Case suggestions?

[Krazeh]

Well after a good few years of use i've decided to retire my current case in favour of something a little bigger (it's getting a little cramped with all the wires and drives).

I'm looking at getting a full tower case, the Lian Li PC-70 seems to be a fairly well built good sized case which I can fit all my components in and still have plenty of room for a watercooling setup. Anyone have one of these cases or any other Lian Li cases? Wanna know about build quality, ease of use, that sorta stuff.

Any other suggestions of a case I could look at buying? As long as it's got plenty of room inside and looks good i'm open to any ideas.

One final point, gonna buy a new PSU as well, most likely a 500W or thereabouts, who make good PSU's?

 

[Big G]

I have one of these:

Lian-Li PC71

It has absolutely wads of room inside, not cramped at all. It comes with two 80mm exhaust fans sucking from the chipset/cpu area and two 80mm fans at the front of the case with a variable speed control. I have my hard disk mounted by these fans as it gets rather hot. The power LED is a high intensity blue colour, with the hard disk LED being high intensity red - it's the most classy piece of kit i've bought: the brushed, black aluminium is superb quality and matches all my other black kit and home cinema.

Additionally, it has two "stealth" drive panels so you don't have to colour code your parts with coolermaster aluminium drive fascias.

Be warned: this case is massive in depth as well as height; the picture is deceiving.

I couldn't recommend it more for flexiblity, class, superb build quality, looks etc. It's just pretty big.

G

 

[Insane]

Case: Chieftec
(you can get them in aluminium now!)
http://www.overclock.co.uk/customer/home.php?cat=288

Image from www.arena-chieftec.com
AX-01SL-D-U is the model code for the Aluminium Chieftec Dragon

great stonking size, the steel ones are heavy but are very sturdy and can withstand a hell of a lot, it also holds plenty 4x 5 1/4 drives and 6 3,5 drives (2 exposed, 4 hidden)

As for PSU, Enermax do good.. im running a cheapo Q-TEC one in my box at home and havnt had any problems with it so far, so you might get lucky with a cheaper alternative, but dont count on it.

 

[Wilier]

I got one of these (amongst others) and whilst its not the best case as far as cooling goes, it looks fecking gorgeous.

 

[doh_boy]

Thermaltake Lanfire fireball

Black widow

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by Big G
I have one of these:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/lianli_pc71.jpg

Lian-Li PC71

ooh, pretty! tell me, how are the fans noise-wise? do you know if they are easilly swapped for say...zalman silent fans?

 

[Big G]

TDC,

The two front 80mm fans have a three stage switch - in the left position they are spinning totally silent, in the middle they spin a faster but still very quiet and then right position is full speed. The full speed is louder but they are very high quality fans therefore at full speed the sound is still fairly quiet in comparison to YSTech helicopter fans. Additionally, there is a fan filter infront of the fans to catch dust and crusty munk. Lian Li have not skimped on the fans or the filtering.

The rear fans spin at full speed. I would have liked a variable control on these too, but unfortunately there isn't one fitted. I've got a Zalman fanmate connected to these fans to spin them half speed to keep noise down. Coupled with the cool air coming in, the case is cooled brilliantly.

The fans aren't screw in, they are fitted by little black plastics "rivets" that are easily removed and fitted. It also means you're not damaging the case with screws. Removing the stock fans for other fans would be a piece of piss providing the Zalman fans you speak of, TDC, are 80mm (i believe some of the Zalman fans are 92mm?).

The fans are connected to a speed control PCB behind the front panel, I can't see how easy it would be to remove it all and replace the fans, but tbh you wouldn't need to. The front fans are connected via the mini three pin socket you get on CPU fans, iirc - but I'll need to double check that on the case tonight; so don't quote me on it

G

 

[Testin da Cable]

wow, big reply thanks matey
if the fans are good quality, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem, and (as you say) there's always extra fan-control that I can stick in to run them at a percentage of rated speed.

good point with the sizing though! I'm not too sure how zalman have sized their fans so I'll have to check. the whole point is probably moot if the fans are quiet enough I mentioned it because my borg-cube is running a bit hot, and I'll be fitting extra fans.

 

[Big G]

I only suggest that because the fan for my Zalman "flower" CPU heatsink is 92mm, but i can't see why they wouldn't do an 80mm.

 

[Testin da Cable]

aye, as is mine. I have even bigger fans (stolen from an old server) but they're noisy buggers

 

[Sibanac]

Originally posted by Insane
Case: Chieftec
(you can get them in aluminium now!)
http://www.overclock.co.uk/customer/home.php?cat=288

Image from www.arena-chieftec.com
AX-01SL-D-U is the model code for the Aluminium Chieftec Dragon

great stonking size, the steel ones are heavy but are very sturdy and can withstand a hell of a lot

got one of those aswell, whole thing is about 60lbs
But the case can withstand a direct hit from a small nuke

Easy access tho the inside, everything on rails, and Biiiiigggg