Having a hard time finding a X99 and NAS case

[DAOWAce]

Edit: I have chosen to go with the Primo.

Came to the realization that 140mm fans fit with water cooling setups natively (post #9). No side fan will be a bummer for my jam packed GPUs, but there's nothing I can do about it until I finally have enough funds to switch to a full custom loop system.

I'll need a 5.25 -> 3.5" converter bay for my 4 HDD RAID array, so I've gotta do yet more research (I'd probably ask around about this, as I know -nothing- about converters), but my 4TB isn't even filled yet and with my double stacked SSD mounts I have time before I need the space.

Thanks for the words, everyone.

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TLDR? Check the list summary.
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So I've been putting together an X99 build for the last few days and I seem to always come to a brick wall when it comes to case choice for my builds.

I've been using a HAF-X for the last ~5 years across a few builds and it's to the point where I absolutely hate it. It's old, it has no native SSD support, it's very open so it lets sound out like no one's business, the tool-less optical drive bay design is awful, needing thumbscrews for pretty much everything is awful. The fan filters are terrible and don't filter dust very well at all; the inside of my case gets covered in days. The 'rugged' design is just a dust cleaning nightmare and it's hard to remove the front and top plastic panels.

What I do like is the hot swap bays.. but there's only two of them. They contain my backup RAID. I have 4 more HDDs sitting in storage because there's just nothing for them to fit into. The rest of my drive bays are full of SSDs. I thought about getting some converters for my 5.25" bays, but with the amount of noise penetration from the case, I don't want to have them running. The side GPU support bracket is nice.. but you can't use it with the duct, nor with any odd-sized GPU (pretty much any custom HSF), so it's never been used. The side duct is also nice for actually reducing temperatures (I've tested it), but it also can't be used with a GPU unless you turn it.. and with dual GPUs it's completely unusable, so I recently had to take it out as I finally re-'upgraded' to SLI. The side panels are incredibly beefy, but very heavy, so it's both a love/hate with them, but wow do they scream quality.


Now, I know they've revised the case since then to support newer technology better, but I'm just done with it at this point.


I've just spent the last 9 hours looking through cases. Cosmos II, Phanteks Primo/Luxe, Phantom 820, Thermaltake T81/10GT, Corsair Graphite 760/780/Obsidian 750/900, Fractal's offerings.. just, nothing seems to be flawless. One case has a feature I want yet misses a bunch of others. One case looks alright overall, yet has multiple flaws mentioned in reviews.

I just can't find a full tower case that meets my needs.

Cosmos II: Has the same hot swap bays as the HAF-X.. and pretty much everything else. Is bigger, heavier and bulkier. Too big and bulky. Too much of a stock cable mess. Has amazing looking hinged side panels, and that's most of the reason why I wanted it over the others. But.. no side 200mm fan, and dual open air GPUs could really use them. Can mount smaller fans instead, but smaller fans get noisy for their airflow, and I don't have the clearance measurements for it. Reviews also mention it doesn't use its size well compared to similar cases (900D). Oh, and it costs nearly double the HAF-X.

Phantom 820: Phenomenal cable space behind the tray, fan layouts just like the HAF-X (in fact, it's quite a lot like the HAF-X), integrated fan controller and lighting system... and design flaws/annoyances all over the place according to reviews. It's also one of the older cases. It's not all too bad looking, but it seems like it could just be.. more.

Primo: This was the case I was ultimately going to settle on as it averaged decent features across the board, despite lacking a side fan at all and everything being 140mm. Back accessed drive bays was another issue too. Built in fan controller with a ton of fan support, excellent looking stock cable management, fairly expansive, mod friendly (though I'd probably not use it), SSD mounts on back of tray.. In fact, if it wasn't sold out at Newegg I probably wouldn't even be writing this post as I would've bought it in a fit of frustration.

Luxe: A more budgeted Primo with some differences I can't quite remember now.

T81: Was another choice of mine. The dual door side panel was the main focus of this for me as that would lessen the need for hot swap bays. I debated it, until I read a few reviews. Poor quality plastic attachments, fan filters and other misc issues.

