recommend air cooled pc case .

Hi Littlejohn


A few of the ones that first sprang to mind, kinda went way over your budget due to me working in UK pounds vs CAN $s so I looked at a few online Canadian retailers and this one is within your Budget, a fairly large case with good cooling, 4x 5.25" drive bays plus enough 3.5" bays to allow you to have spaces between any drives to keep them cool and allow best airflow from the front 2x120mm fan spaces.


Thermaltake Silver Soprano AXT Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side

edit: And this is one like above at same specs apart from no PSU as you already have a 550w PSU
THERMALTAKE SOPRANO VB1000SWS MIDTOWER SILVER ATX


Full and detialed specs from Thermaltake

 

Hi

Nice case the Antec, is it much better than the Thermaltake, well maybe a close call, but the areas that I dont really personally like on the Antec is having the PSU at the bottom, heat rises as we all know and unless their is superb airflow cooling the PSU I can see heat seepage into the motherboard area ( not convinced on that design feature as yet personally, unless someone here on Majorgeeks could give us a personal review ).

On the plus points the modular design of the drive bays is nice, but I think still the Thermaltakes tool-less drive bays have the edge.



As your thinking of possibly upping the anty, then concider these two Aluminium cases

COOLERMASTER TAC-T01 WAVE MASTER SILVER ALUMINUM

LIAN-LI Aluminum PC60

Both Aluminium and both have slide out motherboard trays for easy working on the board and inside ( you know how sometimes its a pain to get hard drives in the bays when a graphic or other PCI card is in the way, now you can slide the motherboard out of the way once a few power connectors are removed ) both also have great cooling.

Do look up a few reviews tho as I have a guess you are researching this topic very well.

I have a Coolermaster ATC 201 ( this is a review of it as its now discontinued ) but they still follow the same layout internally with 2x80mm cooling fans blowing onto the HD bays, which keep my 4 HDs coolish ( well @ about 26-30c generally depending on ambient room temps )

 

Hi LittleJohn


No doubt I should have mentioned I did read that review before I posted my reply, which was what prompted my thoughts on the PSU position and the extra cost and the other possibles in Lian-Li and Coolermaster Aluminium cases if you were heading in that cost area,

However, I did do a bit more looking around at reviews on the Antec P180 and found this superb review, the pictures tell more of the story on the PSU bay and the middle fan ( optional ) that pulls air from the front lower drive bay, so with potentially a middle fan and dependent on PSU another two fans pushing air... I would suspect that airflow wouldnt allow much heat seepage upwards into the motherboard area. Just a pitty they didnt add an area infront of the lower drive bay for a 120mm fan at the front like the upper HD bay.

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/antec_p180b/index.shtml ( great pictures of all the case parts )

I would though check with the retailer on what fans come as standard as in the review above the front and middle fans are not standard, only optional.... but fans are not too expensive these days, but will add to your outlay, unless you have 2 spare 120mm fans.

Also reading it seems a great idea to me having the lower drive bay infront of the PSU as I would pop my HDs in their and leave as the review above mentions the upper middle drive bay as a duct with a 120mm fan at the very front of it can supply air freely to the graphics card area ( they added another 120mm fan to the front of that bay to blast air at the GFX card area, maybe overkill if your temps dont warrant it )

Access to the drive bays via the pull rings is a great idea.

I have warmed to this case on reading the reviews, I do still like aluminium cases in the Coolermaster range tho, but the Antec offers some serious potential for various ways to mod your cooling.


Hope my rambling has helped a little and have a great weekend

 

Yes.. reviews are just one persons opinion on a product, but you generally get a feel for how good something is if you read at least 3 reviews on the same product... the Antec gets good reviews

a few others I came across
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article254-page1.html
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1833214,00.asp?rsDis=Antec_P180_
http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2006/01/25/antec_p180/1.html

and my google search string with other reviews
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=antec+p180+review&meta=


The Antec case is 5" taller than your current one and I'm guessing that the extra hight is the area where the PSU sits, so on that thinking the space in the upper half where the motherboard sits is equal to the whole of your case as it is now.

and to your questions.

Which case would I choose of the two? ~ as they are close in price I would most likely go for the Antec

Am I throwing my money away? ~ well like most things, you could buy a cheap case and not be happy with it, then have to buy another your more happy with, thus spending extra cash, this is a fairly expensive case, but if it does what it says on the tin, and has all of the potential cooling and various ways to install your drives, then its a good purchase.

I would try to hunt down some comments by users of this case first before buying as daily users have a better feel and comments on a case rather than the reviewers who have the case for a week/month.

Also as you mentioned water cooling, check up on some current watercooling kits to see how they would fit inside that case, kinda future research if you decide to go that way, you wouldnt want to decide to go H2O cooling and find out the case is not good for this type of cooling.


One of your HDs seems to be running hotter than I woudl like at 53c, I woudl like it to be nearer the 34c of the other drive, the Antec case and its HD bay and 120mm cooling fan in front of the bay shoudl help cool both drives to same temp ( similar layout in mine with 2x80mm fans infront of the HD bay cools my 3 drives in that area to around 28-30c )

 

Hi

Great on the case looks like you have done all the research needed and are not sold on that case.

as for HD temps, while I would personally like that one lower its not still at max for HDs, without looking at the dats specs for WD drives, I'm sure the max temp they recomend is 70c, the drive may not be faulty but just located in the case at a point where some warm air is trapped, if you can move the drive to test, I would do so.

No probs. glad to have helped