Kevin_Walter

I don't think it's necessarily that they were basic, I think they offered a lot of options for people looking to build something that looked nice without spending $250 on a case. NZXT can probably be credited with popularizing things like the PSU shroud and cable management bars that hide the wires being routed from behind the motherboard. They may not have been the first to do things like that, but these features became ubiquitous quickly after they started doing it.

I mean... if you compare the number of ratings on Amazon between any of NZXT's cases to any of the alternatives listed in this thread, NZXT seems to have quite a few more. Specifically, their h510 series of cases have almost 30,000 reviews maintaining a 4.5 star rating. So we can either say that they're botting reviews or something... or maybe they're not as unpopular as you're trying to say they are. Let's be honest. You go over to pretty much any PC showoff subreddit, you'll find an NZXT case within 5 posts. They're popular for a reason. Aesthetically pleasing, have a lot of nice features that makes building in them easy, and they're not extremely expensive (unlike some of NZXT's other products).

Sure, but my R9 390 peaked around 75c in my h500i and that was during stress testing. The 390 was far from a cool card, too. And of course you couldn't get rid of a stockpile of cases you were recommending people not to use. I'm not sure why that would be a surprise. Lol

Maybe it's just me being a total NZXT fanboy, but the hate for NZXT cases is entirely misplaced. I have an h500i, which I bought to replace an S340, and I love it. It's quiet and my Ryzen 7 3800X and Vega 56 stay perfectly cool under load. My CPU only hits about 60c (I have an NZXT Kraken X63 cooling it), and my GPU stays in the 60-65c range. Granted, my Vega 56 is Sapphire's Pulse variant, which had a smaller PCB and a full size heatsink with an open back, and I suspect that's a big reason for the frigid temps. For case fans, I only use the two on my radiator as intakes, and a single 120mm rear exhaust. I use NZXT CAM to control my fans, and I set them for positive pressure. All 3 of my case fans are linked to my CPU temp, and the rear exhaust is off most of the time. It only turns on when my CPU hits 60c. Most of the time, my intakes/rad fans are set to run at 40%, and those get kicked up a few notches at 60c when the rear exhaust turns on as well. This maintains positive pressure, and keeps my case super clean. I rarely dust it out because dust just... doesn't get in there. I pop the filter out, blow it off with some compressed air and that's it. Is the airflow as good as other cases designed specifically to be as full of holes and fan mounts as possible? No. But they're largely fine for the vast majority of people, case snobs and youtubers excluded. EDIT: By the way, I noticed you asked about air cooling specifically. The Kraken X63 is a relatively recent upgrade. I've had the case across two builds (I had my old 6600k and R9 390 in this case (that card could easily hit 70c under load), and I used to use CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo coolers on my processors exclusively. My temps were roughly the same. I generally don't OC my components, and I bought the Kraken cooler for aesthetic purposes.

I have never, and will never own a flagship card anywhere close to release. I bought a Red Devil 6800 XT because they're currently on Amazon for 670 bucks, and that's only $20 more than the MSRP of a reference 6800 XT. Considering I only buy AMD cards and all it takes is another crypto spike to inflate the price and severely decrease availability of AMD cards, I bit the bullet to retire my aging Vega 56. Not to mention, bots/scalpers are inevitably going to be snatching up the next gen cards when they launch anyway, and most people looking to buy them won't realistically be able to get one until next year anyway, likely at inflated prices. I say, if there's something you've had your eye on and it's now at a reasonably (for you) price... Buy it and don't think twice about it.

HDMI.

Nailed it! lol AFAIK, Playstation controllers still require a specific driver to function on PC, while pretty much every Xbox controller made in the last ten years is plug-n-play on all Windows PCs running at least Windows 8. I could be wrong though. I've always hated Playstation controllers.

I've never used the Logitceh F310, but looking at it screams "Mad Catz controller from the early 2000s" to me. Which means it will either break immediately, or last forever. Probably the latter. All Microsoft peripherals have a warranty though. If purchased new, the controllers have 1 year warranty. You can actually register them to your Xbox account and view warranty information at any time on their website, including when it will expire. I have a bunch of Xbox controllers, including the Elite V2. They make really good controllers as long as you baby them, but I will say the 1 year warranty isn't really good enough. The bumpers and/or d-pad on mine always seem to start registering double clicks and missclicks after some time, regardless of whether I've even been using them or not. I will say that the Series controllers are probably their best iteration yet though. As long as you don't get so mad that you start flinging controllers across the room, you should be fine with either in terms of durability.

I just saw this video today and I looked over at my NZXT h500i and thought "nope, this is fine..." NZXT now has "flow" versions of some of their cases, in response to the airflow criticisms. Whenever I inevitably upgrade my case, I'll probably get one of those. I've been a pathetic NZXT fanboy since my first Source 210 that I bought over 10 years ago, and I've been slowly increasing the number of things in my system that are branded by them. I even kinda wish I had one of their motherboards...

If it's a modular PSU, you may be able to get individually sleeved cables that would just replace the ones sent with the unit, or you could use sleeved cable extensions, but that can make cable management a chore and clutters up the back/bottom of your case. Looking at their website, it would seem be quiet makes their own individually sleeved cable replacements that are compatible with both of the PSUs you listed, but they only seem to sell them individually, and they're pretty expensive. That being said, the ugliest and most prominent cables are always the VGA and 24 pin motherboard cables, so if you just replaced those, it would look a lot nicer. Or you could always get a different PSU from a different manufacturer that sells full cable kits...

It does. The card has 2 8 pin connectors, and I believe my PSU has 4. But you just reminded me that I need to drive an hour back to my parents' place because that's where all my extra cables are. Ugh... EDIT: nevermind, my Vega 56 uses two 8 pins as well, so the new card should be mostly plug and play, I guess.

They're both equally ugly, so I'd go with whichever has the best features/highest ratings.

Yeah, that would probably be helpful, wouldn't it? Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Ryzen 7 3800X paired with an NZXT Kraken X63 G.skill TridentZ RGB 16GB 3200MHz And the usual litany of peripherals. Keyboard, keypad, mouse, 120mm exhaust fan, that 1TB ADATA NVMe ssd that was really popular a year or two ago, a 2TB WD Black, headset... whatever random amount of power all that stuff draws.

I just ordered a PowerColor Red Devil 6800 XT because they're only $20 over reference MSRP on Amazon right now, and it recommends an 850w PSU. I currently have an EVGA SuperNova G2 750w PSU that has served me extremely well for the however many years I've had it (I bought it not too long after the i5 6600k launched, if that dates it easily enough), and was wondering if an upgrade is actually warranted. I don't usually OC my GPUs. I've always had stability issues every time I tried and just don't really feel like fiddling with it. I was loking at NZXT's C850. Any thoughts on those?

One of the best looking ones imo is the Hyper 212 Black Edition, but I've used Hyper 212 Evo before, and while it's undoubtedly one of the best coolers for the money, I wouldn't really say it's in any way aesthetically pleasing. Not as good as just having the pump/block on your CPU and a couple hoses leading to your rad that's tucked out of the way, anyway.