Cases

[ICIT2LOL]

Am just about ready to roll with my SB build (my first build ever) but cannot find anything on the type of case to get.

That is - is it easier to use a case that has the HDD installed from the rear as in the CoolerMaster Elite 430 Black with window or use the CoolerMaster Gladiator 600 that has the slide in the side HDD slots? (I have narrowed them down to these on price and functionality ie. airflow specs).

I was rather hoping that these were cases that both sides could be removed making for tidying up the cabling but as they are not the side entry Gladiator looks to be my best bet.


Plus I would rather like to find the US PSU site where the fellow who deals with this component has videos on the inside workings. I did watch it some timw ago but missed putting it into favourites.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Icit2lol,
I flat out like the Elite 430 Black hands down. It does appear that with great care you can run the cables fairly clean. If you look into the new NZXT line of cables and extension cables in black I think the cables will hide very well.
http://www.nzxt.com/new/product.php?series_name=Premium+Cables&series=13

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You can't really tell about the HD mounting scheme without trying it, so for that aspect I'd say it's anybody's guess at this point. I've never used a case that mounted drives from the side. Rear is quite typical.

I would reject both cases out of hand, but I assume you have chosen these 2 to the exclusion of all others for your own reasons and that's fine. Coolermaster is generally a good brand.

Likewise, I've never owned a case that allowed you to remove both side panels.

The best 2 things you can do regarding cable management are:

1: take your time and use plenty of cable ties.
2: buy a modular PSU so you have as few cables as possible to begin with.

You can stash a lot of cables into unused drive bays or into any relatively small space that is otherwise unused.

The PSU site you refer to may be Jonnyguru.com??

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hey thanks

Thanks to you both the cases I chose purely out of price / value and I did originally choose the Elite until I saw the Gladiator had a 140cm fan installed as standard, was slightly larger, and that slide the HDD in from the side feature.

Plus once you start looking at them all it becomes a bit of a blur for choice.

Anyway I just wasn't sure as it is my first go at it and knew you fellas would have a better idea than me re these cases.

Just by the by then ignatzatsonic what brand would you have gone and I only asked re the two sides as Scotty Mueller's video had a case where both sides came off making the tucking away of cables so much easier as well as getting to the back of the HDD's.

Again much appreciated!!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I wouldn't choose a case based on brand.

Having said that, Coolermaster is a good brand. As is Antec and a few others.

My criteria would be as follows, in ROUGHLY this order:

Mandatory:

Sold without power supply
120 mm fan capability rear and in the low front
No side windows
Generally conceived with an eye to keeping noise down
Favorable online commentary/reviews at respected sites

Preferable:

No side vents
All steel, no mesh
$60 or $70 max

The Coolermaster I was recently considering was the Sileo 500. As it turned out, I kept my old case when I rebuilt in late January. No regrets.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Thanks again

Yeh ignatzatsonic yeh I was going with Corsiar HX 650 as everyone just about agrees the inbuilts aren't crash hot.

I did look at the Antecs - might even have another squizz although the Cooler looks the deal except for the windows they mostly all have.

Having said that the thing I can't stand is the Transformer look with those coloured fans - too distracting for me I'm afraid. Still worst comes to the worst I'll snip the cables to them, as the Aerocool my son gave me I can see them quite clearly and might evn be able to just pull them out.

I suppose by no side vents and windows you mean to keep the noise down and the Coolers have the underneath intakes too which I was quite taken with as they can be fited with 120 fans and it has the capacity for five too.

Actually Imeant to ask if you look at this you'l see what I mean by two sdided cases as the pic in the ad looks like it has access to the underside of the CPU mounting point - I could be wrong but that's what it looks like.
CoolerMaster Gladiator 600 [RC-600-KKN1-GP] - $79.00 : PC Case Gear


The Gladiator as I mentioned did have the advantage of a 140 in the top, no side window but unlike the Elite did not have any filters. Oh and yeh I have tapped into the review site testfreaks and another one called hardware something or other both had loads anyway.

Point taken though with the side vents etc - would not not be that hard to block them off if necessary eh?

As for price mate they are generally a fair bit more expensive out here otherwise I'd have gone a HAF or CM 690 - perhaps next time eh?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I don't like colored fans and flashing lights either.

Here is the updated version of the case I am still using; now called the HEC Compucase 6XR8

Newegg.com - HEC 6XR8 Black 0.8mm Thickness SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

The good: solid, quieter than average, 120mm front and rear, no glitz, no windows, no PSU, thumbscrews included I think, fans mount quickly via clips; I got it on sale for $45. audio connectors on front side; It's a clone of an early Antec design.

