Five Gaming Enclosures, Rounded Up

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[citation][nom]lavacon[/nom]http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1036/1/This is a good look at the 800d Water cooled. My only complaint would be the built in 4x hot swap drive bay. It should have been made removable.[/citation]
The first paragraph says it all:
"Some time ago, Chris Angelini made it clear in the intro to a case roundup that he's a fan of small form factor business machines. I couldn't disagree more. Sure, I can see the merit of a tiny computer in some circumstances (say, as an HTPC or in a cubicle), but business computing
, to me, is the most boring thing anyone can do with a PC. Gaming is where it's at, and as far as enclosures go, I like large, aluminum beasts with lots of fans and the ability to fit 11" graphics cards with room to spare."
 
Sorry wrong quote this is the one I wanted to use
[citation][nom]iammalkav[/nom]How about reviewing some cases that are a bit smaller than emperor penguins? I'd love to have the PCs in my house much smaller than these beasts.[/citation]

"Some time ago, Chris Angelini made it clear in the intro to a case roundup that he's a fan of small form factor business machines. I couldn't disagree more. Sure, I can see the merit of a tiny computer in some circumstances (say, as an HTPC or in a cubicle), but business computing
, to me, is the most boring thing anyone can do with a PC. Gaming is where it's at, and as far as enclosures go, I like large, aluminum beasts with lots of fans and the ability to fit 11" graphics cards with room to spare."
 
The best one according to me is Antec P193.
Cheap and stylish...
Putting 190$ on a case and rest 210$ on a graphic card is a better deal than 400$ on a case.

Ultimately the performance is what we need...
 
The best-performing case, both under load and idle, was the NZXT Panzerbox.

Really?, your own charts show the Antec P193 as performing the best on idle, and under load I'd say its a wash between the the two with GPU being equal, Antec winning the ambient by 1 and the Panzerbox winning the CPU by 1.

Is Panzerbox sponsoring this piece ?
 
Personally, I think we need a case writeup similar to "Best Gaming Graphics for the Money" - while this writeup was informative, I feel it unnecessarily glorifies overpriced cases...some credit for balking at $400 though.

I'm going to throw in my "happy consumer" nod to the CM690, it's under $100 (69 @ newegg) and is the best mix as far as I can tell of the panzerbox and thermaltake cases here. It fits a gtx 280 fine...wouldn't go longer than that even though you could probably get it in. My only beef is the top external ports as this used to be my go to spot for oft used game cases. Save money & Enjoy.

So bring on the monthly/semi-monthly case writeup, it'd be interesting to see which ones stay on the list for a long time, and which cases get knocked off by new offerings/price shifts.
 
[citation][nom]scooterlibby[/nom]I'm a temp freak so, despite the fact that it sounds like a jet engine, the Antec 1200 had been the best case I've ever owned.[/citation]

I own a Antec 900, and it is only loud when you turn the fans all the way up. I've got a huge CPU cooler (2 120mm fans!), and I've turned all the fans down to low and it is very quiet.
 
[citation][nom]scooterlibby[/nom]I'm a temp freak so, despite the fact that it sounds like a jet engine, the Antec 1200 had been the best case I've ever owned.[/citation] This is the tough part about hardware reviews; the readers break down into several segments all w/ differing goals. Some want cool temps above all else, others silence while yet others want LED fan bling or tons of hdd bays. My most important criteria for a case, in order are:

~ DUST FILTERS. I leave my windows open and this means I have to clean these several times a week, sometimes even twice a day. Without dust filters my case would be scary. This is with my case mounted about 3 feet of the floor in a well-kept

~ QUIET. I like big freakin' fans at low rpms, like sub 1000 rpms/30dB

~ COOL TEMPS. Despite the low noise, I like my case cool as heck because summers here in LA get HOT and I have no AC. I often have to duct a portable AC unit into my case to keep my temps low, but this is annoying and runs up my electric bill so good case airflow w/ lots of places for fans is hugely important
and clean room.

