Alternatives to Thermaltake VH6000BWS

simjc

simjc

simjc

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17 Mar 2009
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15
I was originally looking to get the full tower from thermaltake, but it appears i can't get these no longer in the UK. Thus I am looking for alternatives.

Budget: 150 - 200 quid

Specs:

Full Tower
- No PSU
- No water cooling
- Plenty of airflow, Quiet fans with filters
- Good design/quality, cable management
- Space between hard drives and motherboard [current case, hd cage is virtually sitting on top of motherboard]
- Tooless design, maybe a removable motherboard tray
- 2 x 3.5" externals (ideally 2, minimum 1)
- Slidable PSU support (if at top), must support my Antec 850W PSU
- Motherboard form factors - ATX (680i) at present and future i7 form factors.
- Support big long graphic cards of today/tomorrow [not crampt.]
- Easy to access extra usb/audio connections etc, i.e. not at the front bottom of tower.

System to support
- 680i SLI --> i7 motherboard form factors
- SLI
- 5 hard drives
- 2 opticals
- 2 3.5" externals


Thanks for you advice / suggestions.

Sim
 
Lian Li A71 (A70 is same without door) and couple of these... but just what 3.5" devices you can have?

Plenty of space, you can throw in another five HDDs before running out of space and they won't block access to anything else or other parts access to them:
 
Thanks.

Got me looking at the Lian Li PC-A7110B, which seems to have nice hot swap feature.

The only concern I have about the Lian's is no side fan.

should have mentioned, that i will be overclocking. Thus wondering whether there is enough air flow in these cases, as no side fan blowing on to the cpu heat sink.

Cheers

Sim


PS. Has anyone got a Lian Li PC-A7110B (or know reports of), the hot swap (slide HDs into bays, which auto connect to power and sata interface) whether RAID or pure sata performance is affected? OR is it recommended just to forget this type of feature, as it affects performance.
 
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simjc said:
Got me looking at the Lian Li PC-A7110B, which seems to have nice hot swap feature.
Click to expand...
Yeah, good if you have HDD failing weekly...
Acoustically plastic rails just aren't that good thing (no vibration insulation but thermal decoupling) and could be even worser than hard mounting if there's any loose.


Side fans might not be that useful, you can't tell at all from temperatures which cases had side fan:
http://plaza.fi/muropaketti/artikke...oler-master-haf-932-ja-thermaltake-armor-mx,4
Instead of messing case airflow around keeping it more simpler seems to work better. (airflow is like traffic, it moves lot easier if road is straigth instead of zigzag of crossroads)
And Lian Li has cooling kit for drawing out heat of graphics card which can leave lot of heat inside case.
http://www.lian-li.com.tw/v2/en/pro...ex=232&cl_index=2&sc_index=34&ss_index=83&g=f
 
I have an Antec 1200 and they suggest a side fan for a better thermal environment.

Also, my motherboard manual suggests installing a side fan when using multi-gpu, like I am doing now.

But, the gpu's have their own enclosed cooling solutions, what possible benfit can they have from a 120mm blowing at them? None, I have found. Temps are the same with and without fan.

3 gpus in SLI might benfit, I don't know.
 
Interesting thoughts from both of you on the side air flow.

Thanks about letting me know that hot swap bays aren't that quiet. Think i'll avoid the PC-A7110B. Want quiet, not rattle.

The A71 looks tempting, with the door protecting optical drives etc. But wonder if it restricts air flow, eventhough the door has side vents. And the A70 is 20 quid cheaper.


If I went for either the A71/A70, is there anything else people would recommend to get with it?
Already going to get a couple of 5.25 to 3.5 kits. [EsaT: floppy + zip are the 3.5" devices. Oh my god, I hear u say.]

Although, i notice that the V2010B suggested by LukeTW above, has fan speed controls and a compartmentalised design. BUT this case may be over kill.
 
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simjc said:
The A71 looks tempting, with the door protecting optical drives etc. But wonder if it restricts air flow, eventhough the door has side vents.
Click to expand...
Extra impedance is small because those holes are good sized and there's 3-4mm gap between door and front face. Front face itself being maybe 1cm farther (A70 has mesh part recessed) from fan blades might allow less turbulentic airflow lowering impedance in there.
Also door muffles noise of intake fans by something like couple hundred RPMs (A7110 is sure to loose in that because of not fully blocking direct noise escape path) whose benefit can surely override minor extra impendance... Basing to SPCR's measurements that RPM difference would mean about 25-30% higher airflow for Scythe Slip Streams I'm using!

With this kind case damping door blocks also remaining seek noises of AAM disabled WDs (WD6401AALS, WD5000AAKS, WD4000KD) completely except when listening from very close.


Weak point of chambered design of V2x10 is in amount of airflow in motherboard chamber where huge majority of heat is produced. There's only one exhaust fan and no fans pushing air actively into that chamber.
Sure you can get 3x5.25" frame for intake fan but then you're suddenly left with only four usable 5.25" bays which is one less than in A70 design. Adding second such fan would leave only one 5.25" bay, which would be OK for plain gaming PC with only one optical but while everyone might not need five 5.25" bays like me no doubt most want more of them than one.
I originally had V2110 as first option because of seven 5.25" bays but after starting thinking about various features its position dropped like stone.

cje said:
But, the gpu's have their own enclosed cooling solutions, what possible benfit can they have from a 120mm blowing at them? None, I have found. Temps are the same with and without fan.
Click to expand...
And the more overal case airflow is messed the more there's danger of airflow short circuits creating dead spots without airflow. Also hole in side allows direct escaping of CPU/GPU cooler noises, especially later of which are often quite noisy at higher speed.

With passively cooled graphics cards situation would be surely more in favor of side fan... assuming cards are loosely spaced for allowing air to move away from between them instead of being trapped there.
 
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