Atrax

That's amazing. Where are you from? In Croatia it's 200USD+ . The cheapest is listed 193$ and it's not available. Anyways, I went with the Enthoo Pro M.

Just found an Enthoo Pro M for 93$. Called the store and reserved it. Thanks for reminding me I should take another look at it. It really is everything I need from a case and it looks really nice. Cheers

I've been checking out few local stores here in Croatia. The tech prices are ridiculous here. Usually if something costs 100USD in the US, here it'll be 100€+, which is not funny at all. Same goes for games, 70€ for a GTAV? lol...nope.

Yup, I've been looking at that one as well, it really does check all the marks for me. That front intake filter is really nice to have. I've seen it is reviewed very positively across the board. It is however 30$ USD more than Core 2500 for example, 20$ more than Spec-03...I don't know... It's so nice though... Dammit... Uhm, yeah, that case is 180$ where I'm buying, so no. Even the used R4s are over 100$ here, which is silly. But thanks anyways.

Hello. The rig is i7 2600k(stock cooler), single R9 280X, ATX board, one HDD and no optical drives, all aircooled. The primary objective is to keep that damned GPU under 80 degrees Celsius and keep the dust out as much as possible. The Spec-03 seems to have the best airflow, the front panel is very open, but not filtered. I could mod that later on though, with some sponge filters. It is ugly as hell but I don't care. Spec-01 has a much finer mesh in front, but it is not available where I'm buying. http://www.corsair.com/en-us/carbide-series-spec-03-red-led-mid-tower-gaming-case The Core 2500 seems to be better build than the other two, it looks nice and has included fan controller. The front panel worries me a bit though, it has sponge filters but the intake is handled only by those two slits on the sides of the front panel. Considering I have to cool down that 280x better, this is a slight worry. It does accept two fans on the intake though. http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/core-series/core-2500 The Versa is a bit of an unknown, I'm struggling to find a decent review, but it seems to be like a compromise between the two, looks nice and has decent airflow. I've never had anything from ThermalTake so I have no idea if their cases are any good. The H34 and H35 models are identical in construction, I think the only difference is the front panel design. http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002473 I was also thinking about Antec GX300, Raijintek Agos, Zalman Z3 Plus and CoolerMaster N400, but I have ditched all of those for reasons that escape me at this point. The Centurion5 I use now is a nightmare for this rig, specially the GPU, it isn't providing any air to it with a single 80mm fan in the front and a single 120mm in the back. I will be using four Scythe GentleTyphoons 1800rpm, two in the front for intake, and for exhaust one on the back and one on top of the case. I will probably ditch the included case fans so those are not a factor. Watercooling is of no interest for me, something to keep in mind. In near future I will probably go with SSD only, so a removable bottom HDD cage would be a nice adition, I believe only Fractal has it modular. If someone has a better idea, or owns some of these cases, any input would be appreciated. Cheers

I'm choosing a new case for my build, after a week of searching, I've narrowed it down to these three cases. They are all exactly the same price in my local stores (60$ US), which isn't helping the decision. The setup is basically an i7 2600k with stock cooler, a Powercolor R9 280x non reference, an Asus P8Z68 V-Pro, CoolerMaster SilentPro M 600 and a single WD Blue HDD. I'm also waiting for my Scythe Gentle Typhoons to arrive so I'll be using those for cooling (couple of 800rpm ones and a couple of 1850rpm). Couple of desicion factors: 1. The rig will be only air-cooled (I might just grab a Hyper 212 EVO or something in that category for my CPU, and that's it). 2. I need decent airflow because that 280x is dispersing so much hot air into the case so fast, at the moment I have serious issues with exhausting that hot air out of my ancient Centurion 5. 3. It would be great if the bottom HDD cage is removable (for better airflow), cause I plan to mount the HDD underneath the optical drive and just let it sit on some silicone anti-vibration pads because the noise of it is killing me, pretty much the only thing I can hear apart from that silly 280x under load. Unless these new HDD cages have some serious isolation going on in them, I'm not installing that HDD in there. It's the latest 1TB Blue model, the EZEX. It's super fast, I'm really impressed for that price and essentially it is silent, but vibrates a lot, makes the entire case buzz. I've read tons of reviews, and they pretty much boil down to the same thing, those are all decent cases. But, in spite of the reviews and all, I'm having trouble finding real world actual user experiences and feedback in terms of using them, not just reviewing. I lean towards the GX500 the most because it looks very clean, seems to have really good airflow and has a side panel fan mounting that I might use as an intake for that damned GPU. So, yeah, any help would be appriciated. Keep in mind that I chose those cases according to my budget and according to what is available in my local stores, so the feedback from users of these cases would be fantastic. In terms of that budget, there are also the Z1, the CM Elite 430, CM K380, Antec VSP5000 and an NZXT Gamma Tower in that range. I ditched all of those only based on the aesthetics. Cheers

I actually managed to aquire four of these (2x 800rpm and 2x 1850rpm) just today, brand new with packaging, 30$ US in total. So happy right now. Considering they are 30-50$ a pop+shipping to my country from ebay, I guess it's a steal Now just to find a decent new case for those puppies, 'cause this ancient Centurion 5 is giving me (and my 280x) headaches. I'll probably go for the Antec GX300. EDIT: Oh, right, the replacement for the Gentle Typhoon is apparently the Grand Flex, and according to few reviews I've read, they did not really deliver the noise/performance ratio of the Typhoons, I guess because Scythe lost partnership with Nidec Servo who made motors and bearings for them (hence the silence). I wonder who owns the majority of the Typhoon's design...If it's Nidec, they could rebrand it and sell it again. EDIT #2: Upon further research, it seems that Nidec owns the entire design. Scythe owns only the brand naming, packaging etc... So in theory, Nidec Servo could just rebrand these and sell them.