10GT: I've always thought this was a stupid case for years, then I finally looked into it. 200mm side fan, check. Hot swap bays? Count: 5 of them! Amazing! Then I read reviews.. the SATA interface is extremely faulty and apparently limited to SATA2. And the design looks like it's a huge dust issue. Dismissed, sadly.

760T: Same hinged side panels as the Cosmos II, but they're huge, flimsy, and swing backwards. Whole case is relatively budget oriented from my point of view.

780T: Amazing side panel latch mechanism; love this type the most.. but aside from the back SSD mounts, it's otherwise not a case I'd want to use.

750D: Reasonably sized compared to the 900D, nice back mounted SSD bays.. a bit too small and too basic otherwise.

900D: Love the bottom compartment and the one button removal side panels, seems even a drive or two can be hot swapped.. but everything else about it is just a bit too old. It's also obscenely large and has more space than I'd ever use. And like the Cosmos II, expensive.

Fractal: The XL is just too basic and old and the R5 is a mid tower. They don't seem to have any other adequate cases.

Bitfenix: Similar to fractal; no real suitable cases I've seen.

Antec: Older cases.

(And as for something like CaseLabs.. yeah, I don't quite have that much money to spend on a case.)


I just cannot find a suitable case for the life of me. All the ones that seem to have great features (like the latch side panels or a fully run SATA power connector chain to all the drive bays) are mid towers. All the ones with silence oriented features (even just simple sound dampening material) completely skimp on airflow. These full towers all have some issue or two, or ten, that makes them not ideal.. and so here I am asking for help.


To summarize, I'd like a case that:

• Has enough internal space and enough drive bays (5.25" included) to connect to a fully loaded ASRock Extreme11 motherboard (with either multiple hot swappable ones or a large covered 5.25" bay that can be converted over). If desperate, I can velcro tape SSDs to back of motherboard tray or something.
• Supports both air and liquid cooling; AIO and custom loops. (I have an NH-D14 but will be transferring to an H105 then a custom solution in the future for everything).
• Has easy to remove side panels that don't need tools or thumbscrews to be secured (my biggest peeve with the HAF-X).
• Has proper dust filters and not just generic metal mesh which barely helps. (HAF-X's revisions might've improved it, but I wouldn't know)
• Has 200mm fans (for airflow and silence) which include a side fan to support open air GPUs (which pretty much everyone uses). I don't know for sure how a non-side fan vs side fan actually compares with GPU and system cooling, but I am assuming a side fan helps more than a straight front -> back/top solution. (If not, please let me know!)
• Has adequate cable management room behind the motherboard tray to fit everything the hardware needs (that's up to 20 SATA data cables to that mobo + everything else).
• Has acoustic dampening material to lower noise penetration. (Or I can apply it myself, pending recommendation on what material to buy.)
• Side window preferred, but I'm willing to let it go if a case can match everything else.

Other than that, any additional features is a bonus.


My eyes are strained from reading and reading and reading and watching videos of so many things that I just can't look at text anymore, so I would greatly appreciate assistance in finding an ideal case for my build.

Also, if anyone has recommendations for a 5.25" -> 3.5" hot swap converter bay, I'd like to hear them to, as I don't know much about them.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

If you're looking for a case that can mount 20 SATA drives, and you're already bitching that the Cosmos II is too big, you probably don't really have any options.

Your closest option would probably be a Supermicro 4U rackmount.

But you're leaving a lot of other stuff on the table.

 

[DAOWAce]

I'd consider a rackmount for a NAS server (which I want eventually, but it's still way out of my price range), but not a desktop PC, so it's out of the equation.

I can stack (at least) 2 SSDs in each drive bay, so that doubles the available drive storage. I'd probably at most have a RAID10 setup with 4 HDDs, the rest being SSDs. At that point, I'd really need hot swap, which means I'd have to go for a 5.25" converter. I don't mind that, but finding one that isn't junk is another issue.

My current setup a bit limited in space, so I don't want a super tower like the Cosmos II or 900D, and they're also pretty damn expensive, so I can't afford it with my X99 budget even if I wanted the cases.

My situation is more "What has great cooling and silence, can fit an entire watercooled system and has enough space for up to 20 SSDs" instead of a "What's a good 20 bay server case?" I don't have all the drives right now, but I plan to keep the case for a good number of years, so I'd continually be expanding my storage over time.

