Having a hard time finding a X99 and NAS case

[DAOWAce]

TLDR? Check the list summary.

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So I've been putting together an X99 build for the last few days and I seem to always come to a brick wall when it comes to case choice for my builds.

I've been using a HAF-X for the last ~5 years across a few builds and it's to the point where I absolutely hate it. It's old, it has no native SSD support, it's very open so it lets sound out like no one's business, the tool-less optical drive bay design is awful, needing thumbscrews for pretty much everything is awful. The fan filters are terrible and don't filter dust very well at all; the inside of my case gets covered in days. The 'rugged' design is just a dust cleaning nightmare and it's hard to remove the front and top plastic panels.

 

What I do like is the hot swap bays.. but there's only two of them. They contain my backup RAID. I have 4 more HDDs sitting in storage because there's just nothing for them to fit into. The rest of my drive bays are full of SSDs. I thought about getting some converters for my 5.25" bays, but with the amount of noise penetration from the case, I don't want to have them running. The side GPU support bracket is nice.. but you can't use it with the duct, nor with any odd-sized GPU (pretty much any custom HSF), so it's never been used. The side duct is also nice for actually reducing temperatures (I've tested it), but it also can't be used with a GPU unless you turn it.. and with dual GPUs it's completely unusable, so I recently had to take it out as I finally re-'upgraded' to SLI. The side panels are incredibly beefy, but very heavy, so it's both a love/hate with them, but wow do they scream quality.

Now, I know they've revised the case since then to support newer technology better, but I'm just done with it at this point.

 

I've just spent the last 9 hours looking through cases. Cosmos II, Phanteks Primo/Luxe, Phantom 820, Thermaltake T81/10GT, Corsair Graphite 760/780/Obsidian 750/900, Fractal's offerings.. just, nothing seems to be flawless. One case has a feature I want yet misses a bunch of others. One case looks alright overall, yet has multiple flaws mentioned in reviews.

 

I just can't find a full tower case that meets my needs.

 

Cosmos II: Has the same hot swap bays as the HAF-X.. and pretty much everything else. Is bigger, heavier and bulkier. Too big and bulky. Too much of a cable mess. Has amazing looking hinged side panels, and that's most of the reason why I wanted it over the others. But.. no side 200mm fan, and dual open air GPUs could really use them. Can mount smaller fans instead, but smaller fans get noisy for their airflow, and I don't have the clearance measurements for it. Reviews also mention it doesn't use its size well compared to similar cases (900D). Oh, and it costs nearly double the HAF-X.

Phantom 820: Phenomenal cable space behind the tray, fan layouts just like the HAF-X (in fact, it's quite a lot like the HAF-X), integrated fan controller and lighting system... and design flaws/annoyances all over the place according to reviews. It's also one of the older cases. It's not all too bad looking, but it seems like it could just be.. more.

Primo: This was the case I was ultimately going to settle on as it averaged decent features across the board, despite lacking a side fan at all and everything being 140mm. Back accessed drive bays was another issue too. Built in fan controller with a ton of fan support, excellent looking stock cable management, fairly expansive, mod friendly (though I'd probably not use it), SSD mounts on back of tray.. In fact, if it wasn't sold out at Newegg I probably wouldn't even be writing this post as I would've bought it in a fit of frustration.

Luxe: A more budgeted Primo with some differences I can't quite remember now.

T81: Was another choice of mine. The dual door side panel was the main focus of this for me as that would lessen the need for hot swap bays. I debated it, until I read a few reviews. Poor quality plastic attachments, fan filters and other misc issues.

10GT: I've always thought this was a stupid case for years, then I finally looked into it. 200mm side fan, check. Hot swap bays? Count: 5 of them! Amazing! Then I read reviews.. the SATA interface is extremely faulty and apparently limited to SATA2. And the design looks like it's a huge dust issue. Dismissed, sadly.

760T: Same hinged side panels as the Cosmos II, but they're huge, flimsy, and swing backwards. Whole case is relatively budget oriented from my point of view.

780T: Amazing side panel latch mechanism; love this type the most.. but aside from the back SSD mounts, it's otherwise not a case I'd want to use.

750D: Reasonably sized compared to the 900D, nice back mounted SSD bays.. a bit too small and too basic otherwise.

900D: Love the bottom compartment and the one button removal side panels, seems even a drive or two can be hot swapped.. but everything else about it is just a bit too old. It's also obscenely large and has more space than I'd ever use. And like the Cosmos II, expensive.

Fractal: The XL is just too basic and old and the R5 is a mid tower. They don't seem to have any other adequate cases.

Bitfenix: Similar to fractal; no real suitable cases I've seen.

Antec: Older cases.

 

(And as for something like CaseLabs.. yeah, I don't quite have that much money to spend on a case.)

I just cannot find a suitable case for the life of me. All the ones that seem to have great features (like the latch side panels or a fully run SATA power connector chain to all the drive bays) are mid towers. All the ones with silence oriented features (even just simple sound dampening material) completely skimp on airflow. These full towers all have some issue or two, or ten, that makes them not ideal.. and so here I am asking for help.

 

To summarize, I'd like a case that:

• Has enough internal space and enough drive bays to connect to a fully loaded ASRock Extreme11 motherboard (with either multiple hot swappable ones or a large covered 5.25" bay that can be converted over).
• Supports both air and liquid cooling; AIO and custom loops. (I have an NH-D14 but will be transferring to an H105 then a custom solution in the future).
• Has easy to remove side panels that don't need tools or thumbscrews to be secured.
• Has proper dust filters and not just generic metal mesh which barely helps. (HAF-X's revisions might've improved it, but I wouldn't know)
• Has 200mm fans (for airflow and silence) which include a side fan to support open air GPUs (which pretty much everyone uses). I don't know for sure how a non-side fan vs side fan actually compares with GPU and system cooling, but I am assuming a side fan helps more than a straight front -> back/top solution. (If not, please let me know!)
• Has adequate cable management room behind the motherboard tray to fit everything the hardware needs (that's 20 SATA data cables to that mobo + everything else).
• Side window preferred, but I'm willing to let it go if a case can match everything else.

Other than that, any additional features is a bonus.

My eyes are strained from reading and reading and reading and watching videos of so many things that I just can't look at text anymore, so I would greatly appreciate assistance in finding an ideal case for my build. Also, if anyone has recommendations for a 5.25" -> 3.5" hot swap converter bay, I'd like to hear them too.

Oh, and it's also 8AM and I've been up all night. Jeez.