Challenger U3 or Blackhawk?

[montosaurous]

I will be building soon, and want to know if a Challenger U3 (USB 3.0) or Rosewill Blackhawk would be a better option. The Blackhawk comes with more fans, and is a larger case. I don't need the 6 front USB ports however, as that is too much. I would overclock the i5 3570k a little, as well as want room for larger GPUs. Which would be a better fit for my needs?

 

[inzone]

The Blackhawk. Some have said here in the forums that the Challanger is a bit cramped inside once things are installed.

 

[selayan]

Same question I had man. I have the Challenger non usb 3.0 edition. It can fit up to 11 inches of a gpu but might as well get something futurproof in terms of the case.

The blackhawk was what I was set on. But I don't know how good the cable managment is in that case. Also, it fits large GPU's only if you needed to fit an extra large card you could take out the HD cage. But that is not so easy, as you need to remove like 8-10 screws!

Although that case is big and good cooling if you ever wanted to OC your cpu you would need to take out the window panel fan to fit a Hyper 212+ or go with a Zalman Cpu cooler which is more expensive.

 

[inzone]

Corsair Carbide Series 500R Black Steel structure with molded ABS plastic accent pieces ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$114.99 and a $15 rebate makes the final price $99.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139009

COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN3-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior
$99.99 and a $10 rebate makes the final price $89.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197

If your looking for better cases and the budget isn't too tight then you can look at these cases.

 

[selayan]

Can you remove the HDD cases in the HAF 922? I just read some reviews on the Blackhawk and everyone rated it highly. Also on cable management. I guess I overlooked that part. I think there is some sale for 10% off Roswill cases today.

So you could get the roswill for $75 I think. The 922 is great but doesn't look like you can remove those cages later.

EDIT: Cages on HAF 922 are riveted on. So you would need to drill them out if you wanted to take them out. Not my type of thing though.

 

[inzone]

Why would you be removing the hard drive cages? There is enough room to put a large video card and not have to remove the hard drive cages.

 

[selayan]

Why would you be removing the hard drive cages? There is enough room to put a large video card and not have to remove the hard drive cages.

I'm not really sure, it depends how big your card is. The max a card can be now a days is about 12 inches or so. In most other cases though, you may need to remove them.

 

[montosaurous]

Money would be fairly tight, but I could fit the blackhawk in if I needed to. In fact, so tight that I would have to use onboard graphics for 3 months.

 

[inzone]

The Nvidia G-Force cards tend to be 11" and under while the AMD/Radeon cards can be 12".

 

[selayan]

I think I will go with the blackhawk. Can't beat all the fans there. Unless labor day sale has the haf 922 for cheaper. Although with the BlackHawk you can fit a really gigantic gpu in there by removing the hdd cage.

Only thing is I don't know what cpu cooler you would use with that case. I would probably remove that door fan. Tom's said they did that to fit the hyper 212+

 

[montosaurous]

Probably in December I would go for a GT 640, it's what I'd need for the kind of games I play.

 

[montosaurous]

Best answer selected by Montosaurous.