Case for aircooling

jjgreenwood

jjgreenwood

jjgreenwood

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21 May 2010
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550
My case is a Silverstone FT01 which is 5 years old, slightly knackered and rubbish at cooling my GPU. With this in mind I'm considering changing it for either:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-143-CS&groupid=2362&catid=2277
or
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-391-SV

or maybe even the ft02

Rig will be my aging x58 setup with hx1000 power supply, 1tb hard disc and an ssd. GTX980ti graphics card. Card is reference and cpu is cooled with a corsair h70.

What would you go for and why?
 
Out of the ones you've listed, I'd pick the Corsair. It's more user-friendly, more modern, better designed, etc. The FT05 hasn't been getting great reviews and I wouldn't advise getting it. In my opinion Silverstone has fallen behind the other major case manufacturers in recent years. Have you also considered cases from Phanteks and NZXT? Both would be worthy alternatives to the Corsair.
 
Probably best avoid the FT05 if you need the drive bays as your PSU might be too long. I have the RV05 and the cables were a bit tight even with a shorter PSU.
 
The primo is a good case for air cooling, but is that bit more expensive. And a very large and heavy case. The corsair 540 is excellent for cooling due to its unobstructed front air intake.
 
The ft01 is a beautiful classic and will cool your gpu fine if you remove the hdd cages so the front 180mm fan is unobstructed.
At £150 ish the ft02 is hard to beat though still king of the air cooled cases imo.
 
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C64 said:
The ft01 is a beautiful classic and will cool your gpu fine if you remove the hdd cages so the front 180mm fan is unobstructed.
At £150 ish the ft02 is hard to beat though still king of the air cooled cases imo.
Click to expand...

I've did that ages ago. I think its just old and rattly tbh. The thing is 5 years old now and is used on a daily basis.
 
I've currently got a 540 running on air, the included case fans aren't the best but it's a very solid case. Going to be setting up a custom loop in mine next week after using it on air for 2 years with no issues
 
RyanF said:
I've currently got a 540 running on air, the included case fans aren't the best but it's a very solid case. Going to be setting up a custom loop in mine next week after using it on air for 2 years with no issues
Click to expand...

Is it loud with the stock fans? I hear reports of that being the case and while I know high airflow and silence don't go hand in hand I don't want something that can drown out the sound of my graphic cards reference cooler.
 
I'd get a fractal define or corsair 550d or similar as it sounds like you're after improved silencing ? any case with a full length open front and top is always going to be pretty noisy.The phanteks range also seem well designed these days even though I don't like the full length hard riveted non removable 525 and 3.5 cage.
Comes down to how much you want to spend at £150 area only air case I'd be eyeing up would be the FT02 before it goes end of line.

I own an FT01 and raven rv03 the rv03 is similar to the ft02 but only has 2 180mm fans instead of 3 but it's still great imo.
People forget the ft02 was like £250 + so £150 ish is stonking value even though it's not a perfect case and has it's little niggles I am sure but every case has those.
 
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Yes you've hit the nail on the head. I was going away from watercooling as I assumed the whining noise I had from my case was my pump from my H70 which combined with the gtx980ti I bought recently was quite noisy (card throttles without a 1:1 fan profile in my case). As it turns out it was actually the pipes vibrating against each other and a bit of a fiddle has sorted out the noise.

Still, while the FT01 is nice and quiet at idle I do think a change could help me get more out of my components. My initial thoughts of using an aircooler on the cpu and using a high airflow case are now in doubt as my h70 is now silent.

I've just bought an x5850 processor off ebay to extend the life of the x58 setup a bit and thinking about switching to a 12gb triple channel ram kit. My current thoughts are now to get a h100i and mount it in the top of a define r5 and then get a evga hybrid graphics cooler and mount it on the front of the case. I'll set the fans on the h100i to intake and then have the rear fan on the define to exhaust.

For £287 hopefully this upgrade should mean I get another few years out of my kit and be able to overclock my components well and keep the whole thing cool and quiet at the same time. Can anyone see any issues with this installation, I assume everything should fit in the R5 in this sort of configuration?
 
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