anidees AI Crystal Cube Airflow

[punisher64]

I'm about to switch over to an anidees AI Crystal Cube from my beloved Corsair 780T due to having a small one that is now walking and can get the front fan filter off. I have an NH-D15 on my CPU and a 980Ti.  I've seen one other post about someone having some air restrictions in the front, and I was debating putting Corsair 120mm SP fans up front (not AF...yes I'm taking Linus's advice).  Will these be good for this application or are there better?  I really don't have the cash to dump on NF-F12 or else I would.

[TVwazhere]

19 minutes ago, punisher64 said:

I'm about to switch over to an anidees AI Crystal Cube from my beloved Corsair 780T due to having a small one that is now walking and can get the front fan filter off. I have an NH-D15 on my CPU and a 980Ti.  I've seen one other post about someone having some air restrictions in the front, and I was debating putting Corsair 120mm SP fans up front (not AF...yes I'm taking Linus's advice).  Will these be good for this application or are there better?  I really don't have the cash to dump on NF-F12 or else I would.

I saw on anidee's facebook someone was using the ML120's which are like the SP120's but use a better bearing. So these should be fine. 

[punisher64]

1 hour ago, TVwazhere said:

I saw on anidee's facebook someone was using the ML120's which are like the SP120's but use a better bearing. So these should be fine. 

Yea they're what I was thinking about using since they're not badly priced and perform closely to the NF-F12.  I'm thinking 4 in the front, 1 rear and 2 top (in the back).  I've seen some people have issues with putting all 4 on top with the front 2 pulling the cool air out before is starts mixing which I don't want at all...

[punisher64]

@TVwazhere you think that is a decent case?  I saw a couple reviews that really praised it...but it's fairly new here in the states so I'm a bit worried that I did see the airflow issue (especially coming from a 780T).  I could send it back as soon as it gets here if the consensus is that it's not a good case.

[TVwazhere]

2 minutes ago, punisher64 said:

@TVwazhere you think that is a decent case?  I saw a couple reviews that really praised it...but it's fairly new here in the states so I'm a bit worried that I did see the airflow issue (especially coming from a 780T).  I could send it back as soon as it gets here if the consensus is that it's not a good case.

I definitely dont think its bad. The company is fairly new to me (I only became familiar with them from their crystal series they launched in summer of last year) so theyre not "well established" but that doesnt mean they dont know what theyre doing. Their regular mid towers did okay so I'd hope theyd do just as good as the previous version (looking at you Corsair 570x)

[punisher64]

2 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

I definitely dont think its bad. The company is fairly new to me (I only became familiar with them from their crystal series they launched in summer of last year) so theyre not "well established" but that doesnt mean they dont know what theyre doing. Their regular mid towers did okay so I'd hope theyd do just as good as the previous version (looking at you Corsair 570x)

Yea I noticed how similar they looked. I chose this one over the Air 540 for the tempered glass. Plus I think the other guy that had the flow issues was using a stock CPU cooler...so that doesn't help either.

[WoodenMarker]

11 hours ago, punisher64 said:

Yea they're what I was thinking about using since they're not badly priced and perform closely to the NF-F12.  I'm thinking 4 in the front, 1 rear and 2 top (in the back).  I've seen some people have issues with putting all 4 on top with the front 2 pulling the cool air out before is starts mixing which I don't want at all...

Where are you shopping and what's your budget? ML120's shouldn't be much cheaper than NF-F12's.

Why get so many fans?

 

[punisher64]

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 1:03 AM, WoodenMarker said:

Where are you shopping and what's your budget? ML120's shouldn't be much cheaper than NF-F12's.

Why get so many fans?

 

So many fans because of how restricted the air flow is in that case.  It's a shame really...it's beautiful. I'm actually sending the case back though, it's almost impossible to mount ssd's and run cables (the ssd's mount over the grommet holes) so I'm not quite happy with it. I'll be moving back into my 780T.  I found fan guards to keep his fingers safe...and I've kicked myself all weekend for moving to the new case

[PlotinusRedux]

On 3/27/2017 at 1:19 PM, punisher64 said:

So many fans because of how restricted the air flow is in that case.  It's a shame really...it's beautiful. I'm actually sending the case back though, it's almost impossible to mount ssd's and run cables (the ssd's mount over the grommet holes) so I'm not quite happy with it. I'll be moving back into my 780T.  I found fan guards to keep his fingers safe...and I've kicked myself all weekend for moving to the new case

I've been looking at this case but have only found 1 short review on youtube.

