PC Case Roundup: Spring 2008

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nachowarrior

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the "sigma" case is almost identical to the one i own, but with the name Raidmax on it. I love it. I do need to change out the fans though, but for the price, you can't expect miracles out of them. Other than a few cables that i thoguht should have been longer, i thought it was great. and everyone loves it.
 

BallistaMan

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Personally I think I like the Cosmos least from a design standpoint, the handles feel out of place to me. The Silverstone was very nice though. Not perfect, but certainly respectable.

I may be the going a little against the grain here, but I very much prefer using case screws over tool-less clips. Nearly always the clips just clash with the rest of the case (though they usually looked fine for these cases). I also just like putting the extra work and love into the computer. :)
 

Gravemind123

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Cases with screws also usually mean they have the potential for more removable things, like motherboard trays and hard drive cages. I love how my Lian-Li has lots of screws, because everything is removable, I'd take that over my friends Centurion, where it is all tool-less, but there is nothing removable.
 
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Guest

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i could be wrong becouse i dont keep up with pc cases but are they not just reveiwing cases that were relesed in spring
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff



You forgot to admit I was right. Your gripes can only be solved by the author buying cases, and he's not paid enough to buy cases. You did stretch one of the comments a bit far though, it's not about time invested, it's about money.

But I do know the guy, so I'll ask him to delay the next "roundup" to allow more cases to be included. I think he spent around a month gathering cases for this one, perhaps next time he can give the companies two months to respond. You wouldn't see all the cases you wanted, but you would see more cases. It would still be out of the question for the guy to buy the "popular cases" that weren't offered, but at least the comparison would be bigger.

Of course, all this is contingent on your admission of my correctness :p
 

bjornlo

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I too am VERY disappointed in the short list used here. Lian-Li is probably the best known quality case company (or right in there). Antec does a lot of really nice cases with a strong focus on sound deadening plus there is the HiPerf 900, etc.
Silverstone has so many nice looking cases, where the hell did you find this POS?

And, how can you call this a case roundup and say nothing about cooling? How about if you had mounted a standard config in each and measured the damn temps??

Sloppy work here lads.

On a positive note, I am glad at least some of this limited selection included window-less and door-less designs. Why anyone wants to put a door between them and their optical drive has always been a mystery to me.

 

nachowarrior

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i think they may be recent cases? I dunno, i hadn't looked at cases for a while, but it's odd that the raidmax (sigma) didn't show up untill a little while before i was ready to build... i'm a neweggaholic (help!). So it is a possibility that these are all new cases... one way or another, most of you ARE missing the point. The roundup is just to give a better idea of what the cases are actually like rather than having to judge from pictures...not to be your computer case oracle...so quit whining and go try and find one of these in any store where you can put your grubby paws on it and disassemble it... not going to happen...cuz retail locations and pc parts don't mix...
 

cleeve

Illustrious
Hi Gents, a couple notes from the Reviewer:

1. This is a roundup, not a single case review. There will be trade offs when writing a roundup article, it's simply not going to be as detailed but it will cover a lot more cases. That's the objective, plain and simple. Personally I think we dug in a lot more than a typical roundup article.

2. Antec said they would submit two cases but later decided they couldn't get them to us in time. Sorry gents, that's beyond our control.

3. We're going to try to make these case roundups more frequent, so don't worry about the manufacturers left out; we'll get to them. As it was this was a huge article to get out, so we'll add to the library of cases we feature over time.

I think that covers most of it.


 

spaztic7

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Thanks for the updates Cleeve! :D
 

geekbox computers

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I agree - Definitely would like to see some high-end Silverstone, Lian Li, and Thermaltake cases reviewed. A lot of the cases here seem, well... cheap. :( Sorry?
 

Imlal

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For those of you who think the Cooler Master Cosmos S is a bit on the loud side. It has a sibling called Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 which is more oriented towards quite computers. It’s basically the same case as the Cosmos S but with some alterations. It sports soundproofing on the sidepanels. Six 3.5” “housings” (for lack of a better word) with rubber grommets to reduce vibration. As for cooling it comes with 4 semi-quiet 120mm fans, two mounted on the top, one rear and one on the floor of the case with some kind of funnel so you can choose where you want to direct the air. And there is an optional fan mounted on top of 3.5” bay, although it takes up one of the five available 5.25” bays.

//Jimmy
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]geekbox computers[/nom] A lot of the cases here seem, well... cheap. Sorry?[/citation]

Nothing to be sorry for, some samples were definitely on the lower end.

Remember that low-end stuff has it's place, thoguh. A lot of people can't afford high end stuff. And if we assume the low end stuff is no good, we can miss some real gems.
 
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I'm happy with my Lian Li "Rocketfish" case that was cleared out everywhere for $48 at BestBuy a couple months or so ago. Everyone that got in on that one are the ones that got the right case for the right price.
 

levicki

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When will all those lame case manufacturers stop using square holes for fan exhausts and start using honeycomb instead?

Let me summarize those cases for you:

1. Sigma Unicorn

+
Honeycomb exhaust for rear fan

-
Too small
PSU at the top
Inaccessible front IO panel
HDD mount (no anti-vibration)
No honeycomb exhaust for the front fan

2. NZXT Tempest

+
PSU at top

-
No honeycomb exhaust at all
Stupid 90 deg HDD mount
Front IO panel susceptible to dust

3. IN-WIN METAL SUIT GD “CONQUEROR”

+
Are you kidding me?

