Best case for Crossfire Cooling?

Acolyte · 22 Nov 2011 at 12:27

Hi,

Recently built a new system and was on a reasonably tight budget and skimped on the case. (Antec 100).

Originally only had a single card but then soon upgraded to crossfire. I changed both coolers on the cards for Gelid Icy V2's which helped a lot but the room inside the case shrunk further.

Then added an Akasa Venom 120mm fan to the side to exhaus the hot air, this worked very well but very noisy at 12v, (7v and less not really shifting enough air).

So now i want to get a new case but want the best cooling for my cards, ive seen a couple of cases so far with 200mm side fans, (the Corsair 500R and the HAFX). Are there any other cases i should be looking at? Dont want to spend over £150.

600T looks nice but has 4 x 120mm fans instead, not as good?

Cheers

UberGinge · 22 Nov 2011 at 13:01

Something like the Antec 902 would do nicely.

lrlcr · 22 Nov 2011 at 13:05

The silverstone raven cases are brilliant for crossfire setups, either the 2 or the 3 but try to get the version with the air penetrator fans as they're a lot cooler.

Generally the 2 is cooler but the 3 is quieter (whilst still being pretty good)

Acolyte · 22 Nov 2011 at 13:47

UberGinge said:
Something like the Antec 902 would do nicely.

Doesn't look bad, although the side panel still only has a 120mm fan so i would be back to square 1 with a noisy 120mm fan doing all the hard work.

lrlcr said:
The silverstone raven cases are brilliant for crossfire setups, either the 2 or the 3 but try to get the version with the air penetrator fans as they're a lot cooler.

Generally the 2 is cooler but the 3 is quieter (whilst still being pretty good)

I shall investigate these cases, they look interesting!

Also just seen the HAF 932 (i take it the predeccesor to the HAF X), these has whopping 230mm fans and is a bit cheaper too, is it any worse in comparison to the HAF X for any particular reason?

UberGinge · 22 Nov 2011 at 13:58

Acolyte said:
Doesn't look bad, although the side panel still only has a 120mm fan so i would be back to square 1 with a noisy 120mm fan doing all the hard work.

It has a 200mm fan on the top to extract air, whilst have two x 120mm fans intaking air from the front.

Acolyte said:
Also just seen the HAF 932 (i take it the predeccesor to the HAF X), these has whopping 230mm fans and is a bit cheaper too, is it any worse in comparison to the HAF X for any particular reason?

The HAF X is a bigger case, and has more expansion slot and some other features by the looks of things.

ChrisD. · 22 Nov 2011 at 15:50

+ for Raven.

lrlcr · 22 Nov 2011 at 16:18

Owning a HAF-x i'd suggest avoiding it.

Whilst the x is massively spacious it just isn't terribly well thought out. There isn't a lot of room for cable management (although it's a hell of a lot better than many other cases) and the HDD rack is really annoying mainly because it doesn't have a backplate so you end up with some pretty messy cabling round the back.

The air flow is good but it'll never be a quiet setup purely due to the huge amount of air it moves. It does have great xfire/sli support with the vga support and duct, but these are massively awkward to fit (although IIRC you don't get these on the cheaper variants). If doing it again i'd go for a raven because it doesn't need these gimmics to cool the gpus and looks an awful lot better IMHO.

macca672 · 22 Nov 2011 at 16:55

another vote here for the raven 2, I have one and my crossfired 6950's both idle at 32 degrees and top out in game at around 55 degrees on the first card and 62 degrees on the second card.

That is with all three of the air penetrator fans set to low speed, never needed to set them to high.

The raven works on positive air pressure, 3 x 180mm fans sucking air in and 1 x 120mm fan pulling the air out.

Brackish · 22 Nov 2011 at 17:33

+ 1 again for the Raven 2.

I have the first Rvo2 before they put the air pen fans in them and I have not had any issues with heat, noise or cable management, now if I was just not so lazy I could redo my psu cables....

Acolyte · 22 Nov 2011 at 18:33

Raven 2 looks more appealing, i prefer the look of it too, not really into the whole "military theme" going on with the coolermaster cases at the mo (wtf happened to nice cases like the ATCS range??

