Soldato
I'm considering a case update for the first time in ~12 years.
Currently I have a Silverstone Fortress FT02, which is a really great case, superb build quality, good cooling, however it struggles with today's large graphics cards - I've had to remove one of the bottom fans to make room for my 7900XT, which whilst long, is far from the longest GPU you can get these days. This has obviously impacted the cooling capability of this case somewhat moving from 3 x 180mm intakes to 2 x 180mm intakes, and no fan directly serving cool air to the GPU.
My other consideration is that when this case was new, most GPUs used the blower fan type, which suited the FT02 layout really well with the bottom to top airflow design of the case. Modern GPU designs almost exclusively have moved away from this layout and the FT02 design is proven to be less effective.
My spec is currently as follows:
- 12600K OC'd to 5GHz (air cooled with Noctua D15S)
- 7900XT (sometimes stock, sometimes OC'd)
I used to have a lot of mechanical drives, which the FT02 supported superbly, but now I've moved to more SSDs (mainly NVME, but one 2.5" SATA & one 3.5" mechanical as well) I don't need the drive capacity. As well as this, the FT02, being a much older design, supports a lot of 5.25" bays which are now completely redundant. All of these factors have led me to consider a new case.
I think I've narrowed it down to two candidates:
- Fractal Torrent RGB
- Lian Li O11D (probably the EVO version, though I'm a little confused as there seem to be so many options for this case, including different sizes)
I should point out that I'm planning to stick with air-cooling.
Fractal case seems to universally score the best in terms of component temperatures etc, and I really like the look of the layout, but I'm conflicted about the possible "plasticyness" of the case. The FT02 is a solid monster being all aluminium and steel. The Torrent seems to have a lot of plastic. It has the bonus of coming with all the fans I'd need included.
The Lian Li case looks really fancy, but by the time I've added all the fancy RGB infinity fans (many of them reverse blade design, for which you can't get triple packs) it works out very expensive. My plan would be to use the side and bottom as intakes (using 6 x reverse blade fans for the looks) and then possibly the rear and top as exhausts (using max 4 x fans), but this would add minimum £180 (for 6 fans) and possibly as much as £300, taking the total cost to between £350 and £470!!! (which seems bonkers to mefor a case!). I do, however, think that the Lian Li case will have better build quality and use higher quality materials.
I want to go RGB this time having swayed from the opinion of "it looks tacky" to "I quite like that when done tastefully".
My preference at the moment is towards the Torrent, mainly because I think it looks like pretty good VFM, but also because of its performance, and steering away from the Lian Li because of the cost.
What would OcUK do?
Currently I have a Silverstone Fortress FT02, which is a really great case, superb build quality, good cooling, however it struggles with today's large graphics cards - I've had to remove one of the bottom fans to make room for my 7900XT, which whilst long, is far from the longest GPU you can get these days. This has obviously impacted the cooling capability of this case somewhat moving from 3 x 180mm intakes to 2 x 180mm intakes, and no fan directly serving cool air to the GPU.
My other consideration is that when this case was new, most GPUs used the blower fan type, which suited the FT02 layout really well with the bottom to top airflow design of the case. Modern GPU designs almost exclusively have moved away from this layout and the FT02 design is proven to be less effective.
My spec is currently as follows:
- 12600K OC'd to 5GHz (air cooled with Noctua D15S)
- 7900XT (sometimes stock, sometimes OC'd)
I used to have a lot of mechanical drives, which the FT02 supported superbly, but now I've moved to more SSDs (mainly NVME, but one 2.5" SATA & one 3.5" mechanical as well) I don't need the drive capacity. As well as this, the FT02, being a much older design, supports a lot of 5.25" bays which are now completely redundant. All of these factors have led me to consider a new case.
I think I've narrowed it down to two candidates:
- Fractal Torrent RGB
- Lian Li O11D (probably the EVO version, though I'm a little confused as there seem to be so many options for this case, including different sizes)
I should point out that I'm planning to stick with air-cooling.
Fractal case seems to universally score the best in terms of component temperatures etc, and I really like the look of the layout, but I'm conflicted about the possible "plasticyness" of the case. The FT02 is a solid monster being all aluminium and steel. The Torrent seems to have a lot of plastic. It has the bonus of coming with all the fans I'd need included.
The Lian Li case looks really fancy, but by the time I've added all the fancy RGB infinity fans (many of them reverse blade design, for which you can't get triple packs) it works out very expensive. My plan would be to use the side and bottom as intakes (using 6 x reverse blade fans for the looks) and then possibly the rear and top as exhausts (using max 4 x fans), but this would add minimum £180 (for 6 fans) and possibly as much as £300, taking the total cost to between £350 and £470!!! (which seems bonkers to mefor a case!). I do, however, think that the Lian Li case will have better build quality and use higher quality materials.
I want to go RGB this time having swayed from the opinion of "it looks tacky" to "I quite like that when done tastefully".
My preference at the moment is towards the Torrent, mainly because I think it looks like pretty good VFM, but also because of its performance, and steering away from the Lian Li because of the cost.
What would OcUK do?
Last edited:
. Have the case on the desk now.