I run systems in three form factors: ITX, m-ATX, and E-ATX. The last few years, choosing a case has been relatively easy for me: If a case wasn't made from aluminum, it wasn't even a candidate. That ruled out 95% of the market right there. The more companies that were pushing cheap plastic and steel garbage, the easier my choices became. In fact only two non-aluminum cases came anywhere close to interesting me: The Corsair 500r, and the CM Storm Trooper (black). The rest of the channel was saturated by gaudy, disposable boxes from ThermalTake, NZXT, and a myriad of clones.
This year, it looks like things are going to get harder for me. That's good and bad. I applaud the return to quality cases, but I get the feeling there's going to be a lot of copying going on, as we saw with the cheap plastic boxes. The old reliable companies are going to have to get creative if they want to stand out.
As for cooling, I'd like to see 200mm radiators become the standard. I run 240, 360, 840, and 1080 radiators. A 240mm rad is tiny to me. It's what you cram into an ITX box when nothing else will fit. AIO solutions make me shake my head. No expandability. (Oh, and what a way to destroy the Ares II, glom a chunk of cheap chinese garbage onto it, yay...) Damn near all cases run a width of at least 200mm, and a depth of 300 - 500mm. The line "Supports Dual Water Cooling Radiator" should be stricken from product blurbs, as it is a standard feature now, not remarkable in any way. Tout an expanded range.
For larger cases, I'd prefer steel simply for the extra mass to dampen noise from the huge collection of moving parts within. I love Fractal Design's Define series just for that alone.
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Earthmonger - Monday, January 14, 2013 - link
I run systems in three form factors: ITX, m-ATX, and E-ATX. The last few years, choosing a case has been relatively easy for me: If a case wasn't made from aluminum, it wasn't even a candidate. That ruled out 95% of the market right there. The more companies that were pushing cheap plastic and steel garbage, the easier my choices became. In fact only two non-aluminum cases came anywhere close to interesting me: The Corsair 500r, and the CM Storm Trooper (black). The rest of the channel was saturated by gaudy, disposable boxes from ThermalTake, NZXT, and a myriad of clones.This year, it looks like things are going to get harder for me. That's good and bad. I applaud the return to quality cases, but I get the feeling there's going to be a lot of copying going on, as we saw with the cheap plastic boxes. The old reliable companies are going to have to get creative if they want to stand out.
As for cooling, I'd like to see 200mm radiators become the standard. I run 240, 360, 840, and 1080 radiators. A 240mm rad is tiny to me. It's what you cram into an ITX box when nothing else will fit. AIO solutions make me shake my head. No expandability. (Oh, and what a way to destroy the Ares II, glom a chunk of cheap chinese garbage onto it, yay...) Damn near all cases run a width of at least 200mm, and a depth of 300 - 500mm. The line "Supports Dual Water Cooling Radiator" should be stricken from product blurbs, as it is a standard feature now, not remarkable in any way. Tout an expanded range.
(PS, where are your Silverstone pics, Dustin?)
A5 - Monday, January 14, 2013 - link
You have weird needs. A 240mm Rad is more than fine 99% of the time.Earthmonger - Monday, January 14, 2013 - link
Yeah, a 240 is fine, if you only want to cool a CPU. Water cooling is a pointless effort if you skip the GPUs, however.mavere - Monday, January 14, 2013 - link
For larger cases, I'd prefer steel simply for the extra mass to dampen noise from the huge collection of moving parts within. I love Fractal Design's Define series just for that alone.