Crapload of mATX cases--help?!

[aisle9]

I'm going to throw a crapload of cases out there, and if you've got any experience with one or more of them, please chime in? Compact is important, mATX is important for desk space reasons, cable management is important, sex appeal is a plus, flashiness is highly optional. Preferred dimensions would be around or under 15 inches deep and tall, around 8 inches wide. I'm more concerned about height and width than depth, but also don't want a 20" deep monster. For the record, my favorite case option is the Silverstone PS15, but it doesn't support my RM650i PSU, and that sent me back to square one. In an environment where 80+ Gold is worth more than actual gold, replacing that isn't happening. My eventual hardware is probably a Ryzen 5 3600 and an RTX 2070 Super, likely a blower because I like those for some reason. I currently have a R5 1600 and a GTX 1070 FE. The cases, in no particular order:

 

Enermax Marble Shell MS20

Pros:

• Lots of fan mounts and 3 included fans
• If RGB gets you laid, then this has loads of sex appeal
• Tempered glass

Cons:

• Where the hell's the air intake? Looks like a damn oven in there
• A little too tall for my tastes

Thermaltake Versa H18

Pros:

• Airflow baby!
• PSU shroud
• Great cable management room
• Fits my size requirements more or less perfectly

Cons:

• Availability
• Definitely will not get me laid
• Thermaltake's quality has taken a hit lately

 

 

Spoiler

 

Cooler Master Q300L and Q500L

Pros:

• The Q300L's size is pretty on point, just wider than I'd like
• Great ventilation and lots of fan mounts on the Q300L
• LOTS of cable management room
• Q500L offers full ATX compatibility in a case that's really not much bigger: expandibility

Cons:

• Acrylic window. Seriously. It's 2020. Twenty. Twenty. Acrylic should have been outlawed two years ago. Also, I fear this will scratch to hell very quickly because, you know, acrylic. Potential deal breaker.
• No PSU shroud. Not a deal breaker.
• Q500L looks like a damn toaster over with the PSU blocking most of the mesh and making a fan mount look...challenging.
• Might get me laid by a Borg drone. That's no bueno. At least tempered glass would get me laid by the Borg Queen. Which would be ok in my book. Maybe even Seven of Nine. She can assimilate me any time. I won't resist. Seriously, Cooler Master, acrylic?!

 

 

DarkFlash DLM21 Mesh

Pros:

• Looks like the S340 and Meshify C got drunk and made a baby
• Outstanding airflow
• PSU shroud
• Nails my size requirements
• No built in RGB features, but I'm only a $30 set of Aigo (who builds the case, btw) or Asiahorse RGB fans away from third base
• Tempered glass on a hinge
• Lots of colors, so I guess I could get a pink one and get laid. But probably not in the way I was hoping for.

Cons:

• Has a good star rating on Amazon, but several positive reviews from Asia--not a good sign on any PC or component. The most recent reviews have absolutely savaged build quality and quality control, and there are pictures to back it up.
• No rubber gromits over cable management holes. Not a huge issue on a black case, but on a white, green or pink one, yeah. Those cables are going to stand out like a sore thumb
• No included fans on a $65 case. Ehhhhhh...
• Their website...oh, their website...
  • Spoiler

    

InWin 301

Pros:

• Definitely sexy. "Hey baby, let's go to my place and play with my computer," would actually be a really good pickup line with this one.
• Perfect fit for my size hopes and dreams
• High quality, but of course it is. InWin.
• Hinged tempered glass

Cons:

• Not a lot of cable management room
• Bizarre cable management setup that requires you to break plastic tabs off of the case to feed cables through
• Probably weighs more than the women I hope to attract with it
• Strangest airflow setup I've ever seen. Intake from the bottom, outflow from the front and back. Even if you wanted inflow from the front, there's a tiny side slit blocked by cables. You'd need powerful (loud) static pressure fans to do it. I suppose you could reverse airflow so that the back is your intake along with the bottom fans, but no matter how you do it, that looks like a toaster oven.

 

Oh, also, the Cougar Spike. Single coolest case I have ever owned, and I regret selling it instead of keeping it forever. They're stupid expensive these days, though. But maybe, possibly, potentially worth it if I can find one at the right price.

 

Any thoughts on any of these? A final note: the jokes about sex appeal are just that. Jokes. Please don't rant.