After those basic criteria that apply to EVERY case I buy, then I focus on the remaining needs depending on if it's an HTPC, or huge server w/ lotsa room, or a LAN box etc. But if one of the 3 above isn't up to snuff, I'll pass.
 
i really liked the article and have enjoyed reading it. i, however, found that it was missing two important things:

1. noise levels at idle/load. even a subjective one scaling from 1-10 would be good, just to give us an idea. and for the subjective thing to mean even more:

2. reference cases, or at least one. like cm 690, or antec 900 etc so we can see how they stack up to things, most of us have and use.

As it is, on my next build, im not even tempted to replace my trusty 690.
 
I really like the Lian Li, however, I'd be hard pressed to spend that amount of cash on a case. I was hoping to see some more reasonable priced cases in the 100-200 range. Not geared for the elite enthusiast living on disposable income. But a nice review nonetheless. Also, the larger cases probably did worse in air cooling because they are truly designed for enthusiasts who will endeavor into water cooling their system.
 
[citation][nom]eodeo[/nom]i really liked the article and have enjoyed reading it. i, however, found that it was missing two important things:1. noise levels at idle/load. even a subjective one scaling from 1-10 would be good, just to give us an idea. and for the subjective thing to mean even more:2. reference cases, or at least one. like cm 690, or antec 900 etc so we can see how they stack up to things, most of us have and use.As it is, on my next build, im not even tempted to replace my trusty 690.[/citation]

I agree with all of this, especially the part about the noise. I'd love it if these articles were done at least every other month, there's certainly enough great cases out there to keep these articles coming for a loooong time. It'd be a huge help to the community.


In addition to my earlier example about the height of the Canyon being (I'm pretty sure) incorrectly stated, I've also noticed the Lian Li is mentioned as having 3x 120mm fans up front and 2 more 120mm fans at the rear. No way, just look at those things and how the 3 frontals span over 2/3rd of the way up that towering 26.8" tall case. 12cm fans aren't that big, all 5 of those are 140mm fans which adds up to a lot of extra airflow.

BTW- this dude in the following link has a freakin' ton of case reviews. He's not very critical of the cases and basically says every case is good like a car salesman, but it is very cool to get a visual tour of the cases vs just looking at newegg pics. I highly recommend potential case buyers check him out. He was only missing 2 of the 15 cases I was comparing for my next builds, pretty impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/user/3DGAMEMAN#p/search/2/GqZM4kPnZPY
 
[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]Pailin and Wheels beat me to it. Unless the numbers on the chart were transposed, the P193 is equal or superior to the Panzerbox on all but one test.[/citation]


What they said......
 
To all the ppl complaining about the conclusion re: temps being best in the Panzerbox, you should take another look at the graph and notice the difference in ambient temps. If you look at the delta over ambient, the Panzer is definitely the winner. Maybe the author should include another graph with normalized temperatures since a lot of ppl apparently couldn't be bothered to interpret the data correctly.
 
I see tons of huge cases nowadays unable to house large motherboards. What if YOU buy a $400+ case and find out it doesn't have the mounting holes for the motherboard or simply won't fit it in? I mean... Those who spend that much with a case certainly spend a lot with hardware. It's obvious not many will get a MEB board sized 16x13" but 12~14x13" EEB/EATX boards are getting popular even among overclockers and gamers. A number (the majority?) of nice-looking cases don't even allow boards 1 inch larger than standard ATX to be installed. I bet some are worried their cases won't fit a single 5870...

Let's suppose someone built a great i7 rig months ago and picked some expensive power supply brand to overclock it nicely, like a PC P&C Silencer 910W. After upgrading it to 3-way SLI the power supply was no longer enough to keep it stable. Being unable to add another power supply the builder had to dispose of the power supply and buy another, much more expensive and noisy for the sole reason the oversized case wouldn't allow 2 power supplies.
 
