I can also attest to that. Whilst testing a pair of 295s on air before cutting up the case for liquid cooling, a Mini P180 with the stock fans on full couldn't keep them from overheating with the side panel on. I gave up on the third go, took the side panel off and put two 140mm fans directly on them.
Yeah it requires serious ghetto rigging and temps are still wild. TBH the only benefit I see from this case is that MATX boards are generally 50% cheaper than their smaller ITX counterparts. It's still fugly and it's still built to Bitfenix standards (IE flimsy and cheap). That fan is a 6900 RPM 24 volt Delta. When I say mini cyclone that would be an understatement. It has no problems delivering serious air (very noisily though) to the GPUs. But even with all of that air the problem is that you are running a heat sandwich which no cooling can tame. Even out of the case the story was the same. The only way I managed to tame the pair of 295s was in their original sponsored build (Nfenix) IE a country mile apart. And being fed literally right over them by a 120mm high speed fan.
The plastic bits on the top and bottom had very dodgy fixings I broke a couple when I was faffing about with this mod, my first by the way. http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=259473 I too was not particularly keen on the layout of the original and I really do not like the I/O on the side panel. But I am looking to downsize to an M-ITX or I could just change my case as yet I have not spotted a case that really does it for me in the M-ATX size. Came across this, a couple of nice looking cases here, http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/06/08/bitfenix-unveils-array-of-new-mini-itx-matx/1
Bitfenix seem to like designing really good looking cases* and then executing them terribly. It isn't just their cases I had three of their fans fail on me in the same manner. My first Survivor was twisted internally. The manual was missing and one of the wires for the logo LED was snapped. That was why it ended up being modded because they sent out another trying to appease me yet that one was of terrible quality also. The fans in the Survivor were either buckled or warped. As soon as they spun up they would hit the outer band and just sheer off a blade or two. Utter junk. * I admit I was rather taken in by the Survivor on its looks. Sadly I was expecting a BMW and ended up in a Lada. I really don't like the Prodigy. The 'fibre flex' handles just sound like flimsy junk to me.
They are not, at least not in my case. But i don't use it for exercise either. I moved the case (don't forget, i got watercooling there) few times, the handles were just fine for that. And the bottom handles are still fine after a year of case weight pushing on them.
I guess I'm just spoiled then tbh. For the past few years I've used Alienware chassis and they are built like nuclear bunkers. Mind you, at the price Alienware charge you are paying £300 at least for the case. Once you get used to the triple walls and thick steel or alu though other cases just feel like junk. Now I know that most normal people just build a PC and don't touch it much but being an Aspie I am very tactile and have my PC in bits most days. Even before that I used to use a modded G3 and the handles on that were seriously heffa http://shiny.testbox.net/mac/ Actually the more I look back at that the more Bitfenix just look like complete robbers. The profile is nigh on identical !
I also forgot to mention that I had problems with the front/side USB 3 ports, a common problem with one or two of Bitfenix cases and it took ages to get the cable replaced with customer service taking a week to ten days to respond. Though I must admit I did eventually get a replacement front cable set.
I had numerous Lian Li cases before (including a PC-V1110A) and i don't feel that Prodigy is a bad case. I seen worse cases sold for much more - Corsair 800D side panels didn't gave me too much confidence, let's not even talk about the FT03 side panel system . And lets not even talk about Thermaltake or similar funny manufacturers... And those cases are many times more expensive than the Prodigy. For example i will never forget this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wufF59sdljU - check it out from the 0:50 - and that was again a much more expensive case. It is more about what to expect - you shouldn't expect 3mm thick side panels from a 70€ case. And about the design - sure, it is inspired, who is not. By that logic everyone is robbers.
With SLI, water is almost a must. I'll also add that I would find that separating graphics cards help. I've been spoiled with giant Aluminium cases thus far. Curse of the century.
I would prefer the case he's modded due to the layout - I assume you mean the one where the layout is still horizontal motherboard?
Somebody needs to tell them to ditch the optical drive bay. They've gone almost all the way with SSD only, but to then fall at the final hurdle?
