Computer Case advise

[happytraveller]

Back from a visit to the shops and looking at computer cases and components. Despite some research on the net, I cannot find any clear guidelines about computer cases. Is it best to try and get the largest computer case possible (so that there is a lot of spare room inside for air to circulate) or is it more important to get one of the cases with a lot of grilles on the front/sides? For a computer that is going to run FSX (so with a fair amount of heat from the CPU and Graphics card) what sort of case would you recommend? I am also wondering about things like the larger graphics cards, whether or not some of the smaller cases would be large enough for the m/b etc and a large graphics card. Things like power supply and CPU's are easier, lots of reviews and advice there but for cases it is less clear.

Help please!!

smooth landings.

[pilot.masman]

i would recommend getting a good big mid tower, maybe a cm690 or a antec 900.

there are definite advantages of larger cases because most of them have more room for cable management, keeping cables out of the way and therefor increasing airflow but some of the mid tower cases provide excellent cooling and cable management, hence my current case (cm690 2 advanced) it has the grills and such but also has dust filters and the like.

[IslandBoy77]

Whatever you decide, you need to factor in the following:
1) The case needs to be able to take a full-sized ATX motherboard. If it can do this, there should be room for the big size of more powerful graphics cards
2) Make sure it has at least 1 side vent over the CPU, and the ability to have an 8cm fan at the front and back of the case

As for brands - just "kick the tyres" to see how well they are built. Cooler Master & Foxconn cases are good, some iCute are ok (but most not). I look for these things: how thick do the sides feel (are they flimsy) and how well / easily do the sides go on / off?; are there any sharp edges inside the case? How easily does the front panel come off & go back on? Does the case feel 'warped' - is it truly square, or has some trained monkey not had it in the jig properly when riveting it together (a common fault with the low-quality Eastek cases)? In short, look for a quality build and pay an extra $50-$70 - believe me, after tens of system builds, I regret every one where I went with a cheap case!

Of course, you don't have to load the case up with fans. One at the front and back, plus a PSU with a big fan itself (which pretty much all the good one's will have - I recommend the Silver Plus AcBels), should be plenty for a standard configuration. If you're thinking of a very high end system and / or overclocking, you'd be best to look at some sort of liquid cooling, as having a stack of fans is noisy and not very effective. If you want to play it safe, but don't want to lash out on liquid cooling, get a case that has a grille on the side panel (beneath the CPU vent) that will take a 12cm fan to exhaust heat out and plonk a good-quality metal-ballbearing fan there - the pull-push system at the front and the back should be enough for bringing in cool air, but if you're finding that temps are too high, you can always turn the 12cm over so that it sucks air in rather than out: that sort of thing can take a bit of experimentation, depending on the number of fans, how powerful they are, the orientation of Venus...

Lastly, make sure your case is up off the ground - by at least 30cm or so. While there is cooler air near the floor, that is also where there is more dust. And it goes without saying that the case needs to have plenty of room around it, so no cramping it into one of those Warehouse cheap 'n nasty work stations that give 5cm clearance...

[dbcunnz]

I find this case excellent for my use http://www.chieftec.com/CX05.html also click on inside for detail button.
Once the MB is installed you don't need any tools DVD or CD-Rom push in and clip same with HDDs also PCI cards are clipped in no screws heaps of room for the largest graphic card plus plenty of cooling and small optional wheels makes it easy to pull in and out from under the PC desk.

[AndrewJamez]

I think water cooling could be the war to go even for low to moderate overclocking, after installing a bohemeth Scyth Mugen tower heat sink (which does work extremely well cooling my i7 870) i wish that had bought the Corsair factory sealed water cooler/ radiator/ 120mm fan combo for $150. Very neat. Is refilled and tested and has integrated pump so all you do is slap it in there. Nice and Tidy. The big down side to my tower cooler is that is weighs a woping 800 grams so it puts preasure on the mother board to warp. Next build it will be H2o for sure. http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1025/1/

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (AndrewJamez @ Oct 3 2010, 05:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think water cooling could be the war to go even for low to moderate overclocking, after installing a bohemeth Scyth Mugen tower heat sink (which does work extremely well cooling my i7 870) i wish that had bought the Corsair factory sealed water cooler/ radiator/ 120mm fan combo for $150. Very neat. Is refilled and tested and has integrated pump so all you do is slap it in there. Nice and Tidy. The big down side to my tower cooler is that is weighs a woping 800 grams so it puts preasure on the mother board to warp. Next build it will be H2o for sure. http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1025/1/

How's the heat and noise from your solution? It's been ages since I farted about with anything but standard air cooling. However, last time that I did, it was a bit noisy (a bit more than 3 x 12cm fans).

[happytraveller]

Thanks for your replies, even more things to consider now, as dust had not even entered my mind, and also cable management. So probably it will have to be a larger case than I had planned, and then positioned higher up than I had thought. I might even have to go the water cooling route, as overclocking is going to produce a lot more heat, and it may better to start off with it.

thanks again for the tips, not so easy to decide on cases, but at least now I will avoid the very cheap ones,

smooth landings.

