New case suggestions

goobee

Gawd
Joined
Jun 24, 2001
Messages
644
Howdy all,

I'm looking for a new case but haven't had a lot of luck. Here's what I'm looking for. Glass front with 2 140 fans and 4 external 5.25" drive bays. Glass top with room to do Push/Pull with a 280 AIO (4 fans total). A full glass side would be nice but I can live with a windows. I'm going full RBG on the fans so glass on front and top is a must. I've seen cases with glass top and front but no external drive bays. I don't needed 3.5" external bays, just the 5.25". Does any such animal exists? My budget is $200.

Concessions. I can live with a single 240 in the front.
 
Good luck finding anything with 5.25 drive bays anymore. I looked for a long time until I found the Lian-Li case in my sig that had 2 5.25 bays, which fortunately was what I wanted. I havent seen a 4 5.25 bay case since around the 2000's though.
 
Yeah, my old case was from 2014 that just happened to have 4. Two bays seems to be the most you can find now unless you get one of those all steel/plastic cases. I found a case that almost worked but didn't any room on top for the fans/radiator.
 
I have never seen a glass front combined with 5.25" bay. Those seem mutually exclusive.

Yeah wanting a glass front with 4 external bays would be quite useless as there would be hardly any glass left and then wanting 2 140mm fansin the front too, that would be a very tall case.

Also the glass front would block most of the airflow for the fans there but they would look pretty in RGB.
 
Howdy all,

I'm looking for a new case but haven't had a lot of luck. Here's what I'm looking for. Glass front with 2 140 fans and 4 external 5.25" drive bays. Glass top with room to do Push/Pull with a 280 AIO (4 fans total). A full glass side would be nice but I can live with a windows. I'm going full RBG on the fans so glass on front and top is a must. I've seen cases with glass top and front but no external drive bays. I don't needed 3.5" external bays, just the 5.25". Does any such animal exists? My budget is $200.

Concessions. I can live with a single 240 in the front.

Out of morbid curiosity why are you wanting the 4 x 5.25" drive bays for?
 
Last edited:
Yeah wanting a glass front with 4 external bays would be quite useless as there would be hardly any glass left and then wanting 2 140mm fansin the front too, that would be a very tall case.

Also the glass front would block most of the airflow for the fans there but they would look pretty in RGB.

This is what I am conceptualizing. Imagine this in a full tower. There would be 2 more 5.25" bays and instead of mesh on the front over the fans, it would be glass. The side and top would be glass too.

V16.jpg
 
This is what I am conceptualizing. Imagine this in a full tower. There would be 2 more 5.25" bays and instead of mesh on the front over the fans, it would be glass. The side and top would be glass too.

View attachment 243332

If you want something like that, you will pretty much have to build it yourself, I haven't a glass fronted case with even 1 external bay, let alone 4.
 
Not to mention that the glass will be super weak at the thin points around the 5.25 bays. Even if someone made that case, I am sure breakage would be a huge issue.
 
Get the XL version of that case. The back as hot swap bays for 4 x 3.5" hdds.

Awesome, I wasn't aware of the XL. Funny place to put the trays but I can deal with it I think. Definitely a sweet looking case.

g-01.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: noko
like this
Awesome, I wasn't aware of the XL. Funny place to put the trays but I can deal with it I think. Definitely a sweet looking case.

I have built in the PC-011 Dynamic and realistically with the extra height of the XL it leaves a lot of dead space above the PSU. I have seen other cases just put drive cages up there, but I think these are the first that are hotswappable. It's definitely a sweet "showcase" case, great views of all the components but with still great airflow and radiator support.
 
OMG Its Goobee, Same goobee from AMDMB?
I was a mod over there , back in the day :)


Anyhow, get the 011 XL. It's a great case. All sorts of storage if you need it.


Just started a build in the white version.

This one has 2 hard drives in the back (took out 1bay), 2 ssd's on the back bar and 3 m.2 drives. And it will have 2 more drives sitting in a DAS as back up on top of the case.

