Looking for Medium / Large Case Suggestions

[Vilheim]

Hello Everyone,

I recently came into a bit of cash and have been looking at upgrading my PC case. The one I have now is not ideal, got it for $50 from Staples as a prebuilt case missing all the prebuilt insides.

Great deal at the time, but its kind of ugly, heavy, and has proprietary connectors for the front IO so I cannot use it.

 

I would be looking for something Mid tower sized, and it needs to have room for the following:

- 1 HDD 3.5 inch

- 4 SATA SSDs

- Asus 3070 Dual (267 mm card length)

- Preferably great airflow

 

Current Build

AMD Ryzen 7 5700G

NH-U12S redux 

Asus 3070 Dual OC

Not sure anything else matters for case compatibility

 

 

I am looking at spending up to $200 CAD if it comes with some decent fans, less if it does not.

 

I really liked the cases with the wood front on them from a style perspective, but a few that i looked at did not have enough room for drives. I also REALLY liked that new HAVN case, but it can only be ordered from their site in the US, is $200 USD and a bit out of the price range.

 

I have watched a bunch of Gamers Nexus videos too as they do pretty in depth case reviews, but I don't always know what ones are good or bad going into them, and a few I got excited about I found out later did not have enough room for my drives.

 

Any assistance would be great, bonus points if there is an LTT or GN video on the case as well or personal experiences with them. If it is a bit over the limit I can certainly wait until the sales at the end of the month.

Additionally I am not keen on small form factor cases, I like them to be bigger and have more room to work in as I do swap parts and work on my PC pretty frequently and plan on a new PSU soon, and a platform update in the next little while as well.

 

Any other questions I did not answer let me know.

 

Thanks.

 

[Dedayog]

13 hours ago, Vilheim said:

Hello Everyone,

I recently came into a bit of cash and have been looking at upgrading my PC case. The one I have now is not ideal, got it for $50 from Staples as a prebuilt case missing all the prebuilt insides.

Great deal at the time, but its kind of ugly, heavy, and has proprietary connectors for the front IO so I cannot use it.

 

I would be looking for something Mid tower sized, and it needs to have room for the following:

- 1 HDD 3.5 inch

- 4 SATA SSDs

- Asus 3070 Dual (267 mm card length)

- Preferably great airflow

 

Current Build

AMD Ryzen 7 5700G

NH-U12S redux 

Asus 3070 Dual OC

Not sure anything else matters for case compatibility

 

 

I am looking at spending up to $200 CAD if it comes with some decent fans, less if it does not.

 

I really liked the cases with the wood front on them from a style perspective, but a few that i looked at did not have enough room for drives. I also REALLY liked that new HAVN case, but it can only be ordered from their site in the US, is $200 USD and a bit out of the price range.

 

I have watched a bunch of Gamers Nexus videos too as they do pretty in depth case reviews, but I don't always know what ones are good or bad going into them, and a few I got excited about I found out later did not have enough room for my drives.

 

Any assistance would be great, bonus points if there is an LTT or GN video on the case as well or personal experiences with them. If it is a bit over the limit I can certainly wait until the sales at the end of the month.

Additionally I am not keen on small form factor cases, I like them to be bigger and have more room to work in as I do swap parts and work on my PC pretty frequently and plan on a new PSU soon, and a platform update in the next little while as well.

 

Any other questions I did not answer let me know.

 

Thanks.

 

Anything Fractal

 

I have the North and love it.  Also the Define R6 is a superb case, but my kid has it now and I visit it.. I mean him, often

 

Lian Li has a few good cases as well, the 216 I think?

 

Tons more, your requirements aren't out of the norm so any mid tower case is just fine.  Hyte, Montech, etc.

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

+1 for Fractal. They're making more or less the best cases on the market right now.

[Lurking]

What size are those drives? Because if 5 drives limit your case choice, it may be easier to get one or two m.2 drives

 

Most modern cases have fewer SATA options. So you would end up investing in a dated case. Cases with lot of drive space also often are not airflow cases. 

 

Just a thought

[Vilheim]

7 hours ago, Lurking said:

What size are those drives? Because if 5 drives limit your case choice, it may be easier to get one or two m.2 drives

 

Most modern cases have fewer SATA options. So you would end up investing in a dated case. Cases with lot of drive space also often are not airflow cases. 

 

Just a thought

I already have 2 M.2 drives as well  7 drives total.

M.2 for OS

2 TB M.2 recent purchase for Steam Library

4 TB HDD for Plex 

The other 4 SATA SSDs (500GB - 1TB) hold a combination of games from numerous services (Steam, Blizzard, Epic) and some backup images in case of OS failure. I am a bit of a game hoarder, but its mostly due to keeping games around that my kids like to play occasionally and they do NOT have the patience to wait 30 mins for a download.

[Lurking]

Just now, Vilheim said:

I already have 2 M.2 drives as well  7 drives total.

M.2 for OS

2 TB M.2 recent purchase for Steam Library

4 TB HDD for Plex 

The other 4 SATA SSDs (500GB - 1TB) hold a combination of games from numerous services (Steam, Blizzard, Epic) and some backup images in case of OS failure. I am a bit of a game hoarder, but its mostly due to keeping games around that my kids like to play occasionally and they do NOT have the patience to wait 30 mins for a download.

It sounds like fewer larger drives would work. I assume all the drives happened over the years. But if you buy new, one large m.2 partitioned for OS and storage and one large SSD or HDD for backup should work. But now you have what you have. 

 

If you plan to consolidate later, you could buy a case with fewer 2.5" spaces and put those SSD just in and lay them on the bottom, or velcro them to something. 

