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Deciding on a new mid tower case!

K

Kdot

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 11, 2009
Messages
83
I decided my piece of crap case has to go since the hardware inside needs some more cooling. I just want a decent looking mid tower with a good layout and air flow. Cooling is my biggest concern, followed by layout & usability. Looks are not a huge issue here.

So far I have been looking at:
-Coolermaster HAF 922
-Antec 900/902.
-Lian-Li Armorsuit PC-P50WB (if its even possible to get)

Any comments? Input? Other cases I should consider? I don't really care too much about whether or not there is a side window either or whether the included case fan LED's match my blue PSU. I just want a decent mid tower that really has superior air flow.
 
I think you should look into a Antec 300, it's a bit smaller than the 900.
Air flow is excellent with two 120's intake in the front and a 120 exhaust in the back and a 180 exhaust in the top.
I have one with all Antac tricool fans, top front set at med and all the rest set low and my case temp is always the same as the ambient air temp in the room. seating just two feet from it, I can bearly hear it.
 
Lian li pc-b25f / end thread!

Joking aside, it looks great and I'm tempted to order for two hundred delivered.
 
I'm honestly leaning more towards the coolermaster HAF 922. The more reviews I read the more it seems like the best choice. The air flow is insane (the goal of this case is to improve my cooling situation), it has an open back on the motherboard tray (nice for mounting heatsinks), even lots of room for cable management behind the turned HDD rack & drive rack. Even has the space for a water cooling system if I really feel the need.

Anyone see anything wrong with the HAF 922? (loudness doesn't matter, I usually have headphones on or music blasting through my tower speakers).
 
If cooling is your priority, then I think the HAF 922 will be a great choice for you.

Well, I may be bias here, because I've already decided on the HAF922 for my next build, but my decision was mostly based on cooling as I'm facing cooling issues currently with the hard disk and graphic card hotter then what I'd like it to be.

I'm convince the HAF922 will prevent this issue in my coming build, with those huge 20cm fan, if those still doesn't cut it, I don't know what will, lol. It comes with 2 20cm fans, but I'm sure you can easily find another 20cm with LED for the side panel

I really like its interior layout too, honestly I didn't find anything wrong with this casing, which was why I decided it will be my next casing
 
So... I ended up going with the HAF 922... Bought it at the local memory express store and put it together this afternoon. I also lapped my processor and heatsink until they were nearly mirror finish.

Results:

idle temps are 10-15 degrees lower.
prime 95 temps are 20-25 degrees lower.

WOW.
 
mtbush said:
Beautiful case, I'm looking at the B10 and the B25F. I love the simplicity of both of these enclosures.
Click to expand...

Seems that the b10 is the better made of the two. It has the nicer lian li door release system, thicker metal, tighter fit, but no filters and less fans. But google the b10 review videos on youtube and there are some great mod videos. Oh, and the b10 is positive pressure by default. you can add filters easy yourself tho.
 
SylarPowers said:
Seems that the b10 is the better made of the two. It has the nicer lian li door release system, thicker metal, tighter fit, but no filters and less fans. But google the b10 review videos on youtube and there are some great mod videos. Oh, and the b10 is positive pressure by default. you can add filters easy yourself tho.
Click to expand...

Where did you find yours for $220 shipped? and how would you go about installing fan filters?

I did not know this case had positive pressure, this helps with GPU cooling. Looks like there is plenty of room for my 5850's.

What type of CPU cooler do you plan on using?
 
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mtbush said:
Where did you find yours for $220 shipped? and how would you go about installing fan filters?

I did not know this case had positive pressure, this helps with GPU cooling. Looks like there is plenty of room for my 5850's.

What type of CPU cooler do you plan on using?
Click to expand...

Found the pc-b10 at frozencpu. Its on sale for $220 and they have penny fedex ground shipping from ny threw cyber monday. Hurry if want it, the penny shipping is for all orders over $50 and the powdercoating is $100 off.

It's not marketed as positive pressure, but unlike say the pc-b25f, it clearly has more going in than out as it has two 140mm/120mm intakes and one 120mm exhaust in a realitively sealed box. Stock should cool good with positive pressure, lian li fans move lots of air tho are not silent, I personally want to add two 120mm fans, one blowhole on top and one intake on the bottom, for uber cooling, but it should still be positive pressure in that mod too. There is a modder on youtube who did this with powdercoating and a tinted window, looks amazing, youtube up "pc-b10 review". There are no bottom vents for the psu, so that has to be accounted for as I imagine it acts like an exhaust. However, that psu fan in good models like the seasonic X-750 barely ramps up nowadays. Or you can mod the bottom for this. You can further tweak by selecting slower exhaust rpms (via slower model or fan controller), which you will note that lian li did just this on the stock fans, and/or buy solid pci slots if needed. I'm going with 1850rpm 120mm gentle typhoon fans all around with a fan controller, since front slots are limited, I may go with a spare pci slot rear mounted dumb knobs (don't get a pwm chopper). Two intakes, two on my mega shadow (aka megahalems - buy it, best one by far imho and still compact enough), one exhaust, and the possible two afformentioned mods. I may see about putting another on the inside side of the hd cage to insure flow threw it.

As for fan filters, you can buy lian li filtered vented drive bay covers off of frozen cpu, and lian li makes any number of compatible products to make the drive bays filtered and house a 120mm fan with some more hd racks behind (or adpaters without hd racks for more airflow. Internal behind the filtered covers or external with filters). Or you might be able to slip in some filter material the cheap way between the silver panel and black inside door panel (see the tear down, there are a few layers and if I am right also a spot for the filters they didn't include. These may not be super easy access to clean, but really, it works just as good. It would not be hard to make the 4 required slits that lian li uses for the official filters that are avalible separately and there are products that go between the fan and moint location... Lots of ways to get your case filtered, so don't let that stop you if all else is perfect.
 
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I have both the 902 and PC-P50

Both are great cases, the Lian-li is much better feature wise, and build quality but im not sure I would spend the money on it again, and would prob just buy another 902.

Only thing about the Antec that I didnt like was the fans, so I replaced all those with Scythe Slipstreams. Moves some serious air and noise is pretty low.
 
Hahaha ... That's my thread and I beat you to it by last listing all that over again here in a few posts above =)

The pc-b10 has 295mm or 11.61" for gpus.

5850 = 9.5"

5870 = 10.5"

5970 = 12.16"
 
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