Question Good, small, quiet case w/optical drive slot for budget gaming, media preservation?

[rwhipple08]

I am looking to build a PC for two purposes:

• Upgrade my old gaming PC
• Have an optical slot for media preservation (Plex, Jellyfin, etc)

I've been looking at the Fractal Design Pop Mini Air.

My main criteria are:

1. Optical drive slot
2. Quiet. Good airflow for easy air cooling without needing a lot of high-RPM fans.
3. Easy to build in.
4. Reasonable size for an mATX build. Don't want all the empty space that comes with a full-size ATX case. Don't want the expense and complexity of mITX builds with GPU risers.

I currently have an mITX build in a Thermaltake Core V1. I liked that because the single large fan in front gave good cooling at low RPM without a lot of noise. It also fit well in a 13"x13" cubby in my desk setup at the time. The 10" wide by 12" deep size footprint fits well behind my monitor on a corner desk, which is my current setup.

The media server/NAS will be a different machine, so I don't necessarily need a lot of space for HDDs in this case.

 

[Lutfij]

Where are you located? What is your budget for your case purchase? Preferred site for purchase?

Assuming you're located in USA, PCPartPicker has these;
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/case/#G=1,12&sort=price&page=1
that meet he 5.25" criteria though fine tuning the search filters(on the left navigation pane) could narrow down the case you're looking for.

Though just to be clear, there's nothing wrong with the Fractal case you've picked up. In fact if you want Type-C connectivity, you just need to ick this up;

USB-C 10Gbps Cable – Model D

Add USB-C functionality to your Meshify Lite case with this USB-C 10Gbps Model E cable

www.fractal-design.com

What sort of hardware are you looking to populate inside the proposed case purchase?

 

[rwhipple08]

Thanks for the recommendation. I browsed that list a while ago and it seems like there are some cases with a lot of marketing & reviews and then many more cases with hardly any. Trying to make sure I don't overlook something good just because it isn't well-marketed.

I'm located in the US. I'd say budget of around $200...willing to buy something nice but not verging off into extravagant. I don't have a site preference, but I'd probably end up using Amazon, Best Buy, or NewEgg.

I haven't decided on specific hardware yet. I was looking at something in the range of the $800 - $1,000 builds from https://www.tomshardware.com/best-picks/best-pc-builds-gaming but all AMD (those builds mix-and-match AMD, Intel, & Nvidia)

I'm upgrading from a 10-year old machine with a Core i5-4460 and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. I mostly play older games like WoW and although it's held up, I'm finally having to turn down some graphics settings to get good frame rates in some environments. Since I want a build that has an optical drive, I decided I'd rather take this opportunity to do a totally new build vs just move the existing system into a new case.

 

[kanewolf]

I am building an AMD 8600G system and chose the Coolermaster N200. It has a 5.25 and 3.5 inch external cutout. I have a DVD drive and card reader in them.

 

[geofelt]

Some years ago, I built a MATX PC using the Silverstone TJ-08E case:

TJ08-E

In 2006, SilverStone launched the Temjin TJ08, an impressive micro-ATX tower case with then unheard of dual 120mm fan configuration. It helped pioneered the idea of big tower cooling performance in small packages. Five years later, improved technology and design has enabled SilverStone...

www.silverstonetek.com

It had a GTX1080 graphics card, used a Noctua NH-D15 cooler.
The front fan was a 180mm slow speed fan that produced a good airflow past the gpu and cpu.
The front filter is washable and easily removed.
I gave it to my son and wish I had kept it.
It is no longer produced, but it can be found on ebay or perhaps elsewhere.
Here is a review:
https://pcper.com/2012/02/silverstone-tj08-e-micro-atx-tower-enclosure-review/#ftoc-heading-2

 

[rwhipple08]

Thanks again for the recommendations. I ended up going with the Fractal Design Define R5.

The deciding factors were:

• Putting the external 5.25" bays in front of the PSU like the Pop Air is a clever way to utilize space, but having it on the bottom isn't ideal if I end up having to put this case on the floor, and I might have to do that with my current setup.
• I wanted the flexibility and simplicity of a larger case. Specifically I like having all the drives stacked up front vs being crammed into 'leftover' spaces around other components. It'll be easier to connect them and I know they're getting good airflow.
• Even if I get more specialized cases later (sandwich ITX gaming case, NAS case, etc), this style of case will always be useful as a utility/workbench. Since I'm not ready to get a speciality case, going generic and re-usable seemed like the best choice.