[citation][nom]article[/nom]
For the record, the ambient temperature in the room in which we tested was 23.9 degrees Celsius.[/citation]

[citation][nom]dupaman[/nom]...since a lot of ppl apparently couldn't be bothered to interpret the data correctly.[/citation]

Like you? The ambient on the graphs was inside the case.
 
I just rebuilt by system and used an Antec 1200 - I'm very happy with it - roomy, lots of fans, and should easily accommodate the 5870 I just ordered
 
180 has it's place - 193 is about the same with ugly fan

if you skip most of the good cases the article becomes not as goods. come THG, i always give you a great job but you used the words gaming
and left out some really good cases like?

like antec 1200? what about all the silverstone copies? what the little tj07 copy f series? ft01 is better then the panzer and very similar.


antec 1200 is dual or try intake with filters and fan control for under $200 it used the pripority cx psu which is a huge hot beast but still. with 200mm top fan and 5 lighted fans with fan controls it is the case all others try to copy! o ya, most importante grasshopper i like it!

pull out mobo trays are as useless as tooless hard drive devices. scews down hard drives ship better and vibrate less - pull out tray? what you can not reach in 6" to turn 9 screws? 9 wholes screws!

what about the 900 that started the revolution? here the 12 and 9:

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l373/warpedsystems/DSC_0009.jpg

o ya the discontinued silverstone tj-07! rest in peace the best gaming case with dual rads!

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l373/warpedsystems/WSZ-WC44-3.jpg

what about the cooler master? dual top rads, sealed design with pull out trays for 6 hard drives! ok its only good for water! i agree ....but.... CSX paints them cool if you can still find one!

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l373/warpedsystems/WSZ-WCcm-T61-1.jpg

what about sniper? HAF? i guess its so hard you need 20-25 cases to do this article right. Good stuff THG - keep it up but respect the old school even if its only 2 years old as in the 1200 the best gaming case for air cooling - period!


 
tony that is little bit rough - i mean.....yes i would not have chose one of those and i have 25 cases in my basement in storage.

techman the 1200 can not be beat - it is one of the only air cooling cases you can run dual 4870x2 or 295's or multi card set ups - we use a hot glues 92mm fan in the 120 hole the clear the i7 cooler - see below

including the fatlity 1/4" zalman, 4 silverstones the 9, 11 and many powder coated 7's

sniper etc! but they all suck is little rought on THG good article but you need more caseS!!!!!

also note temps are very subjective to other factors ....i skip the details for the forums if i ever get the time to get back there!

thx! one more 1200 photo i think we agree the 1200 is the case that all copied and no one can improve for air cooling.

for water we working on usa custom made since silverstone pulled the 7

the best case:

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l373/warpedsystems/WSZi7X438-1.jpg


http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l373/warpedsystems/wszi7htpc-G-12.jpg


the case that started it all (great air cooling, fans, led's, around 100 bucks) and should be included lit'le bro:

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l373/warpedsystems/WSZred900-3.jpg

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l373/warpedsystems/WSZred900-3.jpg
 
I agree with the previous posts about failing at recognizing clear statistical differences. Also, Zalman has put out some pretty sweet cases with cool features in them that seem to run as cool as the antec p193. i have a P193 and my brother has some zalman monster with hot-swappable hdd bays that are just plain cool.
 



I have a cooler master stacker 830. While I can't argue asthetics with you (opinion is opinion), i will most certainly argue performance. It's completely aluminum and can hold 8, 120mm fans....

Rest assured, that amount of fans gets you HUGE cooling if you get the pressure set up right. Also, there isn't any vid cards you can't fit in it. All aluminum case, super air flow......
Also, good look at some newegg reviews or something.....i don't really know of anyone complaining about their coolermaster cases....
 
This review is quite ordinary, you didn't even say what software you used to load the CPU and GPU was it something like the OCCT GPU test?

My gut feeling is you didn't even use a proper GPU burn test program to create real heat, because there is no way in hell these cases would of been so similar in temp.

What about stating the room temp and humidity? I really did expect better from Tomshardware, you guys aren't doing this from my mums garage are you?
 
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