 

[Logan321]

Seems like what would suit you better is to separate your desktop from your storage. You seemed to discount Antec entirely, but perhaps the P280 would work... and get a 4 bay NAS for your 3.5 drives.

 

[Dangman]

My situation is more "What has great cooling and silence, can fit an entire watercooled system and has enough space for up to 20 SSDs" instead of a "What's a good 20 bay server case?" I don't have all the drives right now, but I plan to keep the case for a good number of years, so I'd continually be expanding my storage over time.

Unfortunately, that doesn't exist. Generally, if a case is designed to be quiet, its cooling is generally going to be worse than non-quiet focused cases. In addition, the few cases that are both quiet and provides sufficient enough cooling don't have that many drive bays that'll match your needs. Not to mention that no silent oriented case will ever match your existing HAF X.

So basically, what do you want more? Cooling, drive bays, or silence? Pick two. You can't really get all three unless you build your own case or do what others have said and just split your PC into one main PC and an actual file server.

 

[DAOWAce]

So basically, what do you want more? Cooling, drive bays, or silence?

I can convert the 5.25" drive bays to storage bays, so the internal bay space for 3.5" drives doesn't matter as they'll be double stacked by 2.5" SSDs. The HAF-X has 5 3.5" bays, that's 10 SSDs. Most other cases actually have more (up to 8 before super towers), so I don't think it's as much of an issue as I originally expected. Even then, I could surely just find space inside the case to affix SSDs to via velcro tape or something.

I mostly want silence over cooling, but I don't want cooling skimped (ie; 120mm fans). I'd like something with optional expansion; closed top/side, but optional 200mm fan mounts. Covered front panel (door?) for silence but has vents for intake (HDDs and a fan controller will be squashed in there). Acoustic dampening material is preferred, but I can always buy some and install it (poorly) anyway.

Building my own case is out of the question. I'm a software guy, not an engineer. I doubt I can even do something as simple as sleeving cables.

 

[Dangman]

I can convert the 5.25" drive bays to storage bays, so the internal bay space for 3.5" drives doesn't matter as they'll be double stacked by 2.5" SSDs. The HAF-X has 5 3.5" bays, that's 10 SSDs. Most other cases actually have more (up to 8 before super towers), so I don't think it's as much of an issue as I originally expected. Even then, I could surely just find space inside the case to affix SSDs to via velcro tape or something.

I mostly want silence over cooling, but I don't want cooling skimped (ie; 120mm fans). I'd like something with optional expansion; closed top/side, but optional 200mm fan mounts. Covered front panel (door?) for silence but has vents for intake (HDDs and a fan controller will be squashed in there). Acoustic dampening material is preferred, but I can always buy some and install it (poorly) anyway.

Then of the cases you kind of listed, the only real quiet or near silent capable ones are the Fractal Define XL R2 and the Define R5. By near silent or quiet standards, every other case you listed is relatively noisy. There's also the Silverstone RV05 and FT05 cases whose cooling is, IIRC, better than the Define XL R2 and Define R5 yet just as quiet. Unfortunately, that comes at the cost of drive bays. Those four case are more or less your best bet if you want near silent cases with good cooling. A lesser choice is the Antec P280.

With that said, with the exception of the Comos II, all the other cases you mentioned should be quieter than your current HAF X FWIW.

 

[InternationalHat]

You basically need to save up for something like a CaseLabs case. Your needs are too fringe for mass market cases to perform well and fit all the criteria you need.

 

[DAOWAce]

Then of the cases you kind of listed, the only real quiet or near silent capable ones are the Fractal Define XL R2 and the Define R5. By near silent or quiet standards, every other case you listed is relatively noisy. There's also the Silverstone RV05 and FT05 cases whose cooling is, IIRC, better than the Define XL R2 and Define R5 yet just as quiet. Unfortunately, that comes at the cost of drive bays. Those four case are more or less your best bet if you want near silent cases with good cooling. A lesser choice is the Antec P280.

The only one that's even acceptable is the Define XL (the only full tower), and I dismissed it in my initial searching. Looking over it again, it has 8 3.5" bays (16 SSDs) and 4 5.25" bays which is absolutely ideal for my potential mass storage setup (although I'd have to lose my fan controller unless I go with a smaller 3->4 converter). It's also silence orientated and overall seems like a decent choice, even if it is pretty basic.

