advice A travelling tower pc

[MerlinNox]

Hi there!

I'm working on a build for a friend.

He plans to take his pc regularly along his travels - - - 1000km every other month by car. I was thinking to add expansive foam bags so the pc doesn't suffer too much.

 

He wants a big tower for convenient and minimal cleaning without fancy rgb stuff.

 

I need advice on the choice of the case, are there any good cases with handles and advanced filtering systems that dont hinder airflow too much ?

Lian-li has nice cases but they're too small.

Other models that seem interresting are :

- The VENGEANCE® C70 Mid-Tower Gaming Case

- Mastercase 5 by Coolermaster (the handles look w e a k!)

- ASUS TUF Gaming GT501 Mid-Tower Case (not a fan of the tempered glass...)

- Cereberus X (expensive but fracking neat edit: from EU... case + shipping = 400€ thats too much..)

 

 

 

Another point would be the cooling.

 

I'm hesitant about watercooling in general, and in the context of frequent moving even more.

Should I go for watercooling regardless or stick with good ol' noctua for the sake of peace of mind...?

 

The core components will be:

Ryzen 9 7950X

Rtx 3090

32gb DDR5 5600 mhz corsair vengeance (the only affordable ddr5?!)

Seasonic gx 850w

Motherboard: X670 but idk what manufacturer..

 

[ZetZet]

I have no serious input here other than to say that I think carrying handles are a stupid idea and it would be way better to shrink the case as much as possible. You dismissed Lian Li immediately, but from my perspective O11 AIR MINI is pretty much exactly what you need in this particular scenario. Easy to carry, small footprint when laid on the side, which is the safest way to move a PC especially with a chonker of a graphics card like a 3090 (why a 3090 when 4090/4080 are coming out next week?). And in terms of water cooling I don't think it's that big of a difference in terms of travel, they travel around the world to get to your door and survive, pretty sure you would be more careful with them than the delivery guys and 7950X really seems to benefit from a large AIO, like a 280. 

 

 

 

What I would do is get an O11 AIR MINI, configure it in a 5 slot config, get a B650 mATX motherboard, 280 rad in the top. That way you can stuff a 4090 in there if you wish. 

[MerlinNox]

17 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

What I would do is get an O11 AIR MINI, configure it in a 5 slot config, get a B650 mATX motherboard, 280 rad in the top. That way you can stuff a 4090 in there if you wish. 

Thanks for your input !

I was aiming for a mid tower because my friend insisted on this form factor, so I promised to investigate the options.

 

Small form factor cases will be more annoying to clean and he won't need to carry it far anyway.

 

For the gpu choice, I'll be aiming for an used 3090(still under warranty to avoid getting a fcked miner card) for a good price when the 4090 will come out in order to respect his budget.

That way I'll spare 600-900€.

The 4080 don't really seem to be worth 3090's...

 

Noted for the water cooling, thanks !

[ZetZet]

Just now, MerlinNox said:

Small form factor cases will be more annoying to clean and he won't need to carry it far anyway.

You do know that O11 AIR MINI isn't actually a small form factor case right? It just has the PSU moved to the side so it's short. The main compartment is comparable to most mid size ATX cases on the market.

[MerlinNox]

34 minutes ago, ZetZet said:

You do know that O11 AIR MINI isn't actually a small form factor case right? It just has the PSU moved to the side so it's short. The main compartment is comparable to most mid size ATX cases on the market.

No, I didn't look at it correctly (browsing on mobile -.-).

That's pretty cool then, I'll take a closer look ! Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Edit: The O11 air mini looks very neat indeed!