (Don't plug in the header) the HDD LED light from the front of the case as it is bright white and flashes a lot.

i-z7LmCb7-XL.jpg


Node 304 is in bottom left barely visible behind white chair, sorry it was the best photo I could find of the current setup.

Edit: here is one at my old place that is likely more what you're looking for:

i-CVsqp7m-XL.jpg

Nice Ikea mod! - Looks great!!
How are you holding the flat panel up above your soundbar?
 
For higher end components and setting it in the same room as the TV, I've always been a fan of larger more traditional HTPC style cases that match other A/V components. They give your components more room to breathe and stay silent as well, with the proper fan choice of course. Similar to these:

Jonsbo%20G3%20A.png


OrigenAE.jpg


Fractal_Design-Node605.jpg


TT-luxa2.jpg
 
Both cases are targeted at mainstream-high-end components like i7-6700 + GTX 1070 - with that You should be able to play proper 1080p on TV and audibility will depend on the CPU cooler You choose and which model of card You pick.

Zombi is running his i7-6700 in Sentry on full load and flower styled stock cooler is unexpectedly not noisy at all. And when gaming You're not really pushing such CPU to the extremes in 1080p.

Also when You're running games with sound from TV or speakers then the pc noise will get suppressed by the sound of the game, unless of course You want to play with headphones and not disturb others.

However if You want to go for some enthusiast-ultra-high-end segment like the stuff that Linus put inside both Sentry and A4-SFX, then I don't really think that going ITX is a good idea. With that amount of cash invested into the hardware I'd go for some extreme cooling for the whole rig to get maximum possible boost clocks on the GPU and CPU, and that probably requires a full tower.

Hey Saper,

thanks for chiming in. You know, i was even willing to swap my beloved seahawk with a a blower style 1080TI(when available) JUST to have your case in my living room:) That's how much i loooove the design! However my ultimate goal isn't 1080p. I want to be able to run the latest AAA games @ 4K/60HZ/ULTRA. And while i don't have quite Linus hardware.. A 6700k, a 1080, 16GB of ram @ 3000mhz and a Samsung 960 m2 ssd WILL undoubtedly generate a lot of heat and noise with it in case this small. I'm pretty sure it will thermal throttle under a serious 4K gaming session with that kind of hardware. But i'm happy to be proven wrong;)

Why instead of this meaningless "torture tests"(i mean who's gonna run that kind of hardware in such a small case) don't you guys ask the reviewers to do a more realistic 6700k/1080 gaming test?
Just my 2 cent:)
 
Nice Ikea mod! - Looks great!!
How are you holding the flat panel up above your soundbar?

Thanks! As you stated it is an Ikea mod. I bought the bookshelf and a wall shelf from Ikea. The wall shelf isn't exactly the same width but close enough. I also bought eight legs and cut them in half with a pipe cutter. Four of the legs go under the unit with feet, and the other four were used to attach the wall shelf to the bookshelf (not to the wall). In the area between the wall shelf and book shelf I also have my modem and wifi router hidden behind the soundbar. Finally, i bought a piece of whiteboard from Home Depot and attached it to the back of the bookshelf so you can't see through. All together a designed piece to fit my space. This photo is the best one I have showing the wall shelf.

i-wsvsWjB-XL.jpg
 
I'm trying to figure this case thing out but man, it's harder than i thought.. Nice place you got by the way!
 
Hey Saper,

thanks for chiming in. You know, i was even willing to swap my beloved seahawk with a a blower style 1080TI(when available) JUST to have your case in my living room:) That's how much i loooove the design! However my ultimate goal isn't 1080p. I want to be able to run the latest AAA games @ 4K/60HZ/ULTRA. And while i don't have quite Linus hardware.. A 6700k, a 1080, 16GB of ram @ 3000mhz and a Samsung 960 m2 ssd WILL undoubtedly generate a lot of heat and noise with it in case this small. I'm pretty sure it will thermal throttle under a serious 4K gaming session with that kind of hardware. But i'm happy to be proven wrong;)

Why instead of this meaningless "torture tests"(i mean who's gonna run that kind of hardware in such a small case) don't you guys ask the reviewers to do a more realistic 6700k/1080 gaming test?
Just my 2 cent:)

But we did, except the effect was that they ran 1060 and not 1070

We have tested 970 blower and R9-270X that are corresponding to 1070 and 1080 wattage so You either have to believe our tests or ask those reviewers to make some additional tests or builds you want to see since they still have our review samples. I think that with enough requests Linus could think of some kind of modding videos on our chassis and he has two of them so he could break one at least :)

Getting back to the topic - I kind of don't like the idea of "4K 60Hz on TV" because you're either far enough from the TV so it doesn't really matter if it's a crystal crisp 4K unless you pause the game or you're close enough that you've got incorrect point of view. 4K is something that should be considered for ultrawide when sitting at the desk with such monster screen. As for the TV you should be going for something with over 100hz to feel fluid motion and then you can start thinking about your setup being too loud.

At this point 4K and VR started new wave for performance improvements that are partitioning the screen space for different rendering resolutions so only the center of the screen has the full res and sides are rendered in gradually lower quality. And I think I know my stuff here - my 'day job' company has launched Shadow Warrior 2 with all that stuff incorporated this fall.

As for the setup you have in mind - in vertical position I don't think it would throttle, the only thing I would worry about would be how loud the CPU cooler would get with 6700K.

Anyway I understand that there are people that want only the best experience with no compromises and Sentry compromises a lot to be what it is to do what it's supposed to do.
 
Hey just out of curiosity... Earlier in this thread someone said that dual 120mm AIO coolers will be noisier than air.

I'm no expert but I thought that liquid cool will be quieter than air.. I'm i wrong?
 
How come noone is suggesting the Grandia cases from Silverstone...?

brianj you still need fans to remove the heat but beyond that you have pump and possible liquid noises. To be on par with quality air cooler you need an expensive custom loop.
 
Hey just out of curiosity... Earlier in this thread someone said that dual 120mm AIO coolers will be noisier than air.

I'm no expert but I thought that liquid cool will be quieter than air.. I'm i wrong?

Depends on the usage - An air setup is very simple really, not that much there to produce noise. Just the fans...

A dual AIO will have at least two pumps, two fans and the radiators (Radiators are normally fairly dense compared to a heat sink so this creates a teeny bit more noise from turbulence)
Because of this, a dual AIO will likely be more noisy in normal operation - but because it's more efficient at getting rid of heat, under load it can be quieter.

Honestly though - the whole noise thing is very subjective and my guess is that not all that many people actually have experience with an AIO. Or, they have very little experience: I know I certainly learned a lot from building my own custom loop. So many factors can affect the loop performance - In the beginning I would also have said that an AIO is noisy, but actually I would say the opposite now.

So low loads - air cooling is quieter
Higher loads - AIO is quieter
 
Air with only one fan WILL BE extremely quiet under load if you get a good air cooler from the likes of Noctua, BeQuiet, etc.

Water introduces extra things like a pump that can have extremely intolerable noise profiles compared to a quiet fan (ie they can have a high pitch that can be annoying even if the noise level is relatively low (dB).

So in my experience, AIO will almost always be louder than a good single-fan air cooler - even under load. You might get slightly better temps with a good AIO, but it will be louder.
 
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