Is this a good computer case?

DodgerDodger
edited December 2003 in Hardware
I hate to start multiple threads asking which hardware's the best but here it goes...

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-133-116&catalog=7&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1

As far as I know this baby comes decked out with 5 thermaltake smart fan 2 case fans. Here are the specs...

Case Type:Xaser II Tower
Color: Black
Material: 1.0mm SECC Japan Steel
Drive Bays: 5.25'' x4,3.5''(External) x2, 3.5''(Internal) x4
Expansion Slot: 7
Front Ports: USB2.0 x2,IEEE1394 x1
Power Supply: N/A
Cooling System: 80mm Fan Front x2,Rear x2,Side Panel x1
Mainboard Compatibility: Standard ATX,Micro ATX
Dimensions: 20.6''x8.1''x18.6''

So, is it good, bad, or just plain ugly? Total honesty is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
«1

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    The airflow in the case is thoroughly contradictory; that is there are several spots where air just runs into one another and destroys a healthy air pattern over components.

    It's also extremely heavy, and I think "Tacky" is too loose a word to describe it.
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    I'm not going for looks. Not to mention I could use a good work out...

    Anyway, aside from my personel problems, what makes you say the airflow contradicts itself?
  • madmatmadmat
    edited December 2003
    The fans are 80mmx25mm silent fans not the smart fan2's and with a 92mm blowhole in the roof added to it the airflow's not terribly bad.
    As far as the styling's concerned, it's one of thos things you either love or hate, I've yet to meet someone that thought they were just "ok".
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    It's all good... silent fans can cool my computer down anyday.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    The side case fan; it disrupts the airflow from bottom front to top back.

    But beyond that;

    The case is a black chieftec dragon series with a Vantec rheobus, and a new door.

    Why don't you just get a chieftec dragon and a vantec rheobus and save some money? That's how it works in my mind.

    :)
  • madmatmadmat
    edited December 2003
    I had an Antec 1080 that I windowed (with that same shape about 2 months before those hit the market) that I put a 120mm fan where the 80mm fan is in the window and a 92mm blowhole I added later and after putting the blowhole in the roof my case temps dropped considerably but without the top 92 the airflow was worse with the 120 running than without it.
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    So, I should order a 92mm case fan along with the case?
  • celchocelcho Tallahassee, FL Member
    edited December 2003
    my translation of thrax:

    the case sucks and is a waste of money. it is like a ricer.

    i agree with the guy. looks like a transformer (robots in disguise)
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    I'll say it again...

    I DON'T CARE IF THE THING LOOKS LIKE JANIT REENO JUST TELL ME WHAT KIND OF AIRFLOW AND SUCH IT OFFERS!!!
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Dodger had this to say
    So, is it good, bad, or just plain ugly? Total honesty is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    Thrax had this to say
    The side case fan; it disrupts the airflow from bottom front to top back.

    But beyond that;

    The case is a black chieftec dragon series with a Vantec rheobus, and a new door.

    Why don't you just get a chieftec dragon and a vantec rheobus and save some money? That's how it works in my mind.

    :)

    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-125-262&depa=1&section=3 ?

    I just typed that in there for show. I really don't care what it looks like.
  • madmatmadmat
    edited December 2003
    Well, that's a decent case but you won't have airflow over the PCI/AGP like you would with the fan in the side window, but as I said earlier with a fan in the side it really does need a blowhole to clean up the airflow and even without it (side fan) a blowhole still will help to remove the hot air trapped up by the optical drives.
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    Alright, so as I asked before, should I simply order a 92mm fan along with the case?
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-129-120&catalog=7&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1

    Same case, same place, same time, same price and whatnot but WITH a desent 400W psu and WITHOUT the shines as you stated you dont care about.

    I would choose

    flower.jpg

    but then again, i don't care about looks either :/



    (JK)
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    ;D

    Ownage.

    Seriously though, the case has a few flaws...

    1. no side panel fan option (if this is really considered a flaw)
    2. no ''blow hole''
    3. no idea what kind of fans it uses. That's a risk I really don't want to take.
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    It uses a bunch of 80mm fans. 4 or more at least.

    You CAN buy a separate door with window and/or a sidehole if you want later on. But i can tell you it doesn't help at all unless you funnel COLD air inside that hole. I have tested it with mighty powerful fans. No dice. Another thing with the Xaser which is the mother of all feckups IMO is that the harddrive mounts are rotated so that the cable mount is from the door-side if you know what i mean. Handy som would say but peeps with a SATA-PATA adapter won't hussah though. Can't mount those harddrives. No chance with the door on. That was at least on the reviewed case i saw a couple of months back. Maybe they have changed that now but i doubt it.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    Thrax, it's no worse than the Antec SX10x0 series, (which isn't all that great IMO, anyhow, but...)

