Corsair 280X white M-ATX case with LL120 RGB Fans - $112 on Amazon

[Zepher]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CJTKDZQ?psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

[SamirD]

Neat that it has a separate section for storage--too bad that section with the drives will be cooking though without some fans.

 

[Zepher]

Neat that it has a separate section for storage--too bad that section with the drives will be cooking though without some fans.

It all depends on the drives used. I had 3 WD Reds sandwiched together in my Corsair Air 740 and they were fine. I had my WD Blacks in that location prior and they ran really warm so I moved them to the bottom of the main chamber.
They just sat on the bottom since the case has no provisions to mount them on the floor.

 

[rhkcommander959]

Tempting!!

I have the 680x, works great. The filters are a PITA to clean compared to the 4000x and 5000x though, but I think it's prettier

 

[SamirD]

It all depends on the drives used. I had 3 WD Reds sandwiched together in my Corsair Air 740 and they were fine. I had my WD Blacks in that location prior and they ran really warm so I moved them to the bottom of the main chamber.
They just sat on the bottom since the case has no provisions to mount them on the floor.
View attachment 533927 View attachment 533929

Hard drives these days are a lot more forgiving than ssds that are being used hard though. But it seems like there are holes for a fan on the vent on that side so easy enough solution if it doesn't interfere with the power supply.

 

[Zepher]

Hard drives these days are a lot more forgiving than ssds that are being used hard though. But it seems like there are holes for a fan on the vent on that side so easy enough solution if it doesn't interfere with the power supply.

I think you can put an 80mm fan on the back, larger if you don't put the SSD tray in. In that pic, the SSD tray is isn't mounted, it's just sitting on the PSU as I was messing with the wires on the Commander Pro, so I had to detach the SSD tray to get clearance.

 

[chizow]

I've had the 280X for a few years as my media server and to host my lab VMs and its a great looking and small case that fits neatly in an IKEA storage rack that holds my NAS, UPS other random IT/networking equipment. I have a few large spinning HDDs in the back chamber and every time I replace a 2.5" SATA SSD with nVME, I just toss it into the media server as well. Airflow is great and its really quiet with a small profile, the fact this one includes 2xLL120 is an added bonus. I also have a SFF PSU although I'm not sure if that's required, but it definitely helps me keep things a little neater in the back compartment.

The only real negative of the case is that it is mATX only. mATX boards are kind of a pain to find at reasonable prices (I used to be able to find them for $100-120ish) and typically come with their own limitations, such as fewer SATA headers, 2 dimm slots (vs. 4), DDR4 only options (vs DDR5 also for LGA1700 options) so this is something that's been preventing me from upgrading from an 8700K to something faster with more cores.

 

[SolidBladez]

The only real negative of the case is that it is mATX only. mATX boards are kind of a pain to find at reasonable prices (I used to be able to find them for $100-120ish) and typically come with their own limitations, such as fewer SATA headers, 2 dimm slots (vs. 4), DDR4 only options (vs DDR5 also for LGA1700 options) so this is something that's been preventing me from upgrading from an 8700K to something faster with more cores.

It'd be a plus now looking at SFF or at least smaller chassis cause GPUs are getting larger and it's impossible to fit them in 2-slot or larger height/length limited cases.