Unfortunately, lots of reviews are mentioning the case being warped and/or comes with standoffs that aren't the right height, resulting in misaligned mounting of PCI expansion cards. I have an issue like that with certain expansion cards in my case, so dropping to one that's uniformally faulty isn't wise. Unlike the HAF-X, the XL appears less overbuilt material wise, so manufacturing flaws will show more.

With that said, with the exception of the Comos II, all the other cases you mentioned should be quieter than your current HAF X FWIW.

I guess so, but at the cost of cooling, sometimes significantly. Even then, downgrading to 140mm fans from 200+ is a pretty big hit to airflow and the resulting noise.

I'll probably decide between the 820, Primo and maybe XL after my second look-over.

Pre-edit: Actually, after looking over the 820 again, reviews have really made me not even want to bother with it.

Shame the Primo only has 140mm fans and no side one; my biggest gripe with an otherwise good looking case (but again, I don't know how it will truly affect the cooling of my SLI setup). Non-reversible door (it's backwards in my setup) and a seemingly problematic PSU mounting system (intake on the back side panel.. resulting in a huge dust mess all over the cables if the filter there is as bad as my HAF-X's). Awful old side panel attachment design; stupid thumbscrews. Why is it not tool-less? Even something as simple as the 820's sliding screw would've sufficed. I am SICK of dealing with thumbscrews to get inside my case.

Unless there's some other case with 200+mm fans that I've missed, I think I really will settle on the Primo.

Edit: The lower end Luxe has support for 2 200mm fans, what the hell, Phanteks?

Edit2: Given more thought; the limited 140mm fan designs are strictly for water cooling in these bigger cases. Push/pull config optimized. And the side panel fan is redundant with water cooling. Shame that case manufacturers don't just make 2 versions of the same case; one with bigger and more fans for air cooling, other with smaller, less fans for water cooling. Too bad it'll be at least a year before I can transition over to a full loop, so my GPU temps will suffer, as will overclocking. They'll both be starved for air because the expansion slot design on X99 boards is pretty garbage for 2x SLI + sound/NIC cards. *sigh*

You basically need to save up for something like a CaseLabs case. Your needs are too fringe for mass market cases to perform well and fit all the criteria you need.

By the time I can afford a case like those, Intel's new platform will be out.

Shame money doesn't grow on trees, eh? If I lived in better times I'd try out all of my potential choices. Oh well, maybe one day I can make a decent living and not be stuck in this rut... yeah, as if.

 

[Dangman]

Unlike the HAF-X, the XL appears less overbuilt material wise, so manufacturing flaws will show more.

Well yeah. They're aimed at different market segments.

I guess so, but at the cost of cooling, sometimes significantly. Even then, downgrading to 140mm fans from 200+ is a pretty big hit to airflow and the resulting noise.

Not necessarily: Newer case designs as well as newer and quieter 120mm and 140mm fans means that the airflow and cooling hit isn't that huge from 200mm. As this Bit-Tech.net article showed, at least in terms of cooling, the 120mm only Antec DF-85 at minimum speed had better CPU temperatures than the HAF X:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2010/07/26/cooler-master-haf-x-review/2

Shame the Primo only has 140mm fans and no side one; my biggest gripe with an otherwise good looking case (but again, I don't know how it will truly affect the cooling of my SLI setup). Non-reversible door (it's backwards in my setup) and a seemingly problematic PSU mounting system (intake on the back side panel.. resulting in a huge dust mess all over the cables if there isn't even a filter there). Awful old side panel attachment design; stupid thumbscrews. Why is it not tool-less?

Unless there's some other case with 200+mm fans that I've missed, I think I really will settle on the Primo.

Edit: The lower end Luxe has support for 2 200mm fans, what the hell, Phanteks?

Yes a side fan does mean lower GPU temperatures. But with well designed cases, you're not taking that much of a hit to cooling if you lack a side fan.

It's more than likely not tool-less because it's a cost-cutting measure. Remember that Phanteks is relatively new to the case market and don't have the necessary market name or share that would allow them to have tool-less side panels for a good cost.