IMG_20200502_082207 (1).jpg
 
OMG Its Goobee, Same goobee from AMDMB?
I was a mod over there , back in the day :)

Dude, how yah doing man? I checked out PCPerspective the other day, the forum is closed. It never was the same after they changed their name and ran it to the ground.

Yeah, I'm really leaning towards the XL now. I'm looking into fans, I really like the Azzo RGB fans but I've heard people say they are junk. I'll be running a 360 AIO like your setup but vertically with 6 fans push/pull.

http://www.azzatek.com/m/2010-1275-332073.php?Lang=en
 
="goobee, post: 1044579648, member: 21305"]
Dude, how yah doing man? I checked out PCPerspective the other day, the forum is closed. It never was the same after they changed their name and ran it to the ground.
Doing great old friend. Yeh, it went to crap shortly after becoming PCPer. We lost a lot of people and several mods during the name change alone. I think I stayed on as a mod for about another year after that, then I was gone too. The place just wasn't the same anymore.

="goobee, post: 1044579648, member: 21305"]
Yeah, I'm really leaning towards the XL now. I'm looking into fans, I really like the Azzo RGB fans but I've heard people say they are junk. I'll be running a 360 AIO like your setup but vertically with 6 fans push/pull.

http://www.azzatek.com/m/2010-1275-332073.php?Lang=en
I am running the DeepCool 360EX aio. Dont get that one if you want to stand it upright in the corner. I bought it with the same idea as you got with the push pull. But the deepcool as a fill port on it that will not let it mount behind the metal without cutting the new case. So I mounted it up top for now :)

I stayed away from those fans for the same exact reason. Right now I am running the Corsair mag lev fans on the cooler/rear exhaust and all the fans are the deepcool addressable rgb fans. I have been pretty happy with them but theyhave went way up in price since the human malware started. I paid $45.00 for a 3 pack of 120mm. I see the same fans are now like 60+. But they more a decent amount of air fairly quietly. When they go back down in price I will grab some more to replace the mag levs.
 
Last edited:
Scoobert, what's the HDD back plane like in that case? I am running 4x4 TB HDDs and 4 SSDs in my Corsair 760T. That XL seems to have much better cable management (the 760T just jams them into a very narrow space behind the side panel.
 
Also, condolences on being a Bears fan (at least that's what it looks like to a fellow in shared misery).
 
scoobert, I want all my fans to be the same so that the light show will be consistent. So I'll need at least 10 visible fans for the exposed areas (the 3 push ones behind the AIO won't need RGB). I'm a noob with RGB, will the motherboard RGB controller be able to hand that many leds or does it require a separate controller?
 
Scoobert, what's the HDD back plane like in that case? I am running 4x4 TB HDDs and 4 SSDs in my Corsair 760T. That XL seems to have much better cable management (the 760T just jams them into a very narrow space behind the side panel.
It will hold 3 ssd's on the back panel that covers the wiring area. Then you have a couple options for more then that depending on your fan/rad setup. The 3 panels on the front right of the case are also ssd mounts. You can mount 3 on the front or back of each of them. But you would not be able to mount fans there then. All 3 of those ssd mounts can also be moved to the bottom of the case and mounted there. They can snap in where the bottom intake is.

So in all if you wanted you could have have 6 ssd's and 4 spinning drives or 10 ssd's all mounted.
xl.jpg


This youtube review covers it best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO6fVAkWINo&t=23s
 
Also, condolences on being a Bears fan (at least that's what it looks like to a fellow in shared misery).
LOL, yeh its been a rough couple years. It seems the idiot GM has finally figured out what a colossal mistake he made by drafting tru-bust-ky
 
scoobert, I want all my fans to be the same so that the light show will be consistent. So I'll need at least 10 visible fans for the exposed areas (the 3 push ones behind the AIO won't need RGB). I'm a noob with RGB, will the motherboard RGB controller be able to hand that many leds or does it require a separate controller?
Really depends on how many and what type of headers your mobo comes with. My Asus X570 Strix-e Has two 12 volt (4 pin) RGB headers and two 5 volt (3 Pin) Addressable RGB headers. But yes if you had 2 headers you could run 10 fans easy. You just have to make sure you get the mobo to match the type of setup you want. RGB or Addressable RGB
 
Doing great old friend. Yeh, it went to crap shortly after becoming PCPer. We lost a lot of people and several mods during the name change alone. I think I stayed on as a mod for about another year after that, then I was gone too. The place just wasn't the same anymore.

