Over last few weeks I have decided to downsize from a rather large case (HAF 922) with full watercooling to a smaller and neater case.
Reasons being :
So initially I was on the look out for a smaller case, liked the lian li cases but they were all fairly pricey when you look at them. After a bit of waiting i managed to bag a nice almost new v352 in black.
So after dismantling the old case I removed all the hardware that I was just moving over. Q9650, 4gb ram, 5850, 40ssd & 500gb WD drive. I needed to get hold of a matx motherboard as my existing board was a atx size board. Again got a good deal on a 2nd hand Asus P5Q-em board.
Initially i was keen on sticking with some water cooling but realistically I decided that the space inside the case was probably not going to work to well and also that I have no major need at this time for water cooling as I don;t have the time for gaming/overclocking like i used to. I therefore decided to improve on the stock cooling for the cpu and gpu with the following:
Did some research and both of them were coming up as excellent coolers and very quiet which was another bit reason for the build.
So some pictures of the gfx card with the cooler attached. Didn't take long so do - stripped off 5850 Uk water block, put on some enclosed heat spreaders and then attacked the cooler to the gfx card with 4 bolt thru screws:
(the removable motherboard tray is a good idea but see later for bad things about it!)
Cpu cooler fitted - 2 min job - very simple and easy to do.
Motherboard with gfx card installed.
As you can see the only major issue was that the gfx card with the cooler covered the 6 sata ports with very little clearance.
This was the case with the stock cooler attached as well. Therefore right angled sata cables are/were a must. Even then they are a very very tight fit and they don't look pretty at all!!
Next major issue was that when the cooler is fitted to the gfx card it does not fit in the case!!!
After a quick bit of dremeling to make a small notch out of the back of the case, the motherboard tray, complete with gfx card, slide into place. The notch out of the back is completely covered when the rear of the case is attached and is unseen.
All slid into case and ready to go with some cable tidying!!
Working inside the case is a bit of a nightmare - being used to working with much larger and roomier cases! Cabling is never going to be pretty inside this case but after a few adjustements and cable ties, it has improved!
Downside to this case is just the annoyance of having to pretty much remove all cabling and almost all of the internals, just to access the hard drives. It's certainly could do with some more thought into how to access each part of the case as there is very very little room inside of the case even with a modular psu.
Anyway - once tidied up and case put back together I was very please to fire it up first time (always a slightly scary moment despite 100's of builds!).
Initially really impressed with how quiet it was. The case had a build in fan controller on the rear which controls the 2 front 120mm fans and the rear 80mm fan. On low they do shift a decent amount of air thru the case and are very very quiet. Cpu fan running on PWM is also very quiet at stock. The gfx fans are attached to little controllers via a pci bracket at the rear of the case and are super quiet when on lowest setting.
5850 whilst gaming @ 1920x1200 playing COD:BO with 4aa & 4af on lowest speed of fans (barely audible) keeps the card under 55 degrees - really impressed with the cooling on the gfx.
A couple of pictures to finish of the case and desk.
Pros:
Cons:
Overall I'm please with my 1st attempt at matx build and very please that after moving away from water cooling that I thought I would struggle with the potential noise difference with air cooling but actually I very happy with the after market cooling from a performance and noise level.
Thanks!
Reasons being :
- Something new to do
- hopefully gain some deskspace
- less time gaming on pc -therefore less need for large overclocks and watercooling
- redecorating a few rooms and wife said she was fed up with huge case sitting on the desk
So initially I was on the look out for a smaller case, liked the lian li cases but they were all fairly pricey when you look at them. After a bit of waiting i managed to bag a nice almost new v352 in black.
So after dismantling the old case I removed all the hardware that I was just moving over. Q9650, 4gb ram, 5850, 40ssd & 500gb WD drive. I needed to get hold of a matx motherboard as my existing board was a atx size board. Again got a good deal on a 2nd hand Asus P5Q-em board.
Initially i was keen on sticking with some water cooling but realistically I decided that the space inside the case was probably not going to work to well and also that I have no major need at this time for water cooling as I don;t have the time for gaming/overclocking like i used to. I therefore decided to improve on the stock cooling for the cpu and gpu with the following:
Did some research and both of them were coming up as excellent coolers and very quiet which was another bit reason for the build.
So some pictures of the gfx card with the cooler attached. Didn't take long so do - stripped off 5850 Uk water block, put on some enclosed heat spreaders and then attacked the cooler to the gfx card with 4 bolt thru screws:
(the removable motherboard tray is a good idea but see later for bad things about it!)
Cpu cooler fitted - 2 min job - very simple and easy to do.
Motherboard with gfx card installed.
As you can see the only major issue was that the gfx card with the cooler covered the 6 sata ports with very little clearance.
This was the case with the stock cooler attached as well. Therefore right angled sata cables are/were a must. Even then they are a very very tight fit and they don't look pretty at all!!
Next major issue was that when the cooler is fitted to the gfx card it does not fit in the case!!!
After a quick bit of dremeling to make a small notch out of the back of the case, the motherboard tray, complete with gfx card, slide into place. The notch out of the back is completely covered when the rear of the case is attached and is unseen.
All slid into case and ready to go with some cable tidying!!
Working inside the case is a bit of a nightmare - being used to working with much larger and roomier cases! Cabling is never going to be pretty inside this case but after a few adjustements and cable ties, it has improved!
Downside to this case is just the annoyance of having to pretty much remove all cabling and almost all of the internals, just to access the hard drives. It's certainly could do with some more thought into how to access each part of the case as there is very very little room inside of the case even with a modular psu.
Anyway - once tidied up and case put back together I was very please to fire it up first time (always a slightly scary moment despite 100's of builds!).
Initially really impressed with how quiet it was. The case had a build in fan controller on the rear which controls the 2 front 120mm fans and the rear 80mm fan. On low they do shift a decent amount of air thru the case and are very very quiet. Cpu fan running on PWM is also very quiet at stock. The gfx fans are attached to little controllers via a pci bracket at the rear of the case and are super quiet when on lowest setting.
5850 whilst gaming @ 1920x1200 playing COD:BO with 4aa & 4af on lowest speed of fans (barely audible) keeps the card under 55 degrees - really impressed with the cooling on the gfx.
A couple of pictures to finish of the case and desk.
Pros:
- Wife happier with smaller case
- very very quiet with good performance at the lowest fan speeds
- nice looking case (albeit everyones opnion i guess)
- well build cases and you can feel the quality
Cons:
- Average/poor thought into cable management in case by Lian Li
- Nightmare to fit things into if not sure what order to install
- Almost every cable/fitting has to be removed to access hard drives
- Almost Guranteed to draw bloody at some point trying to work inside such a small case!
Overall I'm please with my 1st attempt at matx build and very please that after moving away from water cooling that I thought I would struggle with the potential noise difference with air cooling but actually I very happy with the after market cooling from a performance and noise level.
Thanks!