RAIJINTEK – New SFF chassis - PAEAN MINI.

Interesting case. To put it in perspective, it's not as long as the NR200 (353mm vs 376mm), but a bit wider (206mm vs 185mm). In turn, that means it'll take large tower coolers. Height is (obviously) way past NR200 dimensions (357mm vs 274mm) owing to the top 280mm rad support. So overall it's a lot larger in terms of volume. But footprint isn't much different.

Doesn't look like there's much space for stashing clutter though. The O11 has the side chamber. The NR200 has the front panel area. This maybe has nothing? :eek: If so, that's Corsair RGB stuff off the menu straight away :p
 
Just under 26 litres Vs around 20 litres for the NR200.
If I was going ITX, I would be looking at under 15 litres ideally closer to 10 litres.
At that kind of sizes, I would want the versatility of being able to mATX. NR200 almost gives you that, all those mATX boards which fit in it are dual DIMM AFAIK which defeats ones of my primary reason for wanting mATX - the versatility of having four DIMM slots.
A NR200 case with a few more millimetres in one dimension to take mATX (a NR210 maybe?), would appeal to me.
 
terrible design.
can't really call it a "sff case" when it could fit an ATX board.
for a case this size, raijintek should've done the rear of the case like the o-11 mini and made it a more flexible design rather than shoehorning the user into a standard design. no doubt to save costs...but charge premium money
 
McPhee said:
Doesn't look like there's much space for stashing clutter though
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SFX power supply would leave some gaps around its edge in the full size psu caddy

tamzzy said:
can't really call it a "sff case" when it could fit an ATX board
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I think it's aimed at maximum cooling, possibly 2x280mm rads might fit?

alec said:
So this case is for the slim group of people that want a custom loop in their ITX?
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Yeah I guess so - I'd like to see some proper reviews and not just marketing renders.
 
tamzzy said:
terrible design.
can't really call it a "sff case" when it could fit an ATX board.
for a case this size, raijintek should've done the rear of the case like the o-11 mini and made it a more flexible design rather than shoehorning the user into a standard design. no doubt to save costs...but charge premium money
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Except it clearly can't fit an ATX case. So what if the external dimensions are big enough, that's irrelevant - and you could easily criticise a huge amount of other cases for being much larger than needed for their selected motherboard choice. Standard Lian Li PC-o11 being a perfect example of this. It's oversized to allow for the clean looks and watercooling options.
I think this case appeals because they haven't gone for the separate rear section like the Lian Li, it's keeping it's footprint small rather than adding multiple inches to the width of the case just to move the PSU.

alec said:
Wow its almost exactly same size as my Raijintek Thetis, which DOES fit an ATX board. And a rad on top, same as this.

So this case is for the slim group of people that want a custom loop in their ITX?
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That "slim group" is pretty big! It will work nicely for AIO users as well as custom loops, it appeals to those who want to fully show the insides of their case with all the windows. Same as the PC-o11 does at a much larger footprint. Yes it's ITX only, but that's not really an issue - a large amount of people never use the extra features an mATX or ATX board has over ITX anyway.

Personally I think it's an interesting case. Hits the mark far better than the PC-o11 mini did in my opinion.
 
It's as big as it needs to be for the compatibilities it has.

For example, NR200 is 185mm wide with 155mm CPU tower support, vs this at 206mm wide and 170mm Tower support. NR200 is 330mm long, supporting an ITX board (170mm) next to an SFX PSU (125mm) vs this case with an ATX PSU (150mm) in the same position. The biggest difference is height, which rises 83mm. This is down to the PSU; if you mount an ATX PSU level with the top of the motherboard, it'll conflict with the GPU. So it has to be mounted higher, resulting in case height rising 83mm rather than ~30-50mm vs NR200.

If they ditched ATX PSU support and reduced CPU cooler clearance to 160mm, in theory they could have got the case down to 21L (196×328×327mm). Though that may come at the expense of 280mm rad and/or 140mm fan support. Personally, that's what I'd have preferred. But there's always going to be someone who is wishing the case was a little different (see NR200 for the best possible example of this... half the case's critics wish it was a little larger, half wish it was smaller).

alec said:
Wow its almost exactly same size as my Raijintek Thetis, which DOES fit an ATX board. And a rad on top, same as this.

So this case is for the slim group of people that want a custom loop in their ITX?
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Dropping the board size down from ATX to ITX seems to have freed up a lot of space for cooling. 2x140mm intakes on the bottom, 280mm rad up top exhausting air, 2x92mm or 1x120mm round back. PSU has a fresh air intake through the side panel. Overall, thermal performance should be markedly better. Personally, I'd take that over 2 extra DIMM slots, a few extra accessible PCI slots, and some extra fan headers.
 
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Drazhen said:
For that kind of size I was hoping to see matx compatibily...
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There's plenty of space for an MATX motherboard. Just need to find an alternative place to mount the PSU.

I can see why it isn't a standard option though; the alternative options for PSU mounting aren't great. It could go on the front panel, against the glass. But then the PSU is intaking heat from the GPU and the PSU cables are visible through the front glass. Or it could go up top, reducing radiator compatibility. Might also be able to squeeze it in at the bottom, but with reduced GPU clearance.

For most users, the standard layout with an ITX board is going to be better TBH. Swapping the front glass out for mesh and moving the PSU to the front would probably be the best way to deliver MATX compatibility.
 
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McPhee said:
There's plenty of space for an MATX motherboard. Just need to find an alternative place to mount the PSU.

I can see why it isn't a standard option though; the alternative options for PSU mounting aren't great. It could go on the front panel, against the glass. But then the PSU is intaking heat from the GPU and the PSU cables are visible through the front glass. Or it could go up top, reducing radiator compatibility. Might also be able to squeeze it in at the bottom, but with reduced GPU clearance.

For most users, the standard layout with an ITX board is going to be better TBH. Swapping the front glass out for mesh and moving the PSU to the front would probably be the best way to deliver MATX compatibility.
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Taking all that into account, yes, it makes sense, but if that is what you end up with, I can't stop thinking there is a lot of space wasted. I got too much into SFFPC I guess.
 
Drazhen said:
Taking all that into account, yes, it makes sense, but if that is what you end up with, I can't stop thinking there is a lot of space wasted. I got too much into SFFPC I guess.
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I'm seeing it as a case for showing off an ITX custom loop. 280mm rads top and bottom, an EK FLT120 pump res mounted on the PSU cage. Could work equally well with a 280mm AIO up top, a chunky GPU down bottom, and a screen on the PSU shroud. While an NR200 can manage similar cooling, you have to forego glass.

The width seems quite unnecessary though. Looks like the main reason for the width is tower cooler clearance. But the TU150 is ~20% smaller, with similar tower cooler support, so I can't see many reasons to buy this over that case if fitting a massive tower cooler is the goal. I guess the empty space at the top could be used for a bunch of drives? Same width as the NR200 would have made more sense to my mind (23.3L volume).

Still no news about this case coming out, which is a shame.
 
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