[jaslion]

3 hours ago, aisle9 said:

I'm going to throw a crapload of cases out there, and if you've got any experience with one or more of them, please chime in? Compact is important, mATX is important for desk space reasons, cable management is important, sex appeal is a plus, flashiness is highly optional. Preferred dimensions would be around or under 15 inches deep and tall, around 8 inches wide. I'm more concerned about height and width than depth, but also don't want a 20" deep monster. For the record, my favorite case option is the Silverstone PS15, but it doesn't support my RM650i PSU, and that sent me back to square one. In an environment where 80+ Gold is worth more than actual gold, replacing that isn't happening. My eventual hardware is probably a Ryzen 5 3600 and an RTX 2070 Super, likely a blower because I like those for some reason. I currently have a R5 1600 and a GTX 1070 FE. The cases, in no particular order:

Spoiler

 

Enermax Marble Shell MS20

Pros:

• Lots of fan mounts and 3 included fans
• If RGB gets you laid, then this has loads of sex appeal
• Tempered glass

Cons:

• Where the hell's the air intake? Looks like a damn oven in there
• A little too tall for my tastes

Thermaltake Versa H18

Pros:

• Airflow baby!
• PSU shroud
• Great cable management room
• Fits my size requirements more or less perfectly

Cons:

• Availability
• Definitely will not get me laid
• Thermaltake's quality has taken a hit lately

Cooler Master Q300L and Q500L

Pros:

• The Q300L's size is pretty on point, just wider than I'd like
• Great ventilation and lots of fan mounts on the Q300L
• LOTS of cable management room
• Q500L offers full ATX compatibility in a case that's really not much bigger: expandibility

Cons:

• Acrylic window. Seriously. It's 2020. Twenty. Twenty. Acrylic should have been outlawed two years ago. Also, I fear this will scratch to hell very quickly because, you know, acrylic. Potential deal breaker.
• No PSU shroud. Not a deal breaker.
• Q500L looks like a damn toaster over with the PSU blocking most of the mesh and making a fan mount look...challenging.
• Might get me laid by a Borg drone. That's no bueno. At least tempered glass would get me laid by the Borg Queen. Which would be ok in my book. Maybe even Seven of Nine. She can assimilate me any time. I won't resist. Seriously, Cooler Master, acrylic?!

DarkFlash DLM21 Mesh

Pros:

• Looks like the S340 and Meshify C got drunk and made a baby
• Outstanding airflow
• PSU shroud
• Nails my size requirements
• No built in RGB features, but I'm only a $30 set of Aigo (who builds the case, btw) or Asiahorse RGB fans away from third base
• Tempered glass on a hinge
• Lots of colors, so I guess I could get a pink one and get laid. But probably not in the way I was hoping for.

Cons:

• Has a good star rating on Amazon, but several positive reviews from Asia--not a good sign on any PC or component. The most recent reviews have absolutely savaged build quality and quality control, and there are pictures to back it up.
• No rubber gromits over cable management holes. Not a huge issue on a black case, but on a white, green or pink one, yeah. Those cables are going to stand out like a sore thumb
• No included fans on a $65 case. Ehhhhhh...
• Their website...oh, their website...
  •   Reveal hidden contents

    

InWin 301

Pros:

• Definitely sexy. "Hey baby, let's go to my place and play with my computer," would actually be a really good pickup line with this one.
• Perfect fit for my size hopes and dreams
• High quality, but of course it is. InWin.
• Hinged tempered glass

Cons:

• Not a lot of cable management room
• Bizarre cable management setup that requires you to break plastic tabs off of the case to feed cables through
• Probably weighs more than the women I hope to attract with it
• Strangest airflow setup I've ever seen. Intake from the bottom, outflow from the front and back. Even if you wanted inflow from the front, there's a tiny side slit blocked by cables. You'd need powerful (loud) static pressure fans to do it. I suppose you could reverse airflow so that the back is your intake along with the bottom fans, but no matter how you do it, that looks like a toaster oven.

 

Oh, also, the Cougar Spike. Single coolest case I have ever owned, and I regret selling it instead of keeping it forever. They're stupid expensive these days, though. But maybe, possibly, potentially worth it if I can find one at the right price.

 

 

Any thoughts on any of these? A final note: the jokes about sex appeal are just that. Jokes. Please don't rant.

Could you wait with the upgrades both amd and nvidia are releasing new gpu's very soon and we are getting ryzen 4000 in fall.

 

Now for the cases:

Enermax: skip not much airflow
Thermaltake: Like you said

3 hours ago, aisle9 said:

Airflow baby!

Q300L: Solid cheap case. Needs extra fans but is a great case overall and dirtcheap

Q500L: Cursed bigger brother of the q300l that does everything so so wrong and is a horrible case

Aigo: Same as the thermaltake but bit harder to cablemanage

InWin: Low airflow baby

 

[Grabhanem]

I'd recommend against the Q300L/Q500L-- it looks like it should have plenty of ventilation, but the vents in the side panel don't actually have much real airflow so it turns into an oven very quickly.

 

I've heard good things about the H18, and I'm personally partial to the Meshify C Mini-- it's a little above your size requirements but it's one of the best airflow cases out there, and is an absolute joy to build in.

