Best case for airflow?

FoxUnitDelta · 5 Aug 2017 at 22:59

hi guys, i'm looking to buy a case for my new PC which will be all air cooled so i'm looking for a case that will provide the best possible airflow

no side window
no RGB stuff
sound dampening would be nice but not essential

any suggestions?
thanks

FoxUnitDelta · 6 Aug 2017 at 04:55

JasonM said:
I'm not up on current cases, however it use to be these.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/silv...-case-silver-sst-ft02s-usb-3.0-ca-168-sv.html

I do own quite a few of above in home servers, also one for my home development machine, cooling on them is good and you can run the bottom fans at 5v to keep the noise down. Cooling from these cases is even over motherboard, as in there are not case hot spots, and they are also good at cooling HDD bays.

thanks, ill add that one to my shortlist

FoxUnitDelta · 6 Aug 2017 at 05:39

JasonM said:
The case rotates the motherboard 90 degrees, then practically the whole of the bottom of the case is 3 x 180mm fans. The fans work directly with natural heat convection, there are no angles for the air to negotiate like on most cases. Another plus is because the motherboard is rotated it puts any cards sideways on to air, so air flows around cards and out of the top. There is also soundproofing on the case, plus a metal cover at the top that traps a little more sound. The FT02 is really a workstation case for anyone building a professional system, built quality is good also and they will outlive many system upgrades.

The only disadvantage on the FT02 is cable management is tight, on my cases with many drives the side panel on cable side is always tight directly against cables, however it's not enough of a problem to ever put me off.

yeah i had to read that a few times when i was checking out the case i couldn't believe it had 3 180mm fans in there they must move a ton of air

the motherboard being rotated also seems like a really good idea because i'm going to be installing an arctic accelero extreme IV onto my GPU and that thing is big and heavy so sagging and strain on the PCI-e slot shouldn't be an issue

FoxUnitDelta · 6 Aug 2017 at 16:51

a lot of information thanks for that

i haven't decided whether i'm going for a ryzen CPU or an intel CPU but it's going to be a gaming PC so probably intel and a GTX 1080ti

as far as the case goes the silverstone FT02 still seems like a strong contender to me if a little expensive, i was going to wait for the HAF case from coolermaster because it has two 200mm fans for intake but it has a side window and all that flashy RGB stuff that i don't like which is a shame
i'm also considering the the cougar conquer which also has a window but i feel like that could be easily replaced

FoxUnitDelta · 13 Aug 2017 at 01:14

the meshify C actually looks pretty perfect but that big glass side window is a no no unfortunately

FoxUnitDelta · 13 Aug 2017 at 17:02

the 740 is hideous and has a side window as does the 540, the new HAF really does look amazing and it would be the one but again side window

the corsair rx460x is almost all glass so obviously no