-
Idiotic name (imagine going into the store and asking for one)
Futuristic trashcan look
IO panel on the side, USB connectors too close
Square instead of honeycomb exhausts (AGAIN!)
PSU at top
HDD mount (no anti-vibration)
Tool-less expansion card retention (that's for kids)

4. Silverstone KL03 Kublai

+
Nothing

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UGLY! UGH!
PSU at top
Stupid IO panel (try to grab USB stick with firewire cable inserted)

5. 3R System R240 Grace

+
Remote and display

-
Just look at those fan exhausts from Pentium 4 Prescott era
HDD mount (no anti-vibration)
IO panel placement

6. Raidmax Iceberg

+
Radiator on the top (although probably PITA to keep it clean)
Honeycomb exhausts (yay!)

-
PSU at top
IO panel susceptible to dust
HDD mount

7. Coolermaster Cosmos S

+
Size
All intakes/exhausts are honeycomb (wow!)
PSU at bottom
Air filter for PSU
Full IO panel

-
Bottom of the case under the PSU should be a simple square hole with rounded edges

If I were forced to chose between those cases I would get Cosmos S or if budget limited Raidmax Iceberg. Others are simply put -- TRASH.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff


Let me summarize you: A fraud.

Honeycomb mesh is nice, but the most important things about a fan grille are to have a very large hole to solid ratio (better airflow) and to have a moderate distance of space between the fan and the grille (to ease the issue of the blade being too close to a hole, which causes noise and hurts airflow).

OK, now the best place to have a power supply is at the top of the case. That's because power supplies are meant to be part of the ventilation system. That's why power supplies are supposed to have a fan on the bottom, to pull heat away from the CPU. That's why Intel's engineers, who know more than you and I combined, specified the power supply to be at the top when they laid out the ATX tower format.

I look at these cases, I see a bunch of bad fan grilles, but not because the holes are square. The problems are the ones I described, the grilles aren't open enough and many don't have enough mounting hole offset between the fan and the grille.

Too small? Some people like small cases. Micro ATX cubes are still somewhat popular. It all depends on how you want to build your system.

The Cosmos S breaks the rule that it's almost always better to have the power supply at the top, but for good reason: It has a tripple-fan radiator mount at the top. You couldn't put a radiator there if there was a power supply in the way. So, in order to get that great radiator mounting location, you make the sacrifice in cable management, and end up with an extra fan to make a bit of extra noise. That's the price you pay to have a big radiator, but otherwise bottom-mounted power supplies are an idiotic idea that manufacturers are now providing simply to copy other manufacturers.

Give the buyer what they want, even if its stupid. Bottom-mounted power supplies are generally used for the same reason that the Inwin has a "futuristic trash can look": To entice ignorant buyers.
 

lafery

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I'm personally quite happy to see - FINALLY - a case roundup. Its the only case review article I've been able to find (that includes more than a specific case where you can't even tell if the author is involved or not with the company who made the case) and I'm quite happy to see it's going to be regularly updated.

I like to build my own PCs, but with the lack of information available for cases, its very difficult to make wise choices. Each time i picked a new case in the past, I wished I had chosen something else (at least the 2 last ones).

Reading comments posted by other people it feels like I'm the only one who doesn't live with 10 different kind of cases in my living. I don't change case often and when I need to and look for reviews over the web, sometimes I can't even tell how old the case reviewed is! (what happened to timestamped articles anyways?)

Case reviews are difficult to find, most of the time spread all over the web, are not compared to one another and lack objective information. They certainly don't get the kind of coverage that video cards, MB and other components get, not even cooling fans. Yet they are a very important part to good cooling and noise control.

Its about time someone did the work and got this kind of article out! Thanks Don :)
 

dokk2

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good review,nice cases sure have changed from 'way back when,,,BUT ,,,2 things,,all of these cases are way tooo small,and do not have a removable motherboard backplane,,thus to me while it is interesting reading it is really just so much fluff.
you see ,,,it is easier to cool a larger case than it is a small case..:)
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
The Sigma Unicorn is a DIRECT copy of the RaidMax DirkTooth.

Who copied who? Who owns the design? And what's the chance that both are made by the same company?

I'm 100% positive that RAIDMAX has a history of selling cheap knock-off cases based on the old Chieftech Dragon design. But I'm not sure if it's their "fault", as they probably just stuck their label on some generic chinese case made by a company nobody has even heard of.

Given that, is Sigma Designs doing the same thing? Probably, but I can't be certain. I'd have to look at the company history.

Knowing the history of RAIDMAX, I'd be the last person to point fingers at any of its "competitors".
 
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I like the way none of Antec, or Thermaltake case even make it into the round-up. Sometimes things at Tom's can be very one-sided! Then's there's Tom's ever popular excuse, those companies didn't respond and did not send in their product.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Then's there's Tom's ever popular excuse, those companies didn't respond and did not send in their product.

So what's your excuse for breathing? Conspiracy theorist see excuses for every valid reason, how about this one: Tom's cares MORE about you than the companies who didn't send cases. Think about it. If Tom's didn't care, they wouldn't even bother trying. The companies who don't bother to send anything are the ones who need excuses.
 

czar1020

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I noticed that alot of you are asking for a review on the antec and armor case. They already reviewed them along time ago why "re-review" them. I know they fixed a small thing here and there on each case but not enough to justify an entire re-review. Use the search option alot of stuff has already been done.

Just I do wish some more cases were done. And I do relize this post is 2/3 months past the review ;)
 
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It'd be really nice if I could find the 3R System R240 Grace anywhere is the U.S.
 
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