I wonder if DX12 (or any new API for that matter, like Mantle) will actually change something in terms of integrated GPUs as well. If you have both integrated GPU and a dedicated one, it always bothered me why couldn't they work together. You did pay for it essentially, but it's just sitting there doing nothing. I understand the GPU in my 2600k can't do much on its own, but I guess you could utilize it well for some tasks and take the load off of the CPU and dedicated GPU? I'm no expert, but it seems like a common sense to me, just an issue in how our current APIs and drivers work. It just seems to me like a waste of processing power. AMD kind of solved this with their APU and Hybrid Crossfire, but that's not really what I have in mind and in reality it's used only in notebooks. I do recall Dirt3 having some kind of an option there for Intel HD Graphics, but never actually checked out what was it for. I would like to see new APIs actually utilizing our hardware more efficiently, hardware that we payed not a small amount of money for, rather than having more realistic motion blur and godrays and bling, which is what they like to brag about when releasing new APIs and new game engines.

Same as me, the GPU is on the higher side of temps and really loud, and if you keep the fan at 65% which keeps it semi-silent, it gets to 90-95C and throttles down. I think I might actually cut out a hole on the side panel where the GPU is because most of the air it is dispersing hits that part of the panel. The rest of the temps seem to be fine, just that freakin GPU. I actually decided to go with the Blademasters from CM. They seem to be very good all arround performers, high airflow, high pressure, just not very silent at full speed. I don't mind since I'm not building a silent PC, and I'm thinking they won't be any louder than the cheap-o fans I have installed now. I'll for sure go with a new case in a couple of months, after summer maybe, but till then I have to tame this bastard. I was thinking about Zalman Z3 or something in those lines, nothing too fancy. Just nice cooling and decent cable management.

So, bottom line, I should go with the pressure optimized fans, you think. Ok.These from newegg aren't available here, not even that CoolerMaster, and shipping to me would be a copule of fans worth so it's not worth it I need one 80mm front and one 120mm back, and maybe one 80mm for side panel, only I'm not sure how to configure it. I'll have to go with the Silencio for 120mm, and see if they are available in 80mm, if not I think I could find some Arctic or Fractal in that size. Cheers

You mean for a new case? I'd first like to try with upgrading the fans and configuring them properly, those Silencio and JetFlo are around 15$ a piece, so some 50$ in total would be OK I think to at least somewhat improve the cooling. Noctuas and such are out of the option because they are 35-40$ a piece and that's not even remotely affordable here. There is a very slim choice here for decent mid-tange fans, so...

So, I have this ancient Centurion 5 I got few months back when I was building my new PC. I have one 80mm fan in front for intake and one 120mm for rear exhaust. They are some noname cheapo fans, pretty silent in general as I mounted them with silicon plugs. But they generate very bad airflow. When at 100% I can barely feel any air comming out of the exhaust fan and the PSU exhaust. The GPU is dispersing a ton of heat while gaming, it gets to 82C after 2hrs of Dying Light for example, and the CPU goes to 62, which I think should go down, specially GPU. The GPU fans spin up to 90% and it's very loud at that speed, I would liketo keep it at 65% max. I guess I should first try to upgrade the fans, do I need pressure fans or airflow ones? I've read tons of forums on this topic, but different people have different opinions on this. The fans on the case also have obstructions in front or behind them, so I should use pressure fans? Other people say that for cases I should use airflow ones like CM JetFlo or something. I do plan to cut out the mesh on the rear fan mount and install a 120mm gril from my old PSU to enable better airflow, so I guess I could use an AF fan there. There is also a side mount for a 80mm fan nex to CPU. I was thinking about setting it as exhaust to disperse out some of that GPU heat, cause after a while my side panale gets really warm where the GPU is. For the AP fans I had in mind the new Silencio from CM, and for AF a JetFlo. They are arround 15$ US in my country so that's kinda affordable. I woukd like to give this case another chance because I really don't like the idea of spending 150-200$ for a new gaming case right now. I also did some work on silencing the config, it outputs 38db at full load during gaming, since I have headpbones for gaming I don't need it to be silent. At idle it's almost silent. So if someone has some suggestions or advice, I would appriciate it. Oh, I forgot, the rig is Asus P8Z68 V-Pro, i7 2600k@4.0 GHz stock cooler, Powercolor R9 280x, Coolermaster SilentPro M 600W.