Small world. I was a mod on their as well (Niner). I agree it wasn't the same after a while. I like my 780T, but I like the Lian Li suggestion also.
 
Small world. I was a mod on their as well (Niner). I agree it wasn't the same after a while. I like my 780T, but I like the Lian Li suggestion also.

I think I remember you, it's been so long now. I used to primarily reside in the folding forum. Man we had some good times back then. We would go raid other folding forums, it was a blast. Then came along some very tight admins/mods who started banning people, even other mods.

I left with a group of people to another forum after that.
 
I think I remember you, it's been so long now. I used to primarily reside in the folding forum. Man we had some good times back then. We would go raid other folding forums, it was a blast. Then came along some very tight admins/mods who started banning people, even other mods.

I left with a group of people to another forum after that.

I remember most people from there, but rarely run into them on other forums. I was mostly in the gaming section and was a Fragging Frog for a while, but even that started dying out. A lot of guys left after being micro managed.
 
Newegg seems to be out of stock in a lot of things. Covid-19 is impacting supplies I imagine.
 
Looking good scoob! Thanks for pointing me to Microcenter. Looks like they are not shipping the 011D XL cases, they are marked as "In Store Only." They only have the while in stock, no black or silver. The Tustin store is about 65 miles from me. Not sure I want to drive that far for a color I don't want. :(

While on their website, I found a Corsair case that has the top glass that was on my wish list. It doesn't come with the hotswap trays but it looks OK. A lot of plastic compared to the Lian Li.

width(1200).gif


https://www.microcenter.com/product...red_Glass_ATX_Mid-Tower_Computer_Case_-_White
 
Looking good scoob! Thanks for pointing me to Microcenter. Looks like they are not shipping the 011D XL cases, they are marked as "In Store Only." They only have the while in stock, no black or silver. The Tustin store is about 65 miles from me. Not sure I want to drive that far for a color I don't want. :(

While on their website, I found a Corsair case that has the top glass that was on my wish list. It doesn't come with the hotswap trays but it looks OK. A lot of plastic compared to the Lian Li.

View attachment 244464

https://www.microcenter.com/product...red_Glass_ATX_Mid-Tower_Computer_Case_-_White
Hmmmm, I dont know why they would not ship it to your area. They ship the case though. I bought mine from their webstore and they shipped it to me.
mc.jpg


Be very careful of that corsair case and watch some youtube reviews of it first. I was also looking at that case when I bought the lian li and that corsair always got bad reviews. My current case is an air 540 and I loved that case which is why when it was time for a new one I started with the 680X. But the reviews quickly turned me away from it.
air540sm.jpg
 
OK, that was it. I had it set for Tustin, I changed it to Web Store and it now let's me ship. Funny, I liked the 540 but because it had no windows, I wasn't interested. Then I saw the 680 and thought it looked like the 540 with glass.

Yeah, I better read up on cases. This is going to be a very high profile build for me and I don't want to be stuck with something not exactly what I want.
 
I like the orange lighting version there.
Thanks, thats the thing I love about RGB. It can be what ever color I want or feel like. Not a big fan of lots of flashing lights dancing to music and such, but its handy to just say "I want it orange today" :)
 
Last edited:
After a lot of waffling, I think I am going to pull the trigger on this case instead. Now I just need newegg to get them back in stock. What's the deal with newegg these days? They seem to be out of everything including the the RTX 2070 Super video card I need for this build.

 
Back
Top