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My Ideal Case

U

updawg

Gawd
Joined
Mar 20, 2010
Messages
609
Okay I have had this idea in my head for the perfect case for awhile but I decided to make a cruel MS Paint drawing, be forewarned as it is terrible. I'll try to explain it first.

The front of the case is 2x 80MM fans side by side as an intake. Below the fans is a slim dvd drive. In the rear of the case the mobo is lifted by higher standoffs so the optical drive can fit underneath. The case has a half height graphics slot. To the left of the motherboard is a psu something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817104080

The case quality would be that of lian li with a thick aluminum and have a complete mesh front, mesh grating near the GPU, and above the CPU.

This idea would allow for taller coolers as nothing would be above it such as an optical drive, and the case length would only be the length of the PSU plus the thickness of the 80 MM fans. This would be a cool case with great air flow. Their would be 2x 2.5in drives to the left of the psu mounted vertically. The case would be about 8.5 x 8.5

What do you guys think?

s3QKN.png
 
So like this?




It ends up wider than 8.5" though - I've only put one 2.5" drive in and it's already almost 9.5". Single slot excludes more powerful low profile GPUs, and I don't imagine it would be particularly quiet pushing any kind of reasonably powerful hardware, but otherwise it's okay.
 
almost perfect just make it have two SSDs that stand vertical instead of one horizontal, this would increase the case height but would also allow for large coolers. But thank you! That is near perfect.
 
Full height makes any case huge, but this case would be perfect for an i3-3225 and a 7750 or the new a10 and a 6670 which both would be powerful gaming machines in a small package.

Also the antec isk which is similar to this case is 13x9 and this one is smaller and has a more powerful hard drive and does not have the cooler height restriction.
 
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I apologize in advance for completely ruining your dream case.

About the most powerful card you can stuff in there atm is a low profile 7750(correct me if I'm wrong). It doesn't need that much power so you could save space by dropping the 250w psu and getting a 160w PicoPSU w/ 192w brick.

Full-height dual slots would raise the overall height about 1.75" but with the following benefits: you could potentially move up to a 7770 with the PicoPSU(***see final note at bottom), larger dual or single intake fan, taller cpu coolers, and you could stack the SSDs edge to edge on the wall instead of double stacking them.

In conclusion depth and height remain the same and width is reduced if the only change is the PSU to PicoPSU. Depth remains the same, width is reduced, and height is increased if the PSU is changed and dual full-height slots are added.






***Not positive on this. I'm using http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/535?vs=536 as a reference for total system draw. The maximum system load power numbers are over 200w but thats with a ~30% overclocked i7-3960x. I assume any stock clocked Ivy quad would be using a good bit less power. Also based on what I've read in reviews normal power draw of the card itself is around 80-85w peak in everyday gaming. What don't know is if the PicoPSU can handle that much pull from a video card while powering everything else.

lol, I've had this window open for about an hour typing and checking reviews, missed your two posts after Necere
 
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I think the Antec ISK 300/310 series are pretty darn close to what you want. The orientation is changed so the fans are on "top" when the case is set as a micro tower, but the drives don't cover the CPU cooler area. What impacts the CPU cooler height in the ISK 300/310 are two things.

1) Power cord connector gets in the way and will require modding.

2) Stock drive tray has an extended support that stretches over the CPU area, which may get in the way. It can probably be cut off. If drive tray too wobbly after such modding, then make some kind of support for it.

See this post for the rest of the pics that goes with this:
P9Y0q.jpg
 
The antec isk cases were extremely popular, a more powerful psu, taller CPU coolers, and smaller overall sizes makes this seem like it would sell boat loads more than the isk. If you want a full height gpu case their are plenty, a quality half height cases are lacking. This would be a perfect hybrid htpc gaming computer.
 
You would significantly increase the height of the case if you rotated the ssd vertically. The way necere has it oriented is probably as good as it gets for this setup
 
The height off a vertical sad on top of a slot loading drive still would not be that tall. Would allow for a sad and a tb storage drive.
 
You'd be looking at about 120mm tall (100mm for ssd, ~10mm for cords, some filler). Might as well go to 130 and be able to fit a full sized pcie.
 
Machupo said:
You'd be looking at about 120mm tall (100mm for ssd, ~10mm for cords, some filler). Might as well go to 130 and be able to fit a full sized pcie.
Click to expand...

Indeed. And that (~120mm) only if you used right angle SATA connectors. With regular connectors you're already at 130mm (at least).
 
Yeah you guys are right, I guess you could stack two horizontally next to the PSU but that would increase the width. I would also put the two 80mm fans right next to each other in the center that way you could have a power button and usb ports to the left and right of the fans on the front panel.
 
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a humble opinion, if possible use a tfx psu, personally the small fans of flex under load increasingly I try to avoid.
 


You know sketchup is free, right? It's pretty easy to learn, and you can get a lot of user-created models from the SCC and 3D Warehouse. Nothing beats playing around with the models yourself, seeing exactly how stuff fits together...
 
I did not know that, I will download it now and try it out! Thank you for the mock ups I appreciate it!

And that is the perfect case that I would buy right now if it was on the market.

I would make two styles with this case:

Style 1: What is pictured
Style 2: Replace the 2x80mm fans with 1x120MM fan and have a dual slot full height graphics card

Target Audience: HTPC for style 1 and gamers for style 2.
 
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