Do I really need 5.25" bays?

[PillowFortEngineer]

So I'm building my first pc in the next couple of months and I have decided to go with either Phanteks luxe or an evolv. Ima be air cooling at first but will make my own water loop once I learn how a radiator works. if you can find a compromise as well, that would be amazing, no more than what the evolv goes for ($180). Skylake gaming rig with gtx 1070.

 

----EDIT----: Thanks all for responses, gonna go with the evolv.

[HarryNyquist]

The only useful things I know of that go in 5.25 bays are optical drives and fan controllers. If you don't need either of those things then you probably don't need the bays.

[Lurick]

Unless you plan to do water cooling with an 5.25" pump/res combo or a 5.25" standalone res then you don't really need them.

[RuLeZ]

You can also use this bays with adaptors with up to 4x 2,5" drivers per 5,25" bay.

[Simon771]

You don't need it.

Who is still using CDs and DVDs today? Well not me for the last 5 years  

 

About pump + res combo for 5,25" bay ... don't get that. Get normal D5 pump + res combo and you are golden.

[LordMastodon]

Yeah, you're probably not going to need an optical drive (A.K.A Cup holder). You might want to have your fan controller there, but in all honesty people don't actually bend down and turn those knobs. It's kind of something that you might do in but after a week of two you're not going to touch those knobs for the rest of the time you own that computer, and when you finally disassemble it after years of CS:GO, you're going to look at those knobs and you're going to say to yourself, "Wait, that was there the whole time? How come nobody told me?!".

 

So, in conclusion, you probably don't need 5.25" bays.

[Monkey Dust]

3 hours ago, LordMastodon said:

Yeah, you're probably not going to need an optical drive (A.K.A Cup holder). You might want to have your fan controller there, but in all honesty people don't actually bend down and turn those knobs. It's kind of something that you might do in but after a week of two you're not going to touch those knobs for the rest of the time you own that computer, and when you finally disassemble it after years of CS:GO, you're going to look at those knobs and you're going to say to yourself, "Wait, that was there the whole time? How come nobody told me?!".

 

So, in conclusion, you probably don't need 5.25" bays.

Yep many years ago I bought a 5.25" fan controller, played with it for a week, barely touched it for the rest of the PCs (7 year) life. Not a huge waste of money, but since most MBs allow to control the fans from the UEFI, pretty redundant.

 

Optical drive is a bit tricky for anyone else to answer, how much do YOU use one? Since you're asking the question, I'm guessing not much. If it's only for occasional use, a USB optical drive is a good option if your preferred case has nowhere to install an ODD.

[LordMastodon]

33 minutes ago, Monkey Dust said:

Yep many years ago I bought a 5.25" fan controller, played with it for a week, barely touched it for the rest of the PCs (7 year) life. Not a huge waste of money, but since most MBs allow to control the fans from the UEFI, pretty redundant.

 

Optical drive is a bit tricky for anyone else to answer, how much do YOU use one? Since you're asking the question, I'm guessing not much. If it's only for occasional use, a USB optical drive is a good option if your preferred case has nowhere to install an ODD.

 

My laptop has an optical drive, and in the roughly 6 months that I've owned, literally the only time I have actually put a disc in there was troubleshooting whether there was a problem with someone's drive or someone's discs at the repair shop I work at. That's only time. Obviously, some people use it (case point two sentences ago), but I most certainly don't, but if you actually do still use an optical drive for that original copy of The Matrix, then by all means, since I'd say 75% of ATX cases have 5.25" bays. Although, Linus himself is against optical drives these days, and he's probably much better informed than I am, but anyway OP, if you genuinely use CDs/DVDs, go for an optical drive. If you don't use CDs/DVDs, there's really no point in 5.25" bays. Unless of course you have a kid that goes to a school that uses outdated technology like my school does. In fact I might've even seen some tapes change hands there one day (no, not really, it was actually an 8" floppy drive).

[1shanghai]

I would say it is much easier to use a USB external CD drive and you could use it to add to your setup