A little while ago I posted asking about shuttle PCs. The consensus was they were noisy. Well I would again like the input of the bit-tech community. I have an antec case currently that is huge. I have only 1 hard drive, 1 optical drive, 1 graphics card, and I am moving to a University (transferring out of the community college system ). I would like to try and get as small of a case as I can, while maintaining as much silence as I can. I do play games and such, but I don't OC my PCs. I am open to the idea of watercooling, however not only am I a noob in that regard, but I imagine a WC setup would defeat the purpose of a small case (can't have your cake and eat it too huh?). The Silverstone SG05 was suggested Bindibadgi in my previous thread. Although I'm willing to upgrade my GPU (currently have a 640 MB version of the 8800 GTS), I'm not sure if I'm willing to downgrade in terms of performance with a 9400 that would go into that case. I don't need to go something all the way down to a SFF case, I saw a Lian Li cube shaped case that looked to be a good size as well... Anyway, input is always appreciated. Ogi
The lian li cube aint that small and compact. Its hard to say which case is best for you. Once you go compact like with a shuttle or even mATX you find yourself wanting more expansion. I suggest you grab something like an Antec 300, its small and light. Better than your current old school case i bet. Or grab a Lian Li PC-A05 there pretty compact, and still offer the use of an ATX motherboard.
indeed it is, but its fairly efficent on its size, making it an ideal compact ATX case, i know the OP is thinking mATX, but the space saved going from ATX to mATX isn't that big of a deal. Been there, done that, and only ended up wanting more expansion.
I dunno whether something like this or this would be any good? The second has two 120mm fans, so it should be fairly good at moving air while keeping quiet...
For a "smaller" miditower I'd choose the Antec SOLO over the 300 any day. Actually, if the OP could do with an mATX motherboard (and that's getting pretty easy these days) I'd have more than a casual glance at the Antec Mini P180. For a non-Antec case the Silverstone Sugo 3 or 4 in its various incarnations should do quite fine too.
I've been building my sister a small PC, and I tried the Silverstone TJ08S uATX aluminium Tower Case and I wasn't impressed with the build quallity, there are quite a few parts that don't fit as well as you'd expect and some nasty sharp edges, I've got a few scars of healing cuts on my hands. I'd go with the Lian Li PC-Q07, great layout and despite it's size you can still fit a full size PSU in it.
The lian li PC-Q07 is really too small, its hard to say what its actually ment to do, full size PSU, and yet no room for expansion card. So it leaves you with fitting a Zotac 9300 mini-itx board, a single HDD and a blue-ray drive, which would result in a nice HTPC. But other than that, its kinda pointless. To the OP, whats your current case, is it an old Antec much like the chieftec dragon, because there monsters, got one here waiting to be set up again after a few years storage. ooo yeah! If it is like an old dragon, then any modern case like the 300 or solo, would feel like carrying a laptop around.
Thanks for all the replies everyone. My current case is... well I'm not sure what model it is, but it has 5 external 5.25 expansion slots, I believe 5 internal 3.5 expansion slots, and 2 external ones as well... It has 7 80mm fans and a clear side panel ... The thing not only weighs a ton (that doesn't bother me), but it's way too loud. Again, I have no problems going to some kind of watercooling setup if it can get me a quiet PC, provided I can fit it into a small enough of an enclosure. The Antec SOLO is just too large for my purposes. I have no need for 3 5.25 expansion slots, just 1. The SST-SG02B-F looks great though. The Antec Mini P180 looks nice, but it's hard to gauge it's actual size. I appreciate all the feedback everyone. Ogi
I have a case with 7 80mm fans that weighs a ton (TT Xaser III) but not with the expansions mentioned... Sounds like a Xaser II/I Series Case from ThermalTake.
Antec 300 is fairly quiet, just ordered 3 20Dba fans to replace the 120mm in the back, and add to the front. Its not Huge, but it is full size. Real Nice Case, good for the money, and will keep anything cool.
