The only reason why people say bad words about the Stacker here is because there are people who have used better for the same money.
Most people think more fans offers better cooling and makes a better case. Back in the days of the Scorpios and Dragons more was indeed a much better way to go with a case just because everything was pure CFM for cooling, those days are long gone.
A semi decent case like the Zen can cool better than a Stacker 830 for a normal rig (single card of 7800/1800 dual core) in all but hard drive temps. That says it all for me.
If a case has fan mountings it should mean that to get optimal cooling you need to use them all. Cases which are not designed 100% properly have redundant fans.
Stacker 830 and the other recent example, the Lian Li S80b.
I run one fan in mine, the rear as an exhaust, the front two do nothing for temperatures and the hard drives only go up by 1deg without them, the top fan is not needed as my PSU can push enough air due to my CPU heat being dumped outside the case via a reserator.
To me it is great having the fans but slightly pointless if your not going to use them, 1 in 1 out on a simple case can cool much better than any multi fan fancy cooling system I have ever used, they basically do not work.
I rate the S80b as probably my second favourite case of all time after the 110, followed by the v1000 in third place. Would I recommend it to people; that would be a very rare thing if they have not explained exactly what they are after. Like the 830 has the potential to be the best case ever if you build the system to work in the case.
My rig is built for the v1000 silent cooling, it was not intended for the S80b. The modifications I am making to my setup should get the best out of the S80b although at best it is a very one minute wonder case. I would rate it 100% for me as it is just excessive where I like it but as anyone who has used one will tell you the cooling system on it is just 'slightly' over the top with the fans.
The Stacker 830 suffers the same, too many fans that are not needed and as WJA96 has said it suffers from common quality control issues. For me anything above £30 now has to be perfect quality wise and not cause issue. The Zen for me raised the level I expect from every case I buy, it has to work and hold the PC without the case causing any issues that can not be sorted in a few minutes.
Zen, PC7+, Eclipse, V series if you do a bit of prep all offer this, so does the 810 and the original Stacker.
When a £100 case has issues with it to do with build quality it instantly drops into my 'avoid' list, if you are spending what is honestly megabucks on a case to most people you expect it to hold your PC without fault for years to come.
In 2010 I will put money on if you compared how many people still were using a PC7 series to a Stacker series of case the PC7 would win (fair split at the start) with most Stackers still in use being the older ones.
The 830 may get highly rated by some people but really when you compare it to cases half its (current) price it falls short in a lot of key areas. If your system is suited to the case then yes it is superb, it actually is a very good case BUT its just that some of the competition is just better.
When you compare the Stacker 830, which is indeed a very good case to an Eclipse chassis then it is just comparing a very good chassis to a decade+ old legendary chassis.
Its just a case of the Stacker 830 is inferior to the competition when you are being entirely objective. I hate the look of the Eclipse with a passion but it is probably the best case out there and has been since the dawn of time it seems.
Buy what you want and be happy with it, no cases OcUK sell at the moment are truely shocking, however all cases are not made equal and when you use enough of them for whatever reason it becomes obvious that some manufacturers get it right more often and create legendary designs.
The more fans you fit usually the worse the case becomes in my book, you CAN cool a SLI rig with just one 80mm fan at 5v. That is 100% stable so how some of these cases with SLI ratings they should be fantastic yet comparatively they are not that much better.
Its not how many fans you have its how you use them that counts. Some cases get more out of each fan than others, the last thing you want is fans cancelling each other out!
I could add more here but I really have to dash for Christmas dinner and all that, I may add more later but hope you all have a great day.
( I think the stacker will house 9x120mm ! ) I don't use the internal side door.
