Spec me a case, £50 - £80

new boy

new boy

new boy

Soldato
Joined
25 Jun 2009
Posts
3,495
Location
Weston-super-Mare
Hi Guys.

I was wondering if you could give me some ideas for some solid cases in my price range? Ill give you some ideas for what I'm looking for in the form of some unstructured rambles.



My idea is to have about 6 fans, 3 intake, 3 exhaust. These will be all hooked up to a fan controller and reduced until nearly silent. (would prefer no pre-installed fan controller as they tend to suck)

Size wise, midi is about right I think, but would consider bigger.

I have a sapphire 7850 (its tiny) so graphics cards size no problem.

full atx mobo support a must (don't care about bigger)

must support the huge cpu coolers (d14, k2 and the like)

don't worry about looks as I'll be the judge of that lol.

needs a nice sound proofing to air flow ratio (if you know what I mean) if its quiet I can have the fans higher for more air flow and if it has good air flow then I can quiet down the fans, so needs to be amazing at one or good at both.

All pre-installed fans will likely be instantly replaced with premium ones so they don't matter.



Any Ideas?
Thanks
 
I quite like the look of the Bitfenix Shinobi's. Nice clean lines, decent amount of fans, not a bad amount of space,

I do wish they had the same rubbergrommets around the cutouts for cable management as the XL version and the same movable 3.5" cage but I'm seriously considering this one for my new build, I think my old Coolermaster Centurion 2 has had it's day.
 
£50 is Bitfenix Shinobi, Zalman Z9, Corsair 300R.

£80 is Corsair 500R, Coolermaster CM 690ii AND

The Fractal R3.

Sounds great for you.
You can build practically silent rig in this case with very little need for a fan controller at all. It also will happily take everything that you want it to. In fact, how has no one suggested it so far?!

Edit: Stulid you sneaky......

kd
 
hmmm, like the idea of the The Fractal R3, might be the one, but also tempted by the 500r as its on offer this week along with that Phanteks beast (which the R3 wouldn't accept).

Any ideas for what fans to pop in them? They need to preform well when undervolted to silent(ish) speeds.

I was thinking of the 120mm spectre pros, but Ive seen that stulid hasn't got much love for them (based on comments in other threads), so any other ideas?
 
new boy said:
hmmm, like the idea of the The Fractal R3, might be the one, but also tempted by the 500r as its on offer this week along with that Phanteks beast (which the R3 wouldn't accept).

Any ideas for what fans to pop in them? They need to preform well when undervolted to silent(ish) speeds.

I was thinking of the 120mm spectre pros, but Ive seen that stulid hasn't got much love for them (based on comments in other threads), so any other ideas?
Click to expand...

120mm silent?

Noctua NF-F12.

You can use the Low noise adaptor or ultra low noise adaptor as well... They are quite pricey though...

And are you sure the R3 wouldn't accept the Phanteks? It'll take a D14.

kd
 
R3 says it'll take upto 165mm coolers, but the phanteks thing is 170mm...

If anyone knows any better or better yet, has wedged one in themselves then let me know :P

EDIT Yeah man those Noctua fans aren't cheap huh. Ill decide if I can justify all that money on fans when I pull the trigger tomorrow (although I take it I could probably manage without the fan controller if I had them?)
 
Last edited:
I take it there is zero chance of fitting a lamptron fc2 fan controller and still being able to shut the front door? (In the.R3)
 
From what I've seen 1cm of the height of the Phanteks are the fans so if the fans can be mounted slightly lower then it should clear the side panel of the case.
 
R3 + D14 were ordered yesterday :D (along with 5x Noctua NF-F12 fans that cost more than the case lol...)

Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom