Heres the plan. This december Ill be getting a refund check from school roughly around $2000 and maybe $500 more from grandparents for Christmas. Im wanting to do a water cooled build using the ROG Impact with the Bitspower full motherboard water block, i7-4770k, and either a 290 or 780 with their respective waterblock. The problem im having is the case though. Everyone seems to recommend either the Bitfenix Prodigy or the Caselabs S3, but the prodigy looks too big to me and the S3 is sort of expensive and I cant decipher what some of the options will actually look like and how they will work with my components. Im wanting to use a tube res and a 360mm radiator (or a 240+120 config which is more reasonable) in the case but at such a small form factor im not seeing anything more than a single 120 or single 240 rad mount option.
Building a custom case is out of the question though. Can anyone else recommend anything?
Portability is also a factor. Will be a LAN machine.
I believe that EVGA has with the Hadron Hydro, which with having a huge price tag comes with a gold 500W power supply and pretty nice water cooling support. So that may be an option, but the silverstone case is quite nice as well.
360mm rad isn't gonna work in a mITX case, the second option sound more realistic. Really for 240+120 your best bet would be the prodigy or the phenom (which is kinda the same, but without the handles). Xigmatek has the Aquila, but it looks about as big as the prodigy, maybe even bigger. That's all mITX cases I know of with watercooling support (and the Hadron Hydro)
@Brennan - Those TJ cases are pretty nice, im going to look around and see if i can find a build log using one to see about how they did it first. I dont wanna jump into it and find that there maybe issues.
@Jetix - I dont think the 500w PSU in the EVGA Hadron would be enough. That was going to be the case i used originally but then i decided to watercool the GPU as well and i couldnt find any resources stating any other mounts for radiators. Im fine with mounting resivoirs outside the case but not radiators.
@renshuizer - That aquila case isnt too bad, but its a lot like the prodigy in terms of size. I wont use the phenom because its just a prodigy with a different aesthetic. I also want a window so it would pretty much be a prodigy without handles.
@Some Tech Noob - Ive seen custom cases for it that have extended bottoms to hold the rad, but yeah speaking in commercial products i wont see one with it.
I've seen a i7 pull up to about 120watts, in addition the maximin spike load of a (very) mild overclocked is around 350watt, so 500watt PSU is cutting it fine by the time you add a couple of fans, water pump, HDD's ect.
If you avoid the overclock you'll be fine, but really you should set your power supply size so you draw about 80% of its rated capacity at full load, rather than just barely fitting in the capacity.
I believe that EVGA has with the Hadron Hydro, which with having a large cost tag comes with http://www.rsgoldfast.com a silver 500W energy source and fairly awesome standard http://www.d3face.com water chilling assistance. So that may http://www.topgw2gold.com be an choice, but the silverstone situation is quite awesome as well.