Basically what the title says i want your opinions on these two cases and any other you think are better at around the same price range
EDIT:Please bare in mind that i need a big case because im going to do a custom water cooling loop soon
EDIT 2: H440 doesnt have and optical drive bay and i need one any other suggestion on a case
If optical drive bays are needed have you considered the H630? http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-cah630fw1
TBF i liked the side windows as i like to show off my stuff but it is a possibility however im still swaying towards thw switch
I have the switch 810 with a custom loop I've got a 360 rad in the top a 280 in the bottom and a 120 in the front with all the hard drive cages pulled out I find that it is massive and has been able to fit everything I've wanted except that with the 280 at the bottom you are unable to fit another 280 or even 240 in the front unless you find 2 very thin 240s for the front and the the bottom, but I'm just running a 60mm thick 280 and a 45mm 120 so the performance is better than 2 30mm 240s. If you have the time to do some modding to the front fan areas then I''m sure you would be able to fit a bigger rad up front, but you would still have to sacrifice the bottom. Up top you can fit up to a triple 140 there is ample room in the top to run a 45mm thick rad in push pull without utilizing the external fan mount area with a triple 120, but I'm pretty sure a triple 140 would start to interfere depending on your motherboard heatsinks. If you wanted too I don't think there would be any problem running a 60mm thick rad, but you would have to use the top external area for fans which isn't really a problem at all, thats what its there for although I did not use and just run a push pull on a high fpi 45mm thick rad and the put sound dampening foam around the top area so its running like a little sound chamber. the way I have my fans set up is everything as an intake except the push pull rad up top which are set up as exhaust or else you end up with a lot of negative pressure. The fans it comes with a re actually quite nice and fairly quiet. The bracket on the hard drive cage that holds a fan can be removed as I did and attached to the optical drive area with a little bit of drilling or velcro to act as supplemental air flow over the motherboard and the ram. I think its a great case especially for water cooling, very spacious and also the little things like the leds in the back and the built in sd card reader com in handy all the time. Its not the quietest of cases, but at the same time its not very noisey as long as you're running higher end fans or undervolt the included ones. I put sound dampening foam in a few strategic locations and I think it drastically lowers the noise floor. even if you just cover around the window on the side panel there is a noticeable displacement of sound. Those are m thoughts, but I also have never had ay experience with e h440 so I don't know how they compare.
PS: forgot to mention that if you take out all the hard drive cages you still have the hot swap bay, but its powered by molex so I pulled the back off put the cage in backwards with the power facing the front of the case and ran a sata power up the back panel and into the cage from the back and there is plenty of room to fit multiple ssds in there too (I run 3) without interfering with what would be you next available drive bay. Also if you run a radiator up top you will not be able to fit an optical drive in the top bay unless you put the fans in the top fan area and use a low profile rad ~30mm or so. The nice stealth cover it comes with for a dvd/blu ray is pretty nice but the way it works the opticol drive itself is recessed back so if you really want to use it another bay you will have to drill new holes for the drive to be seated properly or just fix it in there with some other method or you can always just not use it. I personally have the white switch 810 with an rog theme/ color scheme with white tubing and I think it looks awesome. Well I don't think theres much more I can say if you have an specific questions feel totally free to ask man.
i got a NZXT Phantom 530 case, and this case has so many cooling options, also for custom loop, its just a good case. But yeah you need to like the looks of the Phantoms. There also other bigger phantom models, like the Phantom 630. and crafted phantom 820 series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UexkSEhn4oU
Cheers man very helpful do you recomend any fans to buy to put in the case. other than that a great run down on the case