[dart15]

QUOTE (AndrewJamez @ Oct 3 2010, 04:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think water cooling could be the war to go even for low to moderate overclocking, after installing a bohemeth Scyth Mugen tower heat sink (which does work extremely well cooling my i7 870) i wish that had bought the Corsair factory sealed water cooler/ radiator/ 120mm fan combo for $150. Very neat. Is refilled and tested and has integrated pump so all you do is slap it in there. Nice and Tidy. The big down side to my tower cooler is that is weighs a woping 800 grams so it puts preasure on the mother board to warp. Next build it will be H2o for sure. http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1025/1/

I have the Corsair sealed unit and thoroughly recommend it for an efficient, effective and quiet solution. Keeps temps nicely under control (Prime95 stress tests). Overclocking my i930 to 3.960 Ghz (couldnt quite get it to 4) and core temps running FSX rarely exceed 60 degs.

[pilot.masman]

i would probably recommend a good air cooled system, perhaps the Prolimatech Megahalems it keeps the 1090T in a fairly low end case under 20 degrees on idle and below 30 degrees running prime95. far superior to a cheap water cooling kit, there are a few other air cooling sinks i would prefer over the pre-made water kits, eg the thermalrite ultra 120 or the prolimatech armageddon

[dart15]

QUOTE (pilot.masman @ Oct 4 2010, 03:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i would probably recommend a good air cooled system, perhaps the Prolimatech Megahalems it keeps the 1090T in a fairly low end case under 20 degrees on idle and below 30 degrees running prime95. far superior to a cheap water cooling kit, there are a few other air cooling sinks i would prefer over the pre-made water kits, eg the thermalrite ultra 120 or the prolimatech armageddon

Less than 10 deg differential between idle and when running Prime95?? I find that...interesting!

There is nothing "cheap" about the Corsair unit. It is very well made and - unlike some of the air coolers - easy to install without risk of distorting the m/b. I would not dispute at all that there are air coolers which will exceed the water kit in terms of absolute performance but that is not the only consideration. Ease of installation I have already referred to but the other big bonus - for me anyway - is how quiet the rig is. Each to their own and vive la difference

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (pilot.masman @ Oct 4 2010, 03:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i would probably recommend a good air cooled system, perhaps the Prolimatech Megahalems it keeps the 1090T in a fairly low end case under 20 degrees on idle and below 30 degrees running prime95. far superior to a cheap water cooling kit, there are a few other air cooling sinks i would prefer over the pre-made water kits, eg the thermalrite ultra 120 or the prolimatech armageddon

What's 'prime95'? - I've not run across that before...

[dart15]

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Oct 5 2010, 02:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What's 'prime95'? - I've not run across that before...

Prime95 is a project dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.


"Its become extremely popular as a stability testing utility. It includes a "Torture Test" mode designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors in order to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system, which effectively stress-tests a PC.

The stress-test in Prime can be configured to better test various components of the computer Three pre-set configurations are available: Small FFTs, In-Place FFTs, and Blend. Small and In-Place modes primarily test the FPU and the caches of the CPU, whereas the Blend mode tests everything, including the memory.

On an absolutely stable system, Prime95 would run indefinitely. If an error occurs (the tray icon will become red from the default green, indicating that the test has halted), there is a chance that the system is unstable. There is an ongoing debate about terms "stable" and "Prime-stable", as Prime95 often fails before the system becomes unstable or crashes in any other application. This is because Prime 95 is designed to subject the CPU to an incredibly intense workload, and to halt when it encounters even one minor error, whereas most normal applications do not stress the CPU anywhere near as much, and will continue to operate unless they encounter a fatal error.

In the overclocking community a rule of thumb is often used to determine how long to run Prime95: test the CPU (8KB FFT) for 10 hours and the memory (4096KB FFT) for 10 hours, and if the system passes, there is a high chance that it is stable. 24 hours' testing is recommended to be sure, as errors may show up after 16 or more hours of testing (compared to, say, just 4 hours of testing).^[5] Moreover, a large proportion of system overclockers and enthusiasts favor Prime95 over other benchmarking suites because Prime95 pushes the CPU's floating point units extremely hard, causing the CPU to become extremely hot. In addition, Prime95 stresses a computer far more than the majority of software based torture-suites. The nature of this is because the operating system usually shuts down the floating-point unit when unused by other programs, whereas Prime95 is well-optimized to continuously and effectively thread the FPU, resulting the FPU to be deeply pipelined thereby generating significantly more heat because of elevated power consumption under the massive workload conditions. In CPUs which are not properly cooled, errors are likely to occur. Prime95 also constantly accesses main memory up to 60MB per second. This constant activity will detect memory problems that other programs will not".

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (dart15 @ Oct 5 2010, 03:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Prime95 is a project dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.

Very interesting - I think I'll look into that: cheers!