Due to me being stupidly over optimistic about planning an upgrade....
I ended up trying to fit too much into a Lian Li V351 Cube. The case is very well manufactured, although I there are some surprising gripes and the form factor is not useful.
I had also bought an Athena case to turn into a NAS. I ended up having to use the Athena case for my main build and I'm shocked to say it's turned out extremely well!
Let me be clear about a few things to start with...
1) This case is not made of expensive materials. It's thin steel. That means it's light, but it also means it's not strong at all. You need to be careful when detaching blanks, or putting pressure on things to avoid it bending.
2) The front panel audio (like any I've ever used, including Lian Li) has a whole lot of noise on the line. It makes my soundcard sound like onboard sound from single core days. Not only that but mine seems to carry only the right hand channel. The USB works fine.
3) The PCI retention tool-less thing is a bit naff. Sadly since it's made of thin steel it's very bendable. If they had made the detachable part of much tougher material then it would actually have been a good addition.
4) It comes with no fans. You'll need to put some in. 3x 12cm and a 8cm.
So that's some pretty heavy criticism. But then again I've never seen a perfect case. And this one costs £19. And there's lots of good things about it.
A) It's very inexpensive.
B) It's simple to work with.
C) It's small. Not too small, but small. I have.... an ATX motherboard (Crosshair IV, with a 1090T), 4x2GB sticks of Reaper. Cooling the CPU I have a Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 2. It's cheap and does a good job too. I have a Prolimatech MK-13 (which I don't recommend due to the massive size) on a Radeon 5870. I have 2 12cm fans parallel to the graphics card, and another over the top of it. I have added one case fan to it (I will be adding more) as an exhaust.
D) The 4 fan locations are... 12cm at the back. 12cm at the front (although since the front is solid I don't know where the air is coming from). And on the side panel there is a space for a 12cm intake. There's also a pipe which looks to be set to ensure the CPU cooler gets cold air. I removed it and it the holes are the correct size for an 8cm fan. Temps aren't great, but aren't bad. The graphics card idles at 90 in Furmark, but the fans on it run silent. Better airflow would help so I can only suggest the 12cm fan at the back of the case is the fastest you can stand.
All in all though I was stunned at how much of a rip off this case makes the expensive ones look!
I ended up trying to fit too much into a Lian Li V351 Cube. The case is very well manufactured, although I there are some surprising gripes and the form factor is not useful.
I had also bought an Athena case to turn into a NAS. I ended up having to use the Athena case for my main build and I'm shocked to say it's turned out extremely well!
Let me be clear about a few things to start with...
1) This case is not made of expensive materials. It's thin steel. That means it's light, but it also means it's not strong at all. You need to be careful when detaching blanks, or putting pressure on things to avoid it bending.
2) The front panel audio (like any I've ever used, including Lian Li) has a whole lot of noise on the line. It makes my soundcard sound like onboard sound from single core days. Not only that but mine seems to carry only the right hand channel. The USB works fine.
3) The PCI retention tool-less thing is a bit naff. Sadly since it's made of thin steel it's very bendable. If they had made the detachable part of much tougher material then it would actually have been a good addition.
4) It comes with no fans. You'll need to put some in. 3x 12cm and a 8cm.
So that's some pretty heavy criticism. But then again I've never seen a perfect case. And this one costs £19. And there's lots of good things about it.
A) It's very inexpensive.
B) It's simple to work with.
C) It's small. Not too small, but small. I have.... an ATX motherboard (Crosshair IV, with a 1090T), 4x2GB sticks of Reaper. Cooling the CPU I have a Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 2. It's cheap and does a good job too. I have a Prolimatech MK-13 (which I don't recommend due to the massive size) on a Radeon 5870. I have 2 12cm fans parallel to the graphics card, and another over the top of it. I have added one case fan to it (I will be adding more) as an exhaust.
D) The 4 fan locations are... 12cm at the back. 12cm at the front (although since the front is solid I don't know where the air is coming from). And on the side panel there is a space for a 12cm intake. There's also a pipe which looks to be set to ensure the CPU cooler gets cold air. I removed it and it the holes are the correct size for an 8cm fan. Temps aren't great, but aren't bad. The graphics card idles at 90 in Furmark, but the fans on it run silent. Better airflow would help so I can only suggest the 12cm fan at the back of the case is the fastest you can stand.
All in all though I was stunned at how much of a rip off this case makes the expensive ones look!