As for why the Luxe has 200mm fan support, remember that the Luxe came out in late 2014, a full year after the release of the Primo. So more than likely Phanteks saw what was wrong with the Primo and fixed that issue so to speak in later cases.

Shame that case manufacturers don't just make 2 versions of the same case; one with bigger and more fans for air cooling, other with smaller, less fans for water cooling.

That's just a waste of money man. It costs money to have multiple iterations of a case. Again, considering that Phanteks is a relatively new to the case market, it's not surprising why they haven't had multiple iterations of a case. They're not NZXT, Corsair, or even Coolermaster where they can offer multiple SKUs with slight differences here and tehre.

Too bad it'll be at least a year before I can transition over to a full loop, so my GPU temps will suffer, as will overclocking. They'll both be starved for air because the expansion slot design on X99 boards is pretty garbage for 2x SLI + sound/NIC cards. *sigh*

You're overblowing the potential temperature and overclock issues. Even with normal mid-tower cases and regular Z97 motherboards, SLI setups with a sound card (very little reason for a secondary NIC these days) aren't starving for air unless you purposely chose a motherboard that has both video cards right next to each other and a crappy $30 case or something. Besides there are workarounds such as getting motherboards with dual NICs and/or Intel NICs to begin with and/or getting an external DAC rather than a sound card if music quality is more important than game audio.

By the time I can afford a case like those, Intel's new platform will be out.

Shame money doesn't grow on trees, eh? If I lived in better times I'd try out all of my potential choices. Oh well, maybe one day I can make a decent living and not be stuck in this rut... yeah, as if.

I have a feeling that you're planning on buying really really high-end parts that are generally not going to be worth the money. The choice of a ASRock Extreme11 is an indication of that. Maybe aim for high-end bang for the buck parts rather than just high-end parts? That way you'll might actually get the case you want or even start off with water cooling?

 

[DAOWAce]

I have a feeling that you're planning on buying really really high-end parts that are generally not going to be worth the money. ... Maybe aim for high-end bang for the buck parts rather than just high-end parts? That way you'll might actually get the case you want or even start off with water cooling

As much as I'd like a 5960X, I can't afford it and will be going with the 5930K (5820 doesn't have enough lanes). I'm not really buying very high end parts at all, but 8GB module DDR4 memory is pretty damn expensive too alongside X99 motherboards.. the ASRock being pretty extreme due to it basically have a RAID card built in, (otherwise add $800 to the budget). If it comes down to it, I might not even be getting it after all and just wait on things until I can actually build a NAS system. I'd love to have it now, but I can live without it until my current RAID array fills up. (Family storage is a different story though..)

Hell, my second 780 came from eBay for under $300; nearly the performance of a Titan X at a fraction of the cost, otherwise I'd have bought it if I could afford it.

You're overblowing the potential temperature and overclock issues.

Am I?

2 open air GPUs (780's) with a NIC (Killer 2100) and sound card (X-Fi XtremeGamer). We can argue about the Killer, but in my testing it does actually make a very noticeable difference with network performance, more specifically in UDP based applications. At any rate, it lets me have PC based QoS alongside router based QoS, a very nice solution.

My current board (P8Z77 V-Pro) has a PCI-E 1x expansion slot above the first PCI-E 16x slot, so my NIC goes there.

My GPU is below that.

My sound card is PCI (have replacement waiting), and was in the bottom PCI slot, until I got my 2nd GPU. Now it's right below the top GPU, blocking one of the fans. This results in the temperature going up 15C. That is with a 200mm side fan blowing fresh air into it.

My second GPU is right below the sound card, the only possible slot for 8x/8x SLI.

There's no other option for this setup.


The X99 boards don't have space for a PCI-E 1x above the first 16x slot because there's 4 extra DIMM slots there. This removes one possible expansion slot on standard ATX. Most are E-ATX, but that doesn't matter, because..

The slots are pretty much all:

16x
spare (usually nothing is even wired here)
16x
spare
16x
spare
16x (E-ATX only)

First GPU in the 1st 16x slot, blocks first spare.

Second GPU (usually) in the 3rd 16x slot, blocks last spare.

