Five Gaming Enclosures, Rounded Up

[Twoboxer]

Honestly, I felt like I was reading an amateur review.

1. No pictures with the final build in place.

2. Don't call both the Room Temperature and the case temperature "ambient".

3. Still no sound measurements, and no mention of fan settings.

4. And how exactly did the Panzerbox win?

C'mon guys. This should be a premier review site.

 

[zendragon]

If you want some great cooling, lots of space, and don't wanna spend more the $100, check this out.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811103014

I have built 3 PC's using this case and I could'nt be happier. And the fans are huge. Largest ive seen on any case.

The case comes with 4 fans...

1 x 120mm rear fan
1 x 200mm top fan
1 x 250mm front fan
1 x 360mm side fan (holy crap!)

 

[cobra5000]

Why does the author call $400 for the ABS Canyon too high, when the Lian Li PC-X1000 is only $11 cheaper?
Both of those cases are ridiculously overpriced! Actually ALL of these cases are overpriced!

 

[TheOnlyPenguin]

very short article, perhaps a decibel chart would have been nice. some very sexy cases tho

 

[intelx]

i see antec being cooler than NZXT, or am i blind?

 

[dragonsprayer]

830 is a nice looking case, it must be world worst cooling case per fan. The 830 is bad for water and air cooling. The 830 could be redesigned but it is an example of a case designed on paper not tested prior to manfuacturing - other wise they never would have made it.

flipping half the fans helps - 2 intakes - the 8800GTX levithan system:
http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h138/4rothrocks/DSC_0085.jpg
http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h138/4rothrocks/DSC_0107.jpg
http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h138/4rothrocks/DSC_0327.jpg
http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h138/4rothrocks/DSC_0306.jpg


http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h138/4rothrocks/DSC_0071.jpg


we dremeled the plastic door, to fin the levithan, bottom fan blewn in the top out.

 

[bk420]

Cool review, the ABS case is really nice! I don't like the antec, it's like more the same ol' thing, really heavy too! I would have liked to have seen something from coolermaster, they're cheaper and bigger.

 

[dragonsprayer]

180 (193 predecessor) series is good for quiet systems. insulated doors, fan filters

the 193 dropped the filter and filter the door - still good for quiet systems.

antec 1200 case is pretty light with the drive bays out. each bay has a filter and fan w/ control. for shipping the antec is perfect balance of not too heavy but heavy duty enough not to get tweaked in shipping when ups puts in the bottom!

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]redgarl[/nom]400$ cases... WTH? I will never buy that! Where is the Raven one?[/citation]

The only $400 case I would think of buying was the Thermaltake Tai Chi (i think it was called that) one that was setup with a in house water cooling system and had wheels.

Other than that, you are right. $400 is way too much for that. Hell I could get 2 Thermaltake Xaser VIs for that much and it makes these kinda meh.... well to me.

 

[kartu]

I own Antec p182. Well, nicely built but with the following disadvantages:
1) no handles - damn hard to move the beast around
2) built in fans are noisy even at the lowest speed, had to replace them
3) 4850 and hdds barely fit. I guess I'll have to move hard drives to another location if I upgrade to ATI 5000 series.

Panzerbox looks good from both space and price perspective. I don't know what Lian Li is thinking, but there is no way I give out 400 for a usual case. That's close to the cost Zalman's TNN (totally no noise) that has much more impressive features, than just "brushed alluminium"

 

[csuwrx]

I've always wonder how do you get those temps with the 4870X2, I have a Gigabyte HD4870X2 in my Cooler Master CM690 and my IDLE temps for GPU are 45-50 Celsius and 62-70 playing Crysis. but 82-85 degrees? I thought with these kind of cases temp would be much better.
Apart from that, very nice case the Antec.

 

[Guest]

Umm actually the ABS Canyon 595 is made by lian li i think. The little brother of Lian Li Tyr x500 http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=260&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=62

 

[boostercorp]

well i'm finding this quite a small article. only 5 cases were tested (of which a few weren't even that high spec ) and since a normal average pc doesn't need a fancy case with top spec cooling this article was a bust .

i would've liked to see some more cases ,more detailed review as a few others already said (pics of motherboard placement and space left).
and maybe some cases in the high end gaming range
like antec 1200 (which i own ) , and throw in a silverstone, gygabyte or a maybe even a Aopen case ...

this article was kind of a let down

sorry about the ranting but had a bad day

 

[keither5150]

The P193 looks like a P 190 without the dual PSU and with the 200mm fan inverted to the outside of the case.

BTW The front of the case has room for two optional fans... not three. The third fan which is standard on the p190, optional on the 193 is a mid case fan.

Your article states that the 193 has 3 front 120mm fans. This is not true.

For anyone considering the 193, the best feature of the case is it's cable management. Click on this link to a review of the 190. Other than the front door of the case, the 193 is almost identical to the 190.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZy1PPgdCr0

Also make sure that your PSU has plenty of length on it's cables. It is quite the distance to the top of the board for the bottom mounted PSU.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

According to nzxt homepage there's an option to get a 500W psu with the box - does anyone know the model number of one with a psu? I need to build an i5 system next month, and considered that chassis as I believe it's fans would be perfect for a lownoise, cheap system

 

[Guest]

Thank you, interesting review. Hoping for a an update on the full tower models, with consideration taken on a full population of harddisks. Raid setups with eight or nine harddisks for the home server is to say the least troublesome when it comes to cooling.

 

[overshocks]

To the author, you said "The best-performing case, both under load and idle, was the NZXT Panzerbox." how is the NZXT Panzerbox better than the Antec P193 look at the numbers in the chart.

 

[scooter69]

I'd have to say I like the ABS Canyon; clean and smooth BUT, four hundred+ bucks? Sorry but for the price, cable management, room and the opption to switch over to a water cooling, I love my Cooler Master HAF 932.

 

[stan116]

I have a photo of the Lian LI X1000 with a MSI P55-GD80 and two HD5870s installed with more then enough room left over. This case should be able hold the new X2 with no problem. The new X2 should be 12.2 inches, my site will be will be publishing the review of this case shortly.

 

[liquidsnake718]

I like my Gigabyte I solo but I think im going to buy the Thermaltake case for my next build.... Its a good thing I saw this review because I missed it the first time.... do these cases have USB3.0 compatible ports in the front? Are USB2.0 ports the same?

 

[victomofreality]

I wish they had included the HAF 932 it's got a lot of performance for a low price.

I'd also would have liked it if they had the corsair black. corsair seems to have scored a win on their first case from all the reviews I've read to this point.

 

[Mysteic]

"The best-performing case, both under load and idle, was the NZXT Panzerbox."

This statement is just plan false. The chart clearly shows the P193 was teh coolest case by 1 to 4 degrees. It was also admittedly the quietest. If these are both true, then the first concluding statement is wrong.

 

[RJCowan]

Would any of these cases be unable to handle the 12-inch long HD 5970 card?

 

[Mysteic]

The P193 may need its top HDD cage removed to accommodated it, but you would still have up to 3 HDD slots on the bottom. All the others should have no issue what so ever. Hell with the P193, you may be able to get it in there and just remove the bottom HDD rack on the top cage, that would leave you with 4 HDD's.

So all should handle it with no real issues.

 

[AtuBrian]

[citation][nom]redgarl[/nom]400$ cases... WTH? I will never buy that! Where is the Raven one?[/citation]
hahahaaa