)

However i cannot get my head around the fan setup the raven being more effect than the giant fans in the HAF? Also using a H80 cooler this would restrict the only exhaust fan on the case?

I'm sure i am wrong but could do with some re-assurance before getting my wallet out lol

ChrisD. · 22 Nov 2011 at 19:40

Why can't you get your head around it?

3x180 odd mm fans blowing cold air straight across components. No HDD cage etc in the way. Hot air rises.

Temps with my Fortress plummeted compared to my old Lian Li!

Mollari · 22 Nov 2011 at 19:41

lrlcr said:
Owning a HAF-x i'd suggest avoiding it.

Whilst the x is massively spacious it just isn't terribly well thought out. There isn't a lot of room for cable management (although it's a hell of a lot better than many other cases) and the HDD rack is really annoying mainly because it doesn't have a backplate so you end up with some pretty messy cabling round the back.

...

Well this wasnt true at all, at least in my experience. To tell you the truth HAF X is one of the most spacious cases out there and this covers the amazing cable management. Plenty of room for everything. Its designed that way.

See this for more information. Just amazing case.

pgi947 · 23 Nov 2011 at 10:05

500R, swapped the side 200mm stock fan for a cm megaflow, now I'm lucky if my 6950s get over 70c.

lrlcr · 23 Nov 2011 at 10:17

Mollari said:
Well this wasnt true at all, at least in my experience. To tell you the truth HAF X is one of the most spacious cases out there and this covers the amazing cable management. Plenty of room for everything. Its designed that way.

Lol, we can agree to disagree if you like.

With a long psu, a full hdd rack, automatic fan controller (hence temp probes) 4 sata 5 1/4" devices it is simply a nightmare to work in. I find it fiddly and awkward, even compared to my old nzxt lexa (Loved that case and I'm now running my second pc in it) which is now modded for hidden cables and the hdd mount the other way so you can't see those either.

I'm looking to replace mine although that said the only cases that seem to fit my criteria are the TJ11 (favourite) the little devil cases, the mountain mods and the xspc cases.

Mollari · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:21

lrlcr said:
Lol, we can agree to disagree if you like.

With a long psu, a full hdd rack, automatic fan controller (hence temp probes) 4 sata 5 1/4" devices it is simply a nightmare to work in. I find it fiddly and awkward, even compared to my old nzxt lexa (Loved that case and I'm now running my second pc in it) which is now modded for hidden cables and the hdd mount the other way so you can't see those either.

I'm looking to replace mine although that said the only cases that seem to fit my criteria are the TJ11 (favourite) the little devil cases, the mountain mods and the xspc cases.

If HAFX cant meet your criteria then Id say happy hunting for better case. There might be some available but with greater price tag. Most of us haf x users may say many things about it but youre the first one telling us that its too small or inadequate. To be fair Ive only installed 1 x gpu and 2hdd´s on my goliath but seen many fully stacked haf x systems on several forums and they are really nice looking.

lrlcr · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:24

Pretty much. I want to do a full watercooled system and I'm struggling to get much more than a 360 in without some serious modding (I'll probably remove the HDD rack and add a 200mm phobya rad there)

So like I said, I find it a bit small for what I want hence the cases I've listed (albeit massively expensive)

Mollari · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:27

lrlcr said:
Pretty much. I want to do a full watercooled system and I'm struggling to get much more than a 360 in without some serious modding (I'll probably remove the HDD rack and add a 200mm phobya rad there)

So like I said, I find it a bit small for what I want hence the cases I've listed (albeit massively expensive)

Ok, if looking a serious case for a serious water cooling I'd say go for Obsidian 800d/700d. It should be one of the best cases for that purpose.

lrlcr · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:33

Mollari said:
Ok, if looking a serious case for a serious water cooling I'd say go for Obsidian 800d/700d. It should be one of the best cases for that purpose.

Lol...

Did you see the list of cases that i'm seriously considering? They wipe the floor with the 800d for wc. I'm really looking to be able to get a pair of 360/420/480/520 in there and run a really low noise setup with a huge cooling capacity.