Video Card length vs: buying a case for future proof

Comixbooks

Comixbooks

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Do you think Video Card length will come down in size with using Stacked memory on the latest Nvidia cards ect..?
So having a bigger case with HDD drives out of they way wouldn't be necessary.
 
No not really, if they do it will only be marginally smaller. The way I really do it is, buy a case with the space for premium cards. Most cases are designed with high end in mind. My small ass ITX case can fit the biggest single gpu card. Phanteks shift ftw
 
At the top end we're probably not going to see cards get much shorter unless they're hybrid water cooled. The PCB can be made a few inches shorter, but taking a 3rd off the heat sink causes a performance hit. You can see this with the current generation short 1070/1080 cards; their clock rates are underwhelming because they can't keep as cool as bigger cards.

With spinning rust itself dying though if you want a more compact case just go for one that's eihter drive bay less and at most has a pair of 2.5/3,5" mounts on the back of the mobo tray or in front of the PSU. You can get something that's only about 12" deep that way instead of 16" without having to worry about GPU form factor.
 
Comixbooks said:
Do you think Video Card length will come down in size with using Stacked memory on the latest Nvidia cards ect..?
So having a bigger case with HDD drives out of they way wouldn't be necessary.
Click to expand...

No.
 
Realistically you can have drives outside of the case these days the performance does not have that big of an impact. Also with drives getting well over 10 TB in the near future how many would you need ?
If you have a few older drives replace them and buy a USB enclosure for the older drives.
 
or save the case $$$ and put it towards a higher end GPU card. It's easy to build your own open case if you have basic power or hand tools. I used two pieces of pressed board (came as re-enforcing material with my washing machine) and some 1" round dowels cut to appropriate lengths. Bought some threaded motherboard stand offs ($2 for 50 on ebay), cut a few holes, spray painted it flat black and wha la ... instant bench case and talk about staying cool. You can add some partitions, etc and have all the HDD space you can ever desire. But be aware of kids, cats and "must touch!" people ...

20171019_102211.jpg
 
_l_ said:
or save the case $$$ and put it towards a higher end GPU card. It's easy to build your own open case if you have basic power or hand tools. I used two pieces of pressed board (came as re-enforcing material with my washing machine) and some 1" round dowels cut to appropriate lengths. Bought some threaded motherboard stand offs ($2 for 50 on ebay), cut a few holes, spray painted it flat black and wha la ... instant bench case and talk about staying cool. You can add some partitions, etc and have all the HDD space you can ever desire. But be aware of kids, cats and "must touch!" people ...

20171019_102211.jpg
Click to expand...

Its fine for testing stuff and odds.. but as everyday case?hell no.. I can't imagine how many stupid things can happen with a everyday open case, which won't provide any better cooling than a proper airflow managed one,without take in consideration how fast it will get dusty..
 
Actually, you could be right. But it may take a little bit to get it working the way you are picturing. HBM or HBM2 or 3 or 4 places the memory on die which does shrink down the overall size needed. Many manufacturers are now waisting quite abit of space on their cards only for space for large heatsinks to be mounted. A good example of this is the AMD Fury (nonX) vs the AMD Fury Nano. The Nano doesn't have the massive heatsink and is a lot shorter and smaller but also had a slightly lower thermal limit due to that. It is very possible that smaller versions of the mainstream cards will continue to be made like the Nano.
 
I bought the case I have because of the radiator I wanted to install. As a side effect, the case has no problem with the length of my video card.
 
Pick up an expensive case like caselabs/mountain mods. Won’t have to worry about space ever again.
 
_l_ said:
or save the case $$$ and put it towards a higher end GPU card. It's easy to build your own open case if you have basic power or hand tools. I used two pieces of pressed board (came as re-enforcing material with my washing machine) and some 1" round dowels cut to appropriate lengths. Bought some threaded motherboard stand offs ($2 for 50 on ebay), cut a few holes, spray painted it flat black and wha la ... instant bench case and talk about staying cool. You can add some partitions, etc and have all the HDD space you can ever desire. But be aware of kids, cats and "must touch!" people ...

20171019_102211.jpg
Click to expand...

In my house that’s called a cat toy.
 
Investing in a good case is well worth it.

I recently built a rig in a Corsair 900D case and it's amazing. The flexibility and freedom it alows you is fantastic. You can build any thing imaginable in there with great airflow on air or a complex watercooling setup.
 
Hakaba said:
Pick up an expensive case like caselabs/mountain mods. Won’t have to worry about space ever again.
Click to expand...

Yup. I love working in my Caselab's Magnum SMA8. OTOH with SLI/Xfire in seemingly terminal decline I kinda wish I had a model that was only 3x140 radiators long instead of 4. Even with slow and quiet fans and my pump running at low RPMs the 560mm rad I've got's serious overkill for a single CPU and GPU.
 
I just removed the HDD cage so I can have 420+ mm card with no problem I had to ditch on of my SSD drives it was a small 256 gig drive still have two of them.
 
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