Case Recommendation Please

touchdowntexas13

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Alright so I think I have a pretty solid list of build components, but the case is one place that I am unsure of. Here is what I am looking for...

mid-tower case, preferably steel with good cooling

room for larger video cards like 5850's

not too much "bling", as some would say. I like the idea of a single LED on one of the fans, but not a case with a window where you can see 6 LED's lighting the case up like a Christmas display

price range ~ $60-$80 (preferably), but upwards to a little over $100 if I thought there was excellent value to be had there. price range excludes shipping.



I have been looking at both the Coolermaster RC-690 and the Coolermaster HAF 922. I really like the HAF 922, but it is somewhat out of my budget and I'm not sure if the extra cost will give me that much more quality over the RC-690. The Coolermaster Storm Scout might be a nice in-betweener, but I don't know enough about these cases to really know if I even need to be spending $80-$100 on a case.

By the way, I'm not only interested in the Coolermaster cases. I just started with Coolermaster because when i was planning a build last year (that I didn't go through with) I was going with the HAF 932 which is a full tower. Back then i think it was like $30 cheaper though, and I have decided that I don't want/need anything that huge.

So yeah I would appreciate any input you guys may have. Just keep in mind that I am looking more for "the best bang for your buck" kind of case in the stated price range.
 
Solution
Have a look at the Lian Li / Lancool Dragon Lord mid-tower cases. Lots of innovative features, plenty of room, and excellent ventilation, airflow, and cooling. I've got one sitting on the desk next to me.

http://www.lancoolpc.com/en/product/product04.php?cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=62

Here is a link to a video review that monstermawd did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2MdUGxWEcU

Last time I checked mwave.com had the lowest price in the USA:

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/deepsearch_v3.asp?scriteria=lancool&DID=&PID=&Rebate=0&ST=&page=1&DisplayType=1&SortMethod=11

Have a look at the Lian Li / Lancool Dragon Lord mid-tower cases. Lots of innovative features, plenty of room, and excellent ventilation, airflow, and cooling. I've got one sitting on the desk next to me.

http://www.lancoolpc.com/en/product/product04.php?cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=62

Here is a link to a video review that monstermawd did:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2MdUGxWEcU

Last time I checked mwave.com had the lowest price in the USA:

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/deepsearch_v3.asp?scriteria=lancool&DID=&PID=&Rebate=0&ST=&page=1&DisplayType=1&SortMethod=11

 
Solution

touchdowntexas13

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Hmmm thanks for the recommendation. I honestly thought that all Lian Li's were high-end (expensive). I had no idea they even made a case in that price range. I'll check out that video review. Thanks again.

Ohhh so now i see that it is really a Lancool which is owned by Lian Li.
 

touchdowntexas13

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I'm pretty sure you meant Lian Li in your second sentence but I understood what you were saying. It's weird because earlier your link to mwave brought me to the correct products, but now it just gives me an error.

Has anybody ever bought from mwave before? I was planning on buying strictly from Newegg, Amazon, TigerDirect, etc, just because I know of them. But i have never heard of mwave...
 

touchdowntexas13

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i agree with what you say about the prices of different online vendors. I use Newegg to build a wish list, and then when I'm ready to make a purchase I go through all my parts looking for the cheapest components using google.
 

mrmazo

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I was looking at the HAF 922 myself, looks great!! But then I read several thread about it having grounding issues, something to do with when you touched the front panel, it would shut the syslem down. Go figure. I'm looking in the Antec or Lancool direction now.
 

jerryb

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About a month ago I built a new PC using Lancol K58. Very easy case to use, reasonable price and size and worth every penny. I especially like the bottom mounted PS, the ability to get at the bottom of the mother board easily and no tools approach.
 

touchdowntexas13

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Ya the only thing I didn't like about the Lancool Dragon Lord was that the insides aren't black. I just like the all-black look. That's a very small issue though. The video review in the link above was very informative about that particular case.
 

touchdowntexas13

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Very nice. But I am still trying to decide if $100 is what I need to spend for a good case. I have no problem with spending the extra cash, but I want to make sure the value is there. I will just have to do some more reading up on the features of that particular Lancool. Thanks again though