Which PC case should I get?

I’m looking for a case, but don’t know which one to get.

Case features that I would like:
Full size case(maybe larger if possible)
Plenty of hard drive space
Plenty of fans for air movement
couple of spaces for at least two AIO liquid cooling(CPU and GPU)***
Clear side panel.
Doesn’t need to be cheap

*** I plan to start out with using AIO liquid cooling then eventually move to a custom loop.

Something Something Fractal or Corsair

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A lot of people seem to like the Torrent from Fractal. You might want to take a look at it.

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Jays2cents recommend quite a few cases that are perfect to build what you want, check out some of his recent build logs.

Personally I want to move the opposite way. With 2 TB NVMe drives soon dipping below $150, there is practically no reason to have traditional SATA drives going forward. Only exception I can see is for a NAS. Hard drive storage just isn’t that important anymore. :slightly_smiling_face: Going 7 liters blows my mind every time, but I agree it isn’t for everyone.

Good luck!

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How about bequiet!'s Dark Base 700? It easily supports ATX (and a bit bigger), had loads of space for cooling and you can cram a whole tonne of HDDs in it. :thinking:

I went to 1TB SSD internal and 3TB bulk/back-up in my NAS. Loads of directly accessible space that way and no more need for a large case on the desk. :slight_smile:

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I use the cheapest possible, i leave fans at 100% and use headphones because i’m a savage.

GamerNexus has some really good reviews for cases tho

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There are quite a lot of options, all of them old…
Old Fractal Design cases…
Old Phanteks cases…
Old NZXT cases…
Old…

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I’m partial to my Thermaltake Core X9 and X5 cases. Have to make do with the TT Level 20 XT case since the Core series is no more.

Also the Phanteks 719 isn’t too bad either. Still prefer horizontal motherboard mounting though with the TT cases.

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Lian Li OD11 XL - if you don’t care about price then this ticks all your boxes.

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Eh cases aren’t really something that’s easy to recommend. Graphics cards and CPUs are easy: look at benchmarks and pick something in budget. Cases are so dependent on your personal aesthetic preferences. Tbh I would pick a budget, have a look at what appears in that range on PC part Picker, find something you like and then look to see if someone like GamersNexus has looked at its airflow etc (less important if you’re water cooling)

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Fractals “Define 7/7-XL” / “Torrent”
Phanteks Enthoo 719 / Eclipse 600 / Enthoo Pro-M
be Quiet 700 / 800
Corsair 750D / 780T
… [Another] Lian Li 011D

Definitely assess, how much cooling would be involved, with your respective parts
[Especially since you’re looking to run multiple AIOs / eventually 1 elaborate CLC]

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Lol give me a couple months and I wouldn’t mind selling my Meshify 2 for like 75 + shipping? Been wanting to switch to white :wink:

Lol but yeah, Fractal, Phanteks, and Corsair are the people to look at. Almost guaranteed to have something you’ll like.

Personally, I’d be buying the Torrent if I was buying new, I think. That or Meshify 2 Compact?

Also. Advice: AIOs on GPUs are a waste.

I would honestly just stick to air cooling or go full custom. I use CPU AIOs but that’s because theryre legitimately easier to work with when you’re constantly in and out of case and need to get at things.

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Modern cases are giving you 2… And people’s recommendations mostly agree…
Fractal Define 7 gives you… 7 I believe weirdly enough. Overpriced as F@#£, but it still gives you HDD capacity.

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Fractal Define 6 gives you 8 x 3.5" Drives + Optical Drive (you will need to order several extra drive trays) + 2 x 2.5" back uf motherboard tray + probably a couple more somewhere in the case

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I don’t know what your experience has been but I have been using EVGA hybrid cards since the 1080 with absolutely no issues.

They run 24/7 doing distributed computing and never breach 50° C. I have had as many as 17 gpus running in my hosts. Just set and forget.

Easy to fit and install. There is always some place for a 120mm fan/radiator in any case.

Just commenting based on data from both my own comparisons using multiple custom loops vs air and plenty of tech reviewers.

While you’re components MAY (depends on the setup because plenty of air coolers can match a 120mm) run cooler under water, the actual performance differences are so negligible as to not matter in the majority of use cases.

Edit:

Yours is a very different use case, given you have a bunch of cards sandwiched next to each other, so I would not use that as a point of comparison.

It doesn’t matter how many cards you have stuffed in a case, what matters is the temps the cards run at.

I have mixed hosts with the majority of cards being AIO hybrids with a lone air cooled card in the mix also. The air cooled card runs much hotter, normally in the high 60’s to low 70’s range and it can’t match the clocks of the AIO hybrid cards. Simply because of the GPUBoost algorithm.

The cooler the card temp, the farther along the boosting curve the card can run. So higher clocks equal higher performance and more work done per day.

I don’t want to derail the thread further, but I was drawing attention to the fact that a cluster of GPUs don’t do well on air cause they don’t have space to breath.

Anyway, yes, I’m aware on how the boosting algorithm works. I also currently have a 3090 running at low 30 C on water. I’ve also tested it on air at 60-80 C on air. I can confirm that the gaming performance is astonishingly negligible and does not matter unless you’re specifically trying to eek out like an extra maybe 10 fps, and not even that sometimes.

Opening up MSI Afterburner and tuning the cards yourself will get you within spitting difference of each other.

You don’t need to take my word for it either, you can look at the dozens of reviewers that will also confirm this.

Hell, Noctua collaboration with Asus has an Air Cooler hitting AIO temps of 50s too

When you’re making money and mining and such and definitely when you’re running a cluster, a 10% difference scales differently, but the majority of users only care about gaming and casual stuff and the difference really could not matter.

That’s all I’ll leave this that since I don’t want to drag out the discussion here further. I’d be happy to debate the topic in a dedicated thread, if you’d like, where others can also way in on water vs air

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I moved from a Corsair H110 to an NH-D15 because the pump in the AIO died, and tbh it’s a tradeoff. I can just about put RAM in my motherboard around the cooler. I can’t get at the clip to replace my GPU. Getting at my m.2 drive means taking the cooler off then taking the GPU off. It’s kind of a pain in the arse. Thermally it’s no different from the 280mm rad, and doesn’t have the moving parts that seem to die after 5 years, but it’s definitely a tradeoff on convenience.

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30c on water, please turn on your house heater!
but anyway, i love cooling discussions because i legit can’t participate in it, Aircon does the heavy lifting where i live, with my PC and my wife PC in the same office (since the pandemic), if we turn off the Air con we get a really nice sauna, if we put a cluster of 6-7 1080 in the space we are in atm im pretty sure you can cook an Egg if you leave it on the table

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