Best full tower case for air cooling?

D3lirious

D3lirious

D3lirious

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Assuming no max budget, just wondering what you guys reckon would be the best case for an air cooled PC in terms of cooling performance, build quality (quality fans) and looks?
 
I'd like to know this to as I have an H440 at the moment and whilst the case looks nice the air cooling isn't very good at all
 
I've had around 12 cases in the past 3 years.

The best I've had on air were the Corsair Air 540 and Corsair 650D.
In my experience NZXT haven't been up there with Corsair for air performance.
 
H440 is just very closed up and only has small fan vents, I saw temps rise about 10c using this case.....

540 looks good but it's also quite expensive at £100
 
Only problem for me is that I'm not sure I'm into the cube style. The 540 looks nice but can't help thinking it will look a little daft on my desk. I'll definitely consider it though.

I've also been looking at Silverstone cases as they're meant to be pretty top-notch in terms of build quality. I stumbled across the FT04 and though that could be the one. Great looking, supposedly great cooling too, but then I read about problems with a weak magnet for the door and poor cable management.

Also looking at the FT02. Just can't make my mind up...
 
I don't know about the other cases mentioned here, but I own a number of Silverstone FT-02s. They rotate the board 90 degrees, at the bottom are 3 x 180mm fans. All the heat goes directly up, can't see anything better then that.

I also own a Silverstone Raven, it's basically an FT-02 but more plastic and soundproofing removed. The side cases / core layout is identical to the FT-02.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-121-SV

Downside with FT-02 and Raven is cable management is tricky, reason is there is not much gap behind the motherboard. Because of this the side panel on motherboard side is very slightly tight against the cables. But overall I think the cases are great.
 
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I'll echo what JasonM said - the FT02 is simply a great case for air cooling. It isn't the best for cable management, but it shouldn't be an issue unless you're running multiple GPUs and/or drives. Also be aware that the heatpipes on some GPUs don't do well if vertically mounted.
 
Is the h440 considered a full tower now? I once owned a case that was nearly a foot taller than that, i thought that was full tower and we'd been using mid towers since.
 
Ft02 and look at the phanteks range the fotress ft02 is old now but still the king very hq built and 180mm air pens are the best fans.Few niggles here and there like wanting slightly more room behind motherboard for cables etc most cases have slight niggles.

As long as you route your cables sensibly it's fine, for out and out noise to air cooling abilty it's the best.

The corsair 540 will be noisier as has so many openings for sound to escape.

If want something newer without slight niggles then the Phanteks Enthoo Primo.

The fortress ft02 people forget was £250 + back in the day it's a very high quality case, it will certainly be £150-£170 well spent.
 
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The Primo is awesome even if you don't want to use watercooling, but then you always have the option to add later ;) You could install a serious amount of air movers in it, or move down the range to save some cash Luxe or Pro, you could consider the EVOLV ATX but depends on what you wanna put inside for the EVOLV.
 
Having looked around some more, the cube style cases are growing on me a bit more. So considering a 540. But.... spotted pics of upcoming Lian Li PC-08 which looks amazing. If cooling is decent I may wait for that.
 
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