The bad: side vent, which I have covered to reduce noise.

It's hardly spectacular, but sturdy and probably a 7 plus on a 10 scale. If forced to buy another case, I wanted an Antec Solo, but they are pricey and have not been updated in 3 or 4 years, so I decided to stick with what I have.

Yeah, I'm told you can use wire cutters and simply cut off unneeded cables with impunity. Be sure to shield them from each other via tape or caps so they won't touch wire to wire and short, which could be disaster.

Be sure to get a set of thumbscrews for the case. $3 or so and very convenient.

Here is a fairly sane PSU requirement calculator that may keep you from going overboard.

eXtreme Power Supply Calculator

Another good source of legit reviews, with emphasis on running quietly:

silentpcreview.com | Everything about Silent / Quiet Computers

Recommended fan brands:

Nexus and Scythe (particularly Scythe "Slipstream" model).

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Thanks again

Hey ignatzatsonic thanks mate had a look at the Antecs and just wish we could get them here at your prices the nearest to what I want is the Antec Three Hundred Case.

The Solo that you mention is $120 and shoves my budget a bit over so looks like either that one or one of the Coolermasters.

Just a pity that Newegg didn't ship here and the company that does ship their stuff someone has said is not terribly reliable and can end up costing as much as a high end case out here. Never mind their videos on YouT are good to watch at least!!

Might just go with either the Gladiator or Centurion as they do have 140 fans so hopefully quieter than the Elite, will just have to get a quiet side fan or block the vents off eh??.
Yep found that calculator this afternoon but the silentpc site I am going to have a look at first before I finally decide - like you don't like noisy stuff and well you know what I thin re those LED lights.

Actually my son's Aerocool V-xe case he gave me had a 200mm fan in the side and I noticed that one of the LED's wire had been just pulled out of it's connectionduring transport so might not even have to cut the wires if I need to disconnect any eh?.

[Edit] Just had a look the scythes are sold out and hey I just realised I have a pack of 5 silent 120 nexus's on my shopping list for $45!! and the thum screws too!

Getting a bit weary now or senile one of the two lol!!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Looks like you have it under control.

Do your due diligence on the power supply and RAM--2 critical parts. No need to go overboard, but get solid performer from highly reliable manufacturer. The tendency is to buy too many watts from a dodgy supplier on the PSU and to buy unnecessarily fast RAM of incorrect voltage with heat spreaders and flashing lights when not overclocking the RAM.

You will be confronted with the option of AHCI controllers on one of your first boots after Windows is installed. Gigabyte boards will nag you about it... "Do you want AHCI or SATA".....on each boot. It isn't critical and you may not be able to tell the difference. I chose to go with AHCI and have no issues. It provides a little bit of functionality not otherwise available.

Download all possible drivers from mobo manufacturer site just before you start to build. You may not need them all. For Gigabyte, you will need the NEC USB driver and the Intel HD video driver (for on-processor graphics).

Get the Intel Chipset Installation Utility. Gigabyte may have it available, but the newest version should be at Intel itself. It is not mandatory, but if you use it, install it IMMEDIATELY after Windows, before you install any other software or hardware.

Then fully update Windows, get antivirus running. Then your other hardware and applications.

Intel Stock heatsink/fan is pretty good. Quieter than I expected. The mounting mechanism is a bit frustrating. Take your time with it. Install the RAM, processor, and heatsink before you mount the motherboard in the case. Inspect the bottom of the motherboard AFTER you install the processor and heatsink to confirm that the heatsink is properly seated. All 4 of the black mounting pins should protrude equally through the mounting holes and be clearly visible when you look at the motherboard's underside by maybe 3/16 of an inch. It's much easier to do outside the case.

A slightly magnetized screwdriver and strong small flashlight are very handy. You will be fumbling and dropping screws when you mount the motherboard and must retrieve them rather than letting them rattle around inside where they can short something out.

 

[johnwillyums]

I would recommend the Cooler Master ATCS 840. Not only does it look great (imo) but the motherboards tray slides out the rear on roller bearings. This, and it's enormous size, make it a very easy case to build in and upgrade. You can simply take out the tray and build it on a horizontal table. Also, it's solid aluminium, no plastic here

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Thanks Iggy

Thanks ignatzatsonic that's ging to come in real handy - gonna print it off and use it as my little Bible when the time comes - because I wouldn't have had a clue.

I'll follow it to the letter as I said I would have just put it all togeher and switched on and watched - probably it self destruct lol!!

Now I have decided on the Coolermaster Centurion as it does have the big fans and therefore theoretically quieter due to the slower speed required.

