Hello fellow computer builders !! Wasting my Monday morning at work looking for a new computer case to house my very nice gaming setup. Lots of nice cases to choose from and managed to narrow down my requirements to the following: Coolermaster HAF X Case £139 Corsair Carbide 500R Black Case £90 Antec 1100 Eleven Hundred Case £110 Coolermaster CM 690 II Advanced Case £77 So, whats your opinion? I am very much on the fence with them all so wanted to see what other peoples views on these cases were. Many thanks
Better add my requirements and rig !!!!! Ok, very much a ROG setup, Maximus MOBO, i7, GTX 570, 2 HDD and 2 SSD, 16GB RAM, 850W coolermaster pro PSU Aircooled at the moment but wanting to add watercooling with a larger case. Everything overclocked so kicks out a little heat !!
I love my CM 690 II, very sturdy and lots of room inside, especially behind the panel for cable-management. Though with the front and top being all mesh it isn't exactly a quiet case (not an issue if you are watercooling I suppose). I do get a coating of the finer dust particles on the inside, but this is possibly the same with all cases that have space for top-mounted fans. I could block this, tbh. If you are watercooling though, while I suppose it depends on the setup it doesn't have a dedicated area for watercooling. There is certainly room, but it depends on your setup as to whether you can fit a radiator at the top or bottom. As your PSU is modular, I feel I should mention that I found that my modular PSU prevents me from putting anything at the bottom fan mount closest to the PSU. Youtube has a few videos of people who have watercooled their CM 690 II.
Whats your budget? As you may just start off with the case you want to watercool in... The HAF or my Elysium would do well...
My budget is £200 max...also, size of the case matters, not a big fan of the huge cases. I will be water cooling but only the pocessor and GPU. Having a nice clean case with plenty of air flow room with most the water cooling hidden is what I would like to achieve.
The case that you buy should be determined by how many radiators you intend to use when come to do the watercooling. Unless of course, you plan to mount your rads externally.
Not a huge amount of room to watercool though. If you're cooling CPU and GPU you may want more than a 240 rad, and that's pretty much all you can fit into the 650D. It is a superb case though. I just got one myself.
Coolermaster ATCS 840 i love that case plenty of room for watercooling and brilliant with air cooling. removable motherboard tray as well. It is a bit old and it is big and i mean BIG but its perfect
Im thinking that the 650D with a dual rad for the CPU and possibly finding away to have a second loop with a single rad for the GPU - if it will fit !!! could be some moding on the horizon