Hokay, for a while now; I've slowly been growing dissatisfied with my Phantom, although it's more due to my own changing tastes than any issues with the case itself. I've been looking at building an M-ATX system with a single graphics card and a Sound-card, likely my current Xonar DX. Issue is finding a case that doesn't look like ass, cost Over £110, and is in production. I'd quite like an Antec P180 Mini in white, but they're rare as gold dust now, especially the white variant. The Fractal Design Arc/Define Mini that most are probably going to offer up is a pain to find in white. The other one I've considered, the NZXT Rogue, has simply vanished off the face of the planet. Any help would be appreciated, I'm at the extent of what my google-fu will tell me. I've considered Silverstone's Fortress FT-03, but that compact a case would be difficult to work with, even in the best of conditions.
I take it from your comments you don't want a black case? You can get the Lian Li PC-A04 in silver, but it's not the easiest case to build a neat system in. It is one of the smallest mATX cases around though and looks nice if you like the minimalist look.
silverstone ft03 only bitch about it is the backplate resonates lightly at times due to harddrives but its fairly large for a matx case... nevermind.
Silverstone SG02 in white? http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silv...-atx-sff-cube-case-w-o-psu-takes-atx-uatx-psu
What are the front fans like on the standard A04? I'm considering changing them out for Silverstone Air-Penetrators. Also; how bad is it to try and cable-manage in there? I've heard people claiming it's a pain to make everything fit, even with modular cables.
On the cable management front, I found it a bit tight. There isn't really enough space between the motherboard tray and the side panel for the 24 pin power cable. However, if you play with lots of cable ties and have a modular power supply its not unmanageable to get a relatively neat system. There is quite a bit of space inside, but you will need to take out the top HDD bay for longer graphics cards. I replaced the top front fan with a Gentle Typhoon 1850 and put a H60 in the top fan space as an exhaust (also with GT1850 rather than the supplied Corsair fan). For info, my i5 750 at 3.2Ghz happily sits at 50 degrees at 100% 24/7.
No worries. It'll likely be a few months before I'll have anywhere near the funds to afford to start building things, so take your time!
Okay, here we go...apologies for the poor quality photos, quick and dirty night shots were required here... First up is a picture of the rear of the motherboard tray, showing how you can route the cables. Next is a shot of the interior. Note that I cannot use the tool-less 5.25" bay mount/clip/thingy because I have a stealth DVD drive cover installed and this pushes the optical drive back too far for the mount to be able to use the screw holes in the drive. My non-modular Seasonic PSU has the cables exiting the casing on the wrong side to be able to hide them any more. I have removed the upper hard drive cage as I do not need it with a single hard drive but this is an example of how it can fit very long GPU's. I am considering removing the hard drive cage altogether and mounting the single hard drive in the spare 5.25" bay. Next up is a shot of how I have the PSU cables, albeit it was a quick install job. I should really tidy it some more but I have no need to - I don't need loads of airflow and the stock i5 650 and 4670 are not stressed. This is a web/email and photo PC after all with an idle CPU temp of 26C-28C, GPU of 36C and HD temp of 25C. Next is a shot of the front, showing how much nicer it looks with a stealth DVD drive cover (standard Lian Li part). I got mine here in the marketplace for £6 iirc. I have just realised I still have not removed the adhesive plastic protecting the Lian Li badge... The next two shots show it with a Fractal Design Define R2, giving you a size comparison. My summary of it would be: Good - Fantastic build quality. - Fantastic attention to detail. - Black anodised aluminium is gorgeous. - Very quiet (with 7v step down resistors on the two front fans, the top fan does not really need one although I do have one installed for dead silence - it is on the desk beside me). - Good airflow from the stock front fans at stock speed. - Effective dust filters. - Front panel pops off easily for filter cleaning. - Ability to rearrange the hard drive cages in multiple configurations. - Top panel USB 3 support. - Capability for long GPU's. - Compact size. Not so good - You need to take your time to do a good cable routing job (I haven't yet). - Front fans are not silent at stock speed (although Lian Li do a fan controller that fits behind the front panel - Lian Li part number PT-FN01). - Rear fan (not supplied) mount is 80mm. - Only a single 120mm exhaust (roof) if no 80mm rear fan is used. - The power and hard drive lights bleed through the optical drive gaps. I will probably find some way of shrouding the lights to stop this if I get the time. In summary, I probably wouldn't use this case for a monster overclocked gaming rig with a GTX 480 due to the fan options but for a Sandy Bridge i5 2500K rig, with an average overclock and a good CPU cooler exhausting out the roof, coupled with a modern (i.e. cool) rear exhausting GPU, it would be fine. I think the question is how hard you are going to push the cooling ability of the case. Hope this helps, yell if you have any questions.
