ATX Case geeks:

[Simon Preston]

I'm after a new case to house all my bits in. The main deal breakers for me is the ability to hide all my wires behind the motherboard compartment so as to improve airflow and front loading hot swappable 3.5" drive bays. The Zalman GS1000 is one I've noticed that I like the sound of and can pick that up for just shy of £90 in the UK. If anyone knows of similar or better for a decent price (£90 UK is probably the top end of what I could stretch to) then please let me know here.

cheeyars.

[ganjamo]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

That case looks good Simon.

I love the Lian Li brand, maybe its a bit more expensive, but the build quality and the design are superb.

[Simon Preston]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

I've just spotted a better case they do. Pricier but it doesn't half look the business in white. Sound insulation would be a massive plus also. Very tempted to wait a little longer to get some money together for this baby.

http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=367

[Simon Preston]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

I plumped for the second one in the end. GS1000 seemed a bit too plasticky for my liking. This one has arrived this morning and it's huge! Box dwarfs my Border Collie who isn't exactly small:



Priciest case I've ever bought (at £110) but I'm purchasing in the view it'll last many systems over.

[dusk]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

Massive Darth Vader case... very cool sir

[Simon Preston]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

It's the dogs look that makes the pic for me.

[demonAfro]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

Looks sweet! I hope there will be a full review when it is up an running...

Seems like something I might be interested in one day.

[Simon Preston]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

Well so far the results have been very instant. The 2 top results I wanted were lower temps and quieter operation. My CPU is now down from about 57 degrees celsius to 27c on idle. Admittedly the old intel heatsink had been took off and put back on so many times the thermal paste probably wasn't doing its job as well but even so thats a dramatic difference. I've also fed the cables through the back of the case and round again so they're not wildly flying about inside which again improves the airflow. Noise wise you'd hardly even know it was on, even yesterday which was a very hot summers day the fans hardly stirred. However I do want to get a fan controller next so I can set them all to minimal setting if needs be. Also like to get a different cooler for my GeForce 8800GTS but I was surprised at how little noise that does create. The harddrive was inaudible as I switched it on. Last case you could hear it grinding away as it booted up Windows 7, now its near silent. Though, I have to add that the old case was an aluminium case whereas this one is chunky steel. I haven't installed an optical drive yet. The ones in the old case were PATA and I decided to get a new SATA one which should be arriving soon (again - airflow )
I powered down the system, took the system drive out and put in the drive with MacOS X installed, powered on again and bing! Now I have a Mac! Swapping drives took all of 10 seconds. Then stuck my first drive back in and it came on and showed up on the Mac desktop nearly straight away. Very cool and will save me a huge amount of time when installing and testing new drives or installations.
Other nice touches. The front panel at the top is nice and solid, wired it up and works nicely. Has 2x USB, 1 e-SATA, mic in, line out and reset button. No Firewire there tho.

I do have a few minor gripes. First being that the case fans just come with molex power connectors which seems a strange choice from a manufacturer who specialises in cooling and fan control. I'd be wanting to plug them straight into the motherboard so they can be read and controlled. Second the power button doesn't seem to be working properly and takes a few goes before the system comes on. Could be my wiring though. Third there's no speaker in the case. Not a huge biggy until somthing goes wrong and you don't know what as you can't hear how many beeps the BIOS is making. Think I have a spare one somewhere so can install that.

Major plusses is that it's extremely well built. Feels solid, sturdy and looks imposing. I'd highly recommend this case for the power user.

So here's the kit list:
Asus P5W DH Deluxe Bios 2801
Core Duo E6420 2.13ghz
Scythe Mugen 2 Rev B CPU heatsink
2x1 Gig Corsair DDR1066mhz (clocked at 800mhz as the P5W doesn't seem to like DDR 8500!)
NVidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MB
Audiophile 2496 sound card
Western Digital 500MB SATA (Windows 7)
Western Digital 500MB SATA (Data)
Hitachi Deskstar 160GB SATA (MacOS)

[Simon Preston]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

Inside the PC once it's all been put together, still might work on minimising the cabling in there: Note the huge new heatsink!


New case compared with the old:

[ganjamo]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

grab a few zipties and strap those cables Simon!!! that looks worse than haziel's pubic hair

[Simon Preston]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

No going to tie all the cables up until I know everything that's going in is in. for now they've been fed through the back.

[dusk]

Re: ATX Case geeks:

Sweet rig mate!