Case Study Growing pains

[Gorth]

It's been years since I could squeeze my hardware into a PC case. My old Antec P182 (yes, it predates the P183) is just not up to keeping it all inside.

 

Shopping around a bit, I ran into this beauty, Lian Li Black PC-D8000

 

It's not available until the end of the month though, so it gives me a few more weeks to look around. It would be nice if I could for once have all my stuff (except the external radiator) in a box that I could close and keep some of the dust out of

 

While looking around, I saw this one Lian Li Black PC-CK101 HTPC Chassis

 

Kind of adorable, but not really my thing

 

Ah well, I'll find the proverbial fitting shoe eventually.

[LadyCrimson]

Lian Li Black PC-D8000

Over $400 and it doesn't even include any of the basic case fans in the package?

 

...not that it doesn't look nice.

[Gorth]

Lian Li Black PC-D8000

Over $400 and it doesn't even include any of the basic case fans in the package?

 

...not that it doesn't look nice.

 

It's all liquid cooled. I don't need the "fan club"

[Humanoid]

Included case fans are almost always substandard anyway and are the first thing to be removed when I get a new case. And yeah, my current case is also a P182(B) - but I'm quite happy to stick with it, and indeed might keep using it for my next build (whether that's Haswell or the following gen remains to be seen). Actually I bought the 182 many months before actually building a system around it because the 183 had been announced and I didn't like the look of it - was worried the 182 would be too hard to find. Mix of Nexus (for clamping onto coolers where more pressure is required) and Scythe fans (intake and exhaust) for me and I'm reasonably happy with the acoustics, but room for improvement.

 

Alternative for me would be a Silverstone Fortress I guess, but it's a ways off before I make any decisions - going to grab a Haswell notebook for certain next year (probably the Lenovo X240) and a Trinity-based mini-ITX system: was going to settle for a basic Antec case for that but saw that CK101 case too. Tempting for sure, although I've never been a fan of aluminium for casing.

[Spider]

I have a Fortress 2 and it's amazing. Had it several years and would still recommend it to anyone. Except Gorth, because while you can do liquid cooling in it, it's not really optimized for it.

 

Best Chassi for ligquid cooling afaik is still Corsair Obsidian 800, but maybe not even that one is large enough for you Gorth.

[Gorth]

When I bought my 182, I could actually squeeze my computer inside it (barely), but with what appears to be the new standard size for high end gfx cards and liquid cooled motherboard etc. I ended up with having to have HDD trays standing on the desk next to the case, as well as a lot of the cabling and hoses that just doesn't fit in there. My "stuff" probably takes up one and a half 182 case

 

So yeah, something about twice the size of my current case would do. I've got 4 more HDD's (for a grand total of 10 once installed) in their packaging waiting to get attached to a new PCI SATA3 card.

[LadyCrimson]

It's all liquid cooled. I don't need the "fan club"

Hehe, forgot about that.

Liquid cooling for me is still something I think about once in a while, but don't live where it's hot enough that an AC unit doesn't keep the temps down enough. And when it's warm, the AC's always on, cause never mind the computer, *I* like it cold.

 

But I suppose no fans helps keep dust out? That alone might be nice. Farking hate having to blow all the dust out a few times a year. And I'd definitely love to have a sliding-out motherboard piece, or just more hand wiggle room in general. I don't think I'd ever have a need for more than 3-4 drive bays, tho. lol.

[Bokishi]

Still using my trusty Stacker 830 Evo, it's like 6 years old now but still going strong. Thing is built like a tank (heavy aluminum), spacious inside, modular trays and fan placement, and I had a custom window cut into it, so it would be hard for me to get rid of

[jonvel]

So yeah, something about twice the size of my current case would do. I've got 4 more HDD's (for a grand total of 10 once installed) in their packaging waiting to get attached to a new PCI SATA3 card.

 

Wait wait... Sata3 speeds are up to about 600 MB/s, which outclasses the maximum PCI bus speed of 533 MB/s, so why waste money with that?

 

Plus, once you start doing multiple cards on PCI bus, things go south in a hurry. Unless you mean a PCIe card...

 

Also, I love my very quiet p182 case.

[Gorth]

So yeah, something about twice the size of my current case would do. I've got 4 more HDD's (for a grand total of 10 once installed) in their packaging waiting to get attached to a new PCI SATA3 card.

 

Wait wait... Sata3 speeds are up to about 600 MB/s, which outclasses the maximum PCI bus speed of 533 MB/s, so why waste money with that?

 

Plus, once you start doing multiple cards on PCI bus, things go south in a hurry. Unless you mean a PCIe card...

 

Also, I love my very quiet p182 case.

 

It's still faster than the 300mb max you get from SATA2 and yes, I meant PCIe. My MB has a single PCI (no 'express') slot which isn't used for anything

 

Edit: Curses, the stores keep pushing the ETA for the Lian Li case back. It's now almost mid December. Grrr...