This nets 16x/16x SLI on typical boards and proper airflow.

Middle spare taken up by either NIC or sound card.

Forced to either starve the top or bottom GPU; same scenario on either board. There's no way around it unless you want to run 8x/8x or potentially 16x/8x. Worst case might even be 8x/4x with some weird lane issues if you use top and bottom 16x slots; complete with USB/SATA port disabling on most motherboards.

The temperature increase is real, and it does limit overclocking because the temps reach throttle levels when fully stressed, even at stock speeds.

This is why I've wanted something with an integrated quality sound card or NIC, but then you're stuck with that manufacturer, their BIOS and potential motherboard issues.

For instance, the MSI Gamer 9A has a built in Killer E2202 along with a hardware capture device; great for gamers, which I am. A dedicated capture device would be a great bonus and potentially negate my need for a second dedicated streaming PC. The audio device isn't too hot though.

EVGA's board has Creative's audio, but no Killer NIC. (Also not so good isolation according to reviews)

ASRock's board pretty much sacrifices everything to have a RAID card worth of SATA ports.

ASUS' RoG motherboard has superb audio hardware, but still uses a Realtek chip. No killer NIC. The Deluxe slims down the audio and actually loses an expansion slot.

Gigabyte's board uses a Creative chip (higher quality than EVGA) and Killer NIC, but board/BIOS quality is lower (and its price reflects that).

ASUS has the best BIOS and board, Gigabyte and MSI has the best gamer centric hardware, ASRock's replaces a damn RAID card.

Whatever I choose, I need add-in cards to supplement, and therein lies another dilemma outside of my case issue.


Building the "right" PC has become very, very hard in the last few years. It was much easier in the past, but manufacturers don't seem to be on the same page as some enthusiast's wants anymore.

 

[cyclone3d]

You mentioned mounting 2x SSDs in one 5.25" bay.

It is very easy to mount 4x SSDs in one 5.25" bay and it is how I have my SSDs mounted.

I never have found a "perfect" case. Pretty much every case I have ever owned has been modded in some way.. usually for better cooling.

 

[Dangman]

As much as I'd like a 5960X, I can't afford it and will be going with the 5930K (5820 doesn't have enough lanes). I'm not really buying very high end parts at all, but 8GB module DDR4 memory is pretty damn expensive too alongside X99 motherboards.. the ASRock being pretty extreme due to it basically have a RAID card built in, (otherwise add $800 to the budget). If it comes down to it, I might not even be getting it after all and just wait on things until I can actually build a NAS system. I'd love to have it now, but I can live without it until my current RAID array fills up. (Family storage is a different story though..)

A nitpick but technically not a true hardware RAID card as it is just a simple SAS controller with no onboard cache. So it won't cost you $800 for that feature if you were to buy it separately: Just $255 plus cables:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118217

Same controller, with two SFF-8087 to multi-lane cables, you're looking at the same 8 drive capability.

The temperature increase is real, and it does limit overclocking because the temps reach throttle levels when fully stressed, even at stock speeds.

Never said it wasn't real. I just said you were overblowing the increases. But since I now know that you have extremely specific demands, I can see where you're coming from. I was assuming the following:
1) That you were going with newer Nvidia GPUs which do run cooler than the 780s you have now
2) That KillerNIC wasn't a big deal (I still don't think it is but that's a discussion for another time)
3) That if you're more audio focused, you're going to want to use an external DAC.

With that said, I don't necessarily agree with those specific demands but it is your system.

Building the "right" PC has become very, very hard in the last few years. It was much easier in the past, but manufacturers don't seem to be on the same page as some enthusiast's wants anymore.

Key word is "some". There is the possibility that you're in the minority of enthusiasts with those specific demands. From my point of view as an enthusiast, manufacturers are generally doing the best they can due to licensing, manufacturing, design, and market demand issues in meeting certain entusiast's wants.

 

[DAOWAce]

You mentioned mounting 2x SSDs in one 5.25" bay.

It is very easy to mount 4x SSDs in one 5.25" bay and it is how I have my SSDs mounted.

I think you misread. I mentioned 2x stacking in 3.5" bays and turning my 5.25" bay into a 3.5" HDD RAID hot swap.