[Danny Peak]

The Q300L’s airflow isn’t any better than the W500L’s. With the boiling temps in England at the moment I was at 60°c idle so here’s my setup now

 

Spoiler

 

[Quickstrike]

12 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

 

Cooler Master Q300L

Pros:

• The Q300L's size is pretty on point, just wider than I'd like
• Great ventilation and lots of fan mounts on the Q300L
• LOTS of cable management room

 

Speaking from experience, stay away from Q300L.
Front IO cable are too short to be managed properly

The is no space to work unless you have baby hands, I as lucky to have my tool kits otherwise I would still be trying to plug wires in the MOBO

 

One the worst building experience I had in a long time.

[NickPickerWI]

Personal experience, the Thermaltake. It's the best all-rounder out of the bunch. I've worked in it a few times, and it's pretty exceptional for a budget option.

 

Yeah, it might not look the best, but are you looking for some fly-by-night chasing the latest thing catching their eyes, or someone who appreciates the grey stuff between your ears?

 

Looks will lose to performance every time...a little life lesson right here.

[aisle9]

28 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Could you wait with the upgrades both amd and nvidia are releasing new gpu's very soon and we are getting ryzen 4000 in fall.

Yes. The case is happening right away because I need one. My "old" ITX system literally exploded, and after misadventures with a B550I Aorus Pro AX piece of Gigabyte shi defective motherboard and an i3-5005U mini PC (which actually isn't half bad), I was able to get my Ryzen 5 1600/GTX 1050 Ti LP system up and running as a temporary replacement. The issue is that it's currently in an ABS R206-ITX slimline case, which doesn't leave me room for much of anything. Not even my GTX 1070. Everything else can (and will) wait until the right deal on a B550/R7 3700X combo comes along.

 

26 minutes ago, Grabhanem said:

I'd recommend against the Q300L/Q500L-- it looks like it should have plenty of ventilation, but the vents in the side panel don't actually have much real airflow so it turns into an oven very quickly.

 

I've heard good things about the H18, and I'm personally partial to the Meshify C Mini-- it's a little above your size requirements but it's one of the best airflow cases out there, and is an absolute joy to build in.

The size thing is the only thing keeping me away from the Meshify C Mini. I had a Meshify C and loved it, but even that took up more desk space than I wanted.

 

20 minutes ago, Quickstrike said:

Speaking from experience, stay away from Q300L.
Front IO cable are too short to be managed properly

The is no space to work unless you have baby hands, I as lucky to have my tool kits otherwise I would still be trying to plug wires in the MOBO

 

One the worst building experience I had in a long time.

Ok, this basically rules out the Q300L entirely, even if the acrylic side panel and toaster oven thermals hadn't yet.

 

2 minutes ago, NickPickerWI said:

Looks will lose to performance every time...a little life lesson right here.

I'm in the middle of a divorce that won't end because a pandemic is keeping a judge from even looking at it. Right now, I don't care if the case is all style, no substance. Give me a couple years and I'll go for a system in a little black case 100% of the time lol

[NickPickerWI]

1 hour ago, Quickstrike said:

Speaking from experience, stay away from Q300L.
Front IO cable are too short to be managed properly

The is no space to work unless you have baby hands, I as lucky to have my tool kits otherwise I would still be trying to plug wires in the MOBO

 

One the worst building experience I had in a long time.

I have sausage fingers, big fat hands.

 

One thing I've been doing as of late is installing the cooler last, so I can have easy access to the motherboard plugs, and I do all of my cable management before I plop the cooler on. It only took me about 30 builds before I realized a smarter build order.

 

If a case doesn't have a rear opening in the motherboard tray to allow for this, I do one of these things:

 

-Install just the parts of the cooler that will hold the backplate to the motherboard when it's on the bench. Choosing a Noctua, BeQuiet!, or other major brand will give me this.

-Cut a hole in the motherboard tray, and use black enamel nail polish on the edges after filing them down.

-If there's a way to get at tape after I'm done, tape the backplate to the back of the motherboard (I don't like doing this if I don't have to).

-Get a different case, and save myself the headache.

 

I hope this helps you in your future endeavors.

[TVwazhere]

I've used both the Thermaltake Vera H18 and The Q300L in builds. 

 

Q300L Build was fine. Honestly a users biggest gripe should be the airflow which a hole saw easily fixes  The cable management wasnt terrible. I should know, with a non modular PSU with 4 RGB fans; It wasnt terrible. 

 

The Thrermaltake H18 TG is nice, but the PSU shroud is completely solid, which actually provides little space between the GPU and the surface on most mATX boards, ESPECIALLY if your gpu of choise is more than a dual slot card. For the RX580, it didnt affect thermals much if at all, but more powerful cards could start to suffer thermally, at least in theory. Perforated shrouds have tested positively in GN testing vs solid shrouds for GPU thermals, and that was ATX. 

If you have any questions let me know