    Dodger, what did you want in terms of noise and size?
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    As long as it's ATX and under 100 bucks i'll buy it.

    EDIT: so far, no one has mentioned anything that can't fixed with wrong with a 92mm fan in the case (other than looks). So, if no one mentions any other flaws i'll go ahead and order tomorrow or so...
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    That case doesn't take 92mm fans. I'll see what I can find and post it. You willing to modify a case a bit, or do you just want something that you can drop everything in and go, even if it's not as good as one that you've modified a bit?
  • madmatmadmat
    edited December 2003
    I had suggested putting a 92 in the roof as a blowhole to help clean up the airflow as I had done in my past Antec 1080pp.
  • Mr_BojinglesMr_Bojingles Northern Michigan New
    edited December 2003
    celcho had this to say
    my translation of thrax:

    the case sucks and is a waste of money. it is like a ricer.

    i agree with the guy. looks like a transformer (robots in disguise)

    Whats wrong with tranformers?! ;)

    I have the thermaltake lanfire vm2000. I like the case myself and it gets the cooling done despite its weird airflow pattern.

    BUT before anyone comes up and flames me for wasting my money on a supposedly bad case, hold up. Because shipping mistakes are the best :D

    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-133-117&catalog=7&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Chieftec Case...
    $46.00 with FREE shipping...

    http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-125-264&catalog=7&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    forgot pic... :doh:
    11-125-264-09.JPG
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    FatCat, that's the same basic case as the one he posted, except it's cheaper.

    It's got the same problems. It's a decent case, but I'm not particularly fond of it. I've worked with it before, and, like I said, it's OK, but it's nothing to write home about.
  • DodgerDodger
    edited December 2003
    So, what do you reccomend? My budget it 100 dollars.
    Geeky1 had this to say
    That case doesn't take 92mm fans. I'll see what I can find and post it. You willing to modify a case a bit, or do you just want something that you can drop everything in and go, even if it's not as good as one that you've modified a bit?

    I suppose, if I absolutely have to i'll mod the case a bit. Maybe add a blowhole and such.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    http://directron.com/fullall.html

    Any of the Matrix/Dragon cases on there that have 6 cd bays; they're identical to the Antec SX1240, which was discontinued some time ago. The ones with 4 cd bays will be identical to the one FatCat posted, except for the color and bezel style.

    Other than that, the Antec SX-835II (from Newegg) is better than the larger, more common Chieftec/Chenming/Antec etc. version, and it's similar to a SX1240 that's had the top 3 CD bays chopped off and 1 hard drive cage removed. The 3 intake fans on the 835/1240 style cases allow for better cooling than the more common, sx1040/1080 style cases, such as the one that FatCat posted.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    I'm very fond of my Lian Li PC-7. You might be able to find it for less than $100 (I did a long time ago) since it's technically Lian Li's budget model. It's all aluminum and has a simple straight-through airflow pattern where there's two 80mm fans blowing through the hard drives, where the air then moves diagonally across the motherboard to the single 80mm exhaust and the 80mm exhaust on my PSU. Number intake fans = number outake fans so the case doesn't pressurize.

    CAS-03200-00_full.jpg
    CrazyPC has it for $94.25

    It's all aluminum so it doesn't weigh hardly anything, and comes without a PSU so you aren't stuck with some junker Sparkle or Fortron PSU after you install a decent Antec or Enermax PSU of sufficient strength to power whatever you put in it.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    Drasnor, I'll bet that that LianLi has positive pressure problems, actually. Most power supplies have thermally controlled fans. Your PS fan is likely moving <20cfm most of the time, so it's effectiveness as an exhaust fan is negligible at best.

    1 80mm exhaust is passable for a modern (p4/athlon) system, but far from ideal. Why Lian-Li and Coolermaster insist on using a single fan still is beyond me, but they do, and that's one of the reasons I don't like their cases.

    I also don't like aluminum cases because the Lian-Li I worked on had had a lot of the screw holes stripped; the thumbscrews are steel, the case is aluminum. If you're not extremely careful when threading those screws in, you'll destroy the threads. The cases should have their screw holes lined with steel, similar to the way cars with aluminum engine blocks sometimes have steel cylinder liners to protect the block, but that's either too expensive or makes too much sense for Lian-Li or Coolermaster to do it.

    Bottom line:
    IMO, Lian-Li and Coolermaster are poorly designed (excepting the PC-70 & larger Lian-Lis), overpriced cases that are intended for people who care more about how their computer looks and/or how much it weighs than they do about temperatures.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Shrug. I don't know what you're talking about, since I've never had any of those problems and it runs pretty cool (42 C processor temp on my 1.8GHz P4) even with my rats nest of cables. I halfway-stripped a hard drive bracket hