Over the last few days I've come in need of an actual case to mod rather than making my own due to differing financial statuses, so I'm looking for a mid/full ATX tower, that can hold a microATX board still (which has 4 expansion slots), that can fit a 2x120mm radiator, one hard drive, one DVD drive, an ATX power supply, and still have room for a video card (this is because I've decided to go cheap and save up) but prefferably with minimal detail to it already. If this wasn't picky enough, I'd rather not spend more than $70 on it.. does anyone know of such a miracle case?
Do you have to tools required to cut a new hole for the radiator? If so then my recommendation is to just get a basic ATX mini/mid tower that DOES NOT use a tool-free system for mounting the optical drives. Drill new holes to mount one of the optical drives upside-down. Install the radiator in the bottoms of the case. Then flip the whole thing upside down and you have exactly want you want. There are no Micro ATX cases I can see that will fit all of those parts without mounting the radiator outside.
I've got the tools I think, jigsaw, dremel, table saw, drill, determination are my basic tools, that should do it.. that's actually quite a creative idea, thanks! Now to find a case that wont look to funny "upside down", lol
Yeah, the optical drives and ugliness of the underside are the only things that keep you from flipping any given case upside-down. And you have the table saw you would need to cut a new decorative panel to cover up the ugly underside that will become the new top of the case. Any case that has floor-to-ceiling drive cages that might get in the way of fitting the radiator in the bottom of the case will involve extra cutting work. Or if possible simply de-rivet that section of drive cage out of the case and use a 5.25" bay adapter to mount your lone hard drive. I'm fairly sure that would be easy to do to this case (or any of the other heap cases that Rosewill makes). http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811147056 To preview all you have to do is flip the images upside-down, hahaha.
Shouldn't be too bad, I plan on a paint job/windowed ceiling anyway, standard black/gunmetal/silver is just too stock for my tastes
How about a CoolerMaster Centurion? With free Newegg shipping (up to $20 if using paypal), it can be had for quite cheaply. I've seen low quality cases fall to pieces, and Rosewill fits into that category.
I've got a Rosewill PSU now and am very pleased with it.. actually I was looking on Newegg at a very similar model of the linked case and decided to check up on this thread, lol. The Centurion is nice, but the whole screwless might get in the way, as with the parallel HDD bay, I dunno, I'll have to look again
Check out the AMS cases the large HDD cage can be removed and you still get one with the external 3.5 drive.
