Case suggestion?

[Linias]

Can you all suggest me a case? My requirements:

* Want something that looks futuristic / cool / sleek. I hate simple box cases
* side window
* going to make it water cooled. probably a dual radiator (120 fans?)
* need some decent front or front/top USB ports
* no front door that interferes with CD openning
* bottom mounted PSU

I have all the design sense of your standard house slug, so I won't be doing a lot of modding at this point. Although I am open to some easy mods as long as I don't have to draw or sculpt.

that said, I intend to put lighting in it, so i want it to look good with some lazer leds or something.

Price is not really a concern. Nothing like $1000, but it doesn't have to be sub $100 either.

[slaveofconvention]

I'd strongly suggest that you hold off for a month or two if you can - there are a fair few new case reviews heading soon to the TBCS front page, and we've had information from several of our vendors regarding soon-to-be-available cases too.

[Linias]

I can hold off a month. Don't want to wait 6 though. :-)

Do you know if any of the cases look like they will met what I am looking for? Just a yes or no will do.

And thanks so much for the quick and awesome reply!

[Linias]

oh... one more thing. want to keep it quiet. Ideally i wont know its on. Doubt that's possible. I am a gamer, and my cpu's get a workout. But my current rig sounds like an airplane is taking off when it moves into performance mode.

[Lothair]

There's not much out there when searching with your exact criteria. At least, not a lot I would personally recommend. I have a thing for quality and trusted brands.

Corsair Obsidian

There seems to be a lot of people who go with the Obsidian for water-cooling. Plenty of Google Images for you to look at. Although it's a fairly basic looking case. Most are. Especially with your exact criteria.

As for keeping your case ultra-quiet, I'd suggest acoustic foam padding. I think Nzxt actually uses it in their Whisper case. I tried to stay away from things with mesh paneling for this reason, as obviously that will not be very quiet.

[Linias]

How do you all feel about the In Win Dragon Rider?

[Lothair]

I'm not personally a fan of In Win, however that at least looks to be one of their higher quality cases, so it might be worth considering it.

Generally, most budget cases are made from 0.5mm steel. This one is 0.8mm and 1.0mm. That means it should be a bit sturdier and won't have as much flex. Most higher-end cases use 1.0mm, just to give you an idea. So it does seems to be a higher quality case at least.

I'd say it looks like it serves all of your needs near exactly, if not exactly? If that's the kind of case you're into and you're liking the design, then it looks like you might have a winner there. I personally don't see anything technically wrong with it.

[slaveofconvention]

Well I'm almost certain you'll be seeing one, or maybe two dragon riders in the hands of our staff fairly soon - no details yet, but they're (hopefully) coming, so again lol - waaaait :p

[x88x]

If you like the general look of the Dragon Rider, check out Cooler Master's HAF line. Way higher quality construction too. If you have a Microcenter near you, they usually have a big wall of cases on display that you can examine. That might at least steer you in the right direction. I would follow slave's advice though.

[d_stilgar]

I'm a fan of the Silverstone Raven. It flashy, but not too much. There's some cool stuff going on with that case.

I recently talked about ten computer cases I really like in a blog post and I think I also talked about it here as well.

I'm also selling my Cooler Master Stacker 830 here. It's now discontinued, but it's a very solid case. The mesh lets you see through to the inside of the case so a subtle lighting system would look really good in it. It has a door, though, and a top mounted PSU. The good thing is that you could mount many radiators in it pretty easily because it's a beast.