[TPCEA]

I've reviewed each of these. 

 

The Kingdom Classico Storage Master has the space and you can remove the storage cage array near the front. Not heavy.  It's sold under various names, last of which I saw was DarkRock.

 

The Antec P20C is larger, not heavy and meets your needs, plus it has a GC anti-sag support. There are 2 or 3 more in that same Performance Series that might also work. The I/O panel on this is better than the above. 

 

I can't recommend the Silverstone Seta A2 despite meeting your other requirements because it is quite heavy, even without the storage cage array.

 

The DIY-PC N1 E-Sport is smaller than the others IIRC, but I think it won't tick your boxes because there's a shortage of mounting points (2 and 2).

 

Some of the Corsair #000X and D cases have what you want but you should check the weight. I find my 5000X to be very heavy with everything in it. 

 

You could check Zalman as I'm pretty sure they have something but, then, there are lots of other options. 

[Vilheim]

12 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Anything Fractal

 

I have the North and love it.  Also the Define R6 is a superb case, but my kid has it now and I visit it.. I mean him, often

 

Lian Li has a few good cases as well, the 216 I think?

 

Tons more, your requirements aren't out of the norm so any mid tower case is just fine.  Hyte, Montech, etc.

 

Thanks, I looked some more and think I will have to go with the North, I really like the look and its in the price range (and can possibly go on sale in the next week or two).

PC Part Picker doesn't do a great job with Drive compatibility it seems, but the North is only one 2.5 drive bay short, and I can find a way to make that work.

[Vilheim]

2 minutes ago, TPCEA said:

I've reviewed each of these. 

 

The Kingdom Classico Storage Master has the space and you can remove the storage cage array near the front. Not heavy.  It's sold under various names, last of which I saw was DarkRock.

 

The Antec P20C is larger, not heavy and meets your needs, plus it has a GC anti-sag support. There are 2 or 3 more in that same Performance Series that might also work. The I/O panel on this is better than the above. 

 

I can't recommend the Silverstone Seta A2 despite meeting your other requirements because it is quite heavy, even without the storage cage array.

 

The DIY-PC N1 E-Sport is smaller than the others IIRC, but I think it won't tick your boxes because there's a shortage of mounting points (2 and 2).

 

Some of the Corsair #000X and D cases have what you want but you should check the weight. I find my 5000X to be very heavy with everything in it. 

 

You could check Zalman as I'm pretty sure they have something but, then, there are lots of other options. 

Thanks for these, I will take a peek. My issue was never with finding cases that match the requirements, that is easy, it was with trying to figure out which ones were good and bad from the giant list on PCPartPicker.

Appreciate the feedback and recommendations, I had not looked at nay of those yet. 

[Vilheim]

1 hour ago, Lurking said:

It sounds like fewer larger drives would work. I assume all the drives happened over the years. But if you buy new, one large m.2 partitioned for OS and storage and one large SSD or HDD for backup should work. But now you have what you have. 

 

If you plan to consolidate later, you could buy a case with fewer 2.5" spaces and put those SSD just in and lay them on the bottom, or velcro them to something. 

Thanks, my 2 M.2 slots are already filled (and drives mostly full too). Seems like I would pick up a larger SATA and put my two 500 GB drives into it in the future.

I can manage to jank mount one SATA drive for now which opens up my options a fair bit and brings in some cases I was actually excited for.

In hindsight my main issues appear to be that PCPartPicker doesn't handle drive compatibility the best and the vast amount of cases available was overwhelming.

[Lurking]

14 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Anything Fractal

I would avoid brand recommendations. Yes, Fractal is good. But their build quality and design detail varies. I had the R5 and that was a tank and well designed for the use case. I also have the Torrent compact. While that is great for cooling design, fit, finish and details aren't as good and anyone building it the first time comes up with a list of improvements they should have included. Still a good case, though.

Also other of their cases suffer from stupid decisions. Like including 120mm fans for a case built for 140mm. 

 

You have to look at each case individually. Not just recommend Apple for every use case.

[freeagent]

I started buying Fractal cases in 2012, they are my preferred choice.

 

Torrent Compact + its big brother, and North series are pretty nice.

 

With those 2x big fans, you could get into semi passive cooling. Works well in the TC.

[thrasher_565]

10 hours ago, Lurking said:

I would avoid brand recommendations. Yes, Fractal is good. But their build quality and design detail varies. I had the R5 and that was a tank and well designed for the use case. I also have the Torrent compact. While that is great for cooling design, fit, finish and details aren't as good and anyone building it the first time comes up with a list of improvements they should have included. Still a good case, though.

Also other of their cases suffer from stupid decisions. Like including 120mm fans for a case built for 140mm. 

 

You have to look at each case individually. Not just recommend Apple for every use case.

all company's make good case and bad and there no perfect case and never will be. cases still dont have hinged doors even thow there like $80 case with it...

 

the torrent did have problems but i think they fix some with the compact.

 

i can go on and on about problems but i wont like my $350 lian li evo...

Edited November 21, 2024 by thrasher_565

[TPCEA]

9 hours ago, Vilheim said:

Thanks for these, I will take a peek. My issue was never with finding cases that match the requirements, that is easy, it was with trying to figure out which ones were good and bad from the giant list on PCPartPicker.

Appreciate the feedback and recommendations, I had not looked at nay of those yet. 

Sure. Here's the Classico that I mentioned above.

[TPCEA]

If you want to spend a lot of money, take a look at the SilverStone Alta D1, which Gamers Nexus called one of the best cases of 2024 based on mechanical design.