 

Is there are reason you didn't mound your ssd's in the drive cage rather than over the grommets, or did you just have too many drives?

 

Looking at the case, it appears you can mount 2x140mm + 3x90mm at the front on the inside of the case frame, but to mount 4x120mm at the front you have to use a bracket and mount them between the case frame and the front cover, giving at most 2-3mm of clearance at the front of the fans.  Testing I've seen indicates a large drop off in CFM for anything less than 15mm of clearance between most 120mm fans and an obstruction--is there a reason you didn't go with the 2x140mm + 3x90mm inside the case frame?

 

It also appears they have filters over the front fans themselves as well as in the side intakes of the front panel.  Those side intakes are pretty small to begin with, I would be thinking remove the side intake filters, leave out the block you put on the other side from the front panel ports, and just rely on the filter in front of the fans themselves, like most cases do.

 

I'd be putting 2 120mm x 240mm rads at the top as exhaust--I'd like to just put a single quad 240mm x 240mm at the top, but the only one I can find is 45mm thick, and the Anidees site says you only have 65mm of clearance--45mm + 25mm fans = 70mm, so 5mm too wide.  I'd worry about them being choked, though, so probably also a 120mm intake at the bottom and maybe a custom steel or aluminum panel to replace the right-side glass with a vent for the PSU so it's not also fighting to draw air from inside the case.  Or maybe it's better to mount the top rad fans as intake rather than exhaust?  Of course I'd have to try to mount the res and pump under or over the graphics card.

 

As one of the few people who've physically seen the case, do you have any thoughts on those plans?  Or should I just give this case a miss in your opinion?

[punisher64]

On ‎4‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 2:01 PM, PlotinusRedux said:

I've been looking at this case but have only found 1 short review on youtube.

 

Is there are reason you didn't mound your ssd's in the drive cage rather than over the grommets, or did you just have too many drives?

 

Looking at the case, it appears you can mount 2x140mm + 3x90mm at the front on the inside of the case frame, but to mount 4x120mm at the front you have to use a bracket and mount them between the case frame and the front cover, giving at most 2-3mm of clearance at the front of the fans.  Testing I've seen indicates a large drop off in CFM for anything less than 15mm of clearance between most 120mm fans and an obstruction--is there a reason you didn't go with the 2x140mm + 3x90mm inside the case frame?

 

It also appears they have filters over the front fans themselves as well as in the side intakes of the front panel.  Those side intakes are pretty small to begin with, I would be thinking remove the side intake filters, leave out the block you put on the other side from the front panel ports, and just rely on the filter in front of the fans themselves, like most cases do.

 

I'd be putting 2 120mm x 240mm rads at the top as exhaust--I'd like to just put a single quad 240mm x 240mm at the top, but the only one I can find is 45mm thick, and the Anidees site says you only have 65mm of clearance--45mm + 25mm fans = 70mm, so 5mm too wide.  I'd worry about them being choked, though, so probably also a 120mm intake at the bottom and maybe a custom steel or aluminum panel to replace the right-side glass with a vent for the PSU so it's not also fighting to draw air from inside the case.  Or maybe it's better to mount the top rad fans as intake rather than exhaust?  Of course I'd have to try to mount the res and pump under or over the graphics card.

 

As one of the few people who've physically seen the case, do you have any thoughts on those plans?  Or should I just give this case a miss in your opinion?

Hey Redux,

Sorry for late reply, I don't check this too often. The dive cage only supports 2 drives...I have 4 SSD's in total so I have to mount them somewhere else which wasn't going to work. As for the case fans, I mostly had 4 SP120's at the house already so I thought those would do. Also on the top, only one of the dual 120mm bays is "open" to the chamber with the motherboard. The other one kind of spans the top of the motherboard tray back to the back chamber. This is probably why they have the thin requirements on the rad size. I would actually probably mount your rad on the front of the case in the front chamber (similar to a standard not cube case) then exhaust out the top. Also, with this case my GPU temps skyrocketed without a fan as intake on the bottom (also keep it off carpet). 

 

Overall, I thought this case was a total nightmare to build in...but that's just because of what all I had to fit in it. For someone with 1 SSD + 1 HDD or even 2SSD + 1HDD (you can mount one ssd on the outside of the drive cage...it's weird) it would work well. Especially if it's a full water cooled build. It just wasn't for me in the end and I ended up selling it to a buddy of mine and moving back into my 780T.

 

If you have any other questions feel free to get back with me and I'll be happy to answer them!