Though, how do you manage to fit 4 SSDs in there? Use some sort of converter or mod the case yourself?

A nitpick but technically not a true hardware RAID card as it is just a simple SAS controller with no onboard cache. So it won't cost you $800 for that feature if you were to buy it separately: Just $255 plus cables:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118217

Same controller, with two SFF-8087 to multi-lane cables, you're looking at the same 8 drive capability.

Interesting.

I was considering a RAID card for a number of years, but I never had the case to support the drives, so that in some way was a precursor to this post, years later. In the end, as SSDs are pretty much the way to go, a RAID card is less useful now, unless you run out of SATA6 ports (I did, a year ago) and/or want to setup a big SSD RAID.

Never said it wasn't real. I just said you were overblowing the increases.

Maybe I was, because of my faulty 780 (had it running shroudless) which I was forced to RMA just to get the fans replaced. Finally got it back yesterday.. and it wasn't welcome. (I'll be ranting about this soon..)

After repairing it myself, temps were pretty damn reasonable. 3C over the bottom card at idle.

Edit: Under load it's still at least 10C higher. Within reason, but fan noise gets to be an issue.

1) That you were going with newer Nvidia GPUs which do run cooler than the 780s you have now
2) That KillerNIC wasn't a big deal (I still don't think it is but that's a discussion for another time)
3) That if you're more audio focused, you're going to want to use an external DAC.

1) I debated a 980 on release, but after being severely burned by NVIDIA with their sudden 780 Ti appearance (that's $200 literally burned), I opted to wait to see if they'd pull the same thing with the 980. They never did (..until 2 days ago). I considered the Titan X when it came out, but couldn't justify the price over just picking up a cheap 780 and running SLI until Pascal comes out.

2) We can discuss it now if you want.

For standard TCP gaming, no, it's not really any improvement over a quality embedded NIC. However, for UDP, it's a completely different story.

Diablo 2 for instance: On a standard NIC when playing multiplayer the game is just a desyncing mess. However, when accelerated via the Killer, the desync is kept to a minimum. The difference is like night and day.

I can also do local PC based network prioritization, giving games max priority, servers secondary priority, windows/chat programs tertiary priority and torrents/streams minimum priority, for example. Even without setting up router QoS, there is a noticeable latency difference. Add router QoS into the mix and network traffic is very optimized.

As an additional bonus, I can block specific application connectivity via the network manager or even restrict bandwidth to them, so I kinda get rudimentary firewall functionality.

I know ASUS has some accelerator tech with Intel's NICs, but I haven't researched too much into it, so I don't know specifics or how it compares to Killer's solutions.

I'd really want a motherboard with dual NICs, Intel and Killer, so just in case the Killer has issues (the drivers never were very good), I could fall back, but unfortunately, any motherboard I'd consider, doesn't.

So, yeah, as of what I know right now, I don't consider dropping the Killer as an outcome.

3) Funnily enough, I bought an Essence STX to replace my X-Fi XtremeGamer. It was in my system for mere weeks before I pulled it out and put it in storage, very dissatisfied. Why? A controversial reason people will think I'm so stupid for even complaining about: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2QUJCZM88VO5N/

Key word is "some". There is the possibility that you're in the minority of enthusiasts with those specific demands. From my point of view as an enthusiast, manufacturers are generally doing the best they can due to licensing, manufacturing, design, and market demand issues in meeting certain entusiast's wants.

I think ever since Intel stopped having competition that the enthusiast space has fallen into a rut. So many things are just identical to eachother or have very minor changes between them. Case innovation dropped off a cliff sometime back too. Monitor innovation as well (where's the 120Hz 16:10 displays, hello PCs?!)..

The market is stagnant, and I fear it might get even worse as time goes on if nothing changes between the big companies.. or if the patent system never changes. Laws are so out of date it's ridiculous.

 

[cyclone3d]

I think you misread. I mentioned 2x stacking in 3.5" bays and turning my 5.25" bay into a 3.5" HDD RAID hot swap.

Though, how do you manage to fit 4 SSDs in there? Use some sort of converter or mod the case yourself?

Each 5.25" bay has two rows of screw holes. Just mount them side by side per each row of screw holes.

They fit just right although plugging in all the cables is kinda difficult.