Jonah
New Member
I have a CM Elite 430 case which I bought a year ago for its price and looks. I now realize I dislike it for many reasons:
There is a complete lack of cable management - This is extremely annoying as I have a non-modular PSU and the ATX power cable gets dangerously close to my CPU fan at times (I have to tuck it around the side of the heatsink)
I bought 2 aerocool shark fans (which suck) to address the fact that there were no fans near my CPU or GPU. These work, but are non-PWM and don't work at all on 5v.
The front audio works but is dreadful: my microphone (which has to be at the front because I have retasked the back for surround) is good but sounds like a vuvuzela through this (this may also be because I'm using the motherboard sound card but I'll get a new one with the case).
I'll stress again: There are cables everywhere, no matter how much rerouting or ziptying i try to do, there's always some that have to sit on top of the hard drives (close to front fan) or on the floor (in the way of drive connections).
Anyway, rant over, here's what I'm looking for:
The fractal design define R4 - It has lots of space, fan mounts and built in soundproofing, plain, elegant and looks quiet. If I got this I'd be looking at the plain white or plain black, though my friend says it looks like a fridge.
And the Aerocool Syclone II in black/blue:
It doesn't boast as many cool or innovative features as the R4 and would probably be a bit noisy, but well, come on, look at it!
Both of these have decent cable management and fan space, so I'm interested as to what you guys have to say about either and any better ideas you may have.
There is a complete lack of cable management - This is extremely annoying as I have a non-modular PSU and the ATX power cable gets dangerously close to my CPU fan at times (I have to tuck it around the side of the heatsink)
I bought 2 aerocool shark fans (which suck) to address the fact that there were no fans near my CPU or GPU. These work, but are non-PWM and don't work at all on 5v.
The front audio works but is dreadful: my microphone (which has to be at the front because I have retasked the back for surround) is good but sounds like a vuvuzela through this (this may also be because I'm using the motherboard sound card but I'll get a new one with the case).
I'll stress again: There are cables everywhere, no matter how much rerouting or ziptying i try to do, there's always some that have to sit on top of the hard drives (close to front fan) or on the floor (in the way of drive connections).
Anyway, rant over, here's what I'm looking for:
- No more than £120 (about $200 US)
- Spacious
- Cable space behind the motherboard
- Standard ATX Motherboard and PSU
- Reasonable sturdy
- Reasonably use friendly
- Expandable: Space for at lest 3 extra fans - preferably 140mm, no less than 2 5.25" drive bays
- Nice to look at - Doesn't have to be plain but after spending a year with bright blue LEDs something slightly calmer would be nice
- After experiencing these fans, quiet would be amazing
The fractal design define R4 - It has lots of space, fan mounts and built in soundproofing, plain, elegant and looks quiet. If I got this I'd be looking at the plain white or plain black, though my friend says it looks like a fridge.
And the Aerocool Syclone II in black/blue:
It doesn't boast as many cool or innovative features as the R4 and would probably be a bit noisy, but well, come on, look at it!
Both of these have decent cable management and fan space, so I'm interested as to what you guys have to say about either and any better ideas you may have.
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