My PSU after a fair bit of researching is going to be the Corsair HX 650 which most seem to like and there is plenty of output for what I shall need I reckon.

RAM is G.Skill Ripjaws F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH (2x2GB) DDR3 someone told me they were using 1600MHz cards on the Gigabyte H67 U3DH but I didn't want to take the chance of getting it altogether and then nothing happening

Now the drivers you mention from NEC and Intel again I had no idea this had to be done as it was not mentioned in Scott Mellers video and i ama ssuming I put these onto a USB stick then download to the build .

Well this has ben a real eye opener and I cannot thank you enough because I would have ended up having to sort a lot of things out to get it to start.

Tools mate don't worry I have 55years worth of tools laying around - I used to dabble in audio stuff - vacuum tubes, dedicated trannies and components etc just have not done much with IC's as such.

Anyway I'll let you know how it goes and if it doesn't blow up maybe a pic or two lol!!.

Oh and johnnywillyums look mate that's a nice piece of equipment but a fair bit out of my price range at the moment ($279) - perhaps next build if I don't electrocute myself doing this one eh?? I must say the features are something else especially the roll out motherboard feature and the left panel removal which I was after.
and the small window in the left side i take is for a small fan forthe bottom side of the CPU.
Anyway thanks to everyone for for taking the time to help me out.
Gigabyte GA-H67A-UD3H-B3 Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-H67A-UD3H-B3 Motherboard

 

[johnwillyums]

Fair point IC but remember you'll be living with your case (and your monitor) for a lot longer than the stuff inside the case. Good big case can take any kind of upgrade and whatever the industry comes up with next.
However, for a cracking real budget case take a look at the Antec One Hundred which is about 42 GBP and, twice as much but lovely and really well featured, the Fractal Design Define R3. This last one is also built to be very quiet.
I built my first PC just over a year ago. It was easier than I thought it would be. I used lots of tutorials from this forum and elsewhere and even found youtube videos of people building with my motherboard or my case and they were very useful.

Good luck mate and keep us informed of how it goes eh? Cheers, John

 

[seekermeister]

As many response as there are to this thread, it has probably been mentioned before, but since you are looking at the CM cases, have you looked at the HAF 922? It doesn't have the black interior, but both sides are removable, and it has larger fans, plus more exterior drive bays.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1155 - GA-H67A-UD3H-B3 (rev. 1.1)

above is the download page for the b3 revision of that board.

select the driver dropdown and your OS type.

Drivers you will need:

Realtek Azalea: this is the onboard audio; should be Realtek ALC 892; you will have a Realtek entry in control panel.

Intel INF installation: this is the Intel Chipset Utility I mentioned; Install immediately after Windows

Intel Management engine interface

Realtek LAN driver; without this you have no internet connection; you don't need the diagnostic utility;

Intel SATA RAID driver; NOT needed if you aren't using RAID

NEC USB 3.0 Driver; this is AKA "Renesas" and is need for the 2 USB ports near the speaker jacks on the back.

Intel VGA driver: get it; this is for the on-processor graphics; works well. You will have an Intel graphics entry in control panel.

Then look at the BIOS dropdown. All you see is F2, so that is what your board should come with. I think the B3s actually have a UEFI (EFI??) rather than a BIOS. It is a replacement for the traditional BIOS and the very latest boards often have it. So you don't need to download F2.

Then look at manual dropdown and download the PDF. Read and absorb. It will raise some questions.

You don't need anything from the utilities dropdown unless you are using a drive larger than 2 gigs and even then you might not. It may be that the F2 UEFI already includes support for huge drives.

Re Gigabyte utilities. Your mobo will come with a disk full of utilities which I urge you to avoid for months and probably forever. They are mostly for overclockers and even they report that the tools are buggy. You don't need any of it.

What screen resolution do you plan to use??

Just corresponded with a major US dealer of fans---he told me that Scythe is shut down in Japan due to the recent unpleasantness. He has no idea when out of stock Scythes will come back in stock.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok

Ok Ignatzatronic haven't eally givne the reoslution much thought as I am just on the first build not that savvy yet and learning all the time.

I don't really know what I can use with the gear I'm getting and will need to do a bit of researching into this before my stuff gets here. Plus choosing monitors is a bit of a hit and miss affair for me they keep telling me Benq but the ones in town look as if they have been flattened (top>bottom) and I want a 24 that is a reasonable size not some squashed looking device. The Philips I saw there was more my sort of screen more TV like than a monitor and cheaper too!

Plus there seems to be a fair bit of difference in quality too. The Acer I'm using now is crap on colours despite the salesman telling me it was top notch stuff.

Hmmmmm yeh I did see Norton mentioned in there somewhere that'll have to go for starters as i'm planning on putting my Kaspersky Pure on for security and they don't get on well together at all. As for the other I'll do as you say and stay well ckear of them as I have had problems with that sort of rot in the past.

Hey and Johnno and seekermeister yeh I had a look at those - again the budget was a bit stretched (althought Antec as only $69) and anyway am going to do another build after this one if all goes well. Plus do it in a bigger case just this one seemed to be a good starter. By the way whats with everyone not liking the whie interiors?? - thought they would be easier to work on.

Anyway gotta dash - work again bugga and it was getting interesting as I have learnt a fair bit in the last hour or so - so again thanks to you fellows!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You may get your B3 board before I do--I don't know, but I may be 2 or 3 weeks away. I haven't heard from NewEgg and the H67A-UD3H B3 is currently out of stock.

However: I did just now go to Intel and look for new downloads for anything related to the 6 series chipsets and found 4 things pertinent to the Gigabyte motherboard. I downloaded these items. These are for 64 bit Windows 7, but there are 32 bit version also if you will be using 32 bit.

Intel chipset INF update utility 9.2.0.1025, dated 030311; this is newer than the one at Gigabyte

Intel GMA 2000 Graphics driver 15.21.10.64.2291, dated 020211; this is newer than the one at Gigabyte

Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver 10.1.0.1008, dated 121510; this is newer than the one at Gigabyte. I think I erred in my previous post. I think you DO need this if you want to use AHCI, even if you will not be using RAID.

Intel Management Engine Interface 7.0.4.1197, dated 020911; this is newer than the one at Gigabyte.

 

[johnwillyums]

Hey IC. Regarding monitors. Have a read up on the differences between TN panels (that's most cheap computer monitors) and IPS panels.
For a reasonable priced IPS panel check out the Dell 23" and, even cheaper, the Viewsonic IPS panel, also 23"
You're gonna have to pay a lot for a 24" 16:10 panel these days as most consumer monitors seem to have standardised on 23" 16:9 aspect.

Cheers, John

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Thanks all

Hey my build is on it's way and I discovered I'd ordered the wrong mobo the UD3H-B3 instead of the cheaper UD2H-B3 but still it has extra slots and stuff on it and well $25 not going to lose any sleep over it - if I could get to sleep -too excited now!!lol!!

Now the monitors yep looks like I'll have to shell out for a more expensive one, problem where I live (country) there are not many outlets where you can get to see them sitched on, and the ones that are usually have Capt bloody Nemo playing - doesn't that annoy you??

Yeh johnny a 23 will do as my 21.5 Acer is big enough just thought - new machine decent size screen ......

Anyway will just have to do a bit more shopping round but again the net pics are always super clear etc eh?

 

[johnwillyums]

This is the Viewsonic I was talking about. It's the cheapest IPS panel available and gets rave reviews over here:
ViewSonic VP2365wb

or this one is slightly more
Dell U2311 23 Inch Widescreen IPS Panel LCD Monitor

Overview - Compare prices - Details - Related items

I note a lot of Australian retailers sell Viewsonic but , afdter a quick look, I can't find that model

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hiyya john

Yes I can get this out here but - at $830 is a tad out of my league.

However there are Viewsonics that are affordable such as the VX2439M (LCD) & VX2450wm-LED which have quite good specs especially the 2ms response time both have 300cdm and 1000:1 contrast and range from $220 - $285.

Now I'm inclined towards the LED what do you think as I am not that savvy with these numbers and tend to look for the contrast ratios more than anything else, and see some of the other brands quoting 12,000,000:1 etc. Yet the Viewsonics are 1000:1 there doesn't seem to be any set standards when I see figures that seemingly vary wildy as this.

For example I am using an Acer S221HQL at the moment that has 12,000,000:1 contrast 250nits?? and 5m/s response and to be honest the colours and general resolution are not what I call terribly after paying $248 for it.

So I tend to base the specs of the others against what this monitor performs like.

I have been looking at AOC and Asus screens which look pretty reasonable to me as the Benq's I have seen in local retailers look like they have been put through a car crusher the top/bottom measurement looks really out of whack. The Samsungs have in my mind got terribly overpriced so they are out.

This is the problem really see I live in the country which limits what one can get to actually seeing in action before buying. A pity I didn't get the salesman to get this Acer out of it's box (new shipment he told me) and show me first - I'd never have got it)

Ah well the build's on it's way so have got a bit of time to scratch around eh?

Oh that Viewsonic can be found through
viewsonic VP2365wb - Compare Prices and Deals, Shop & Buy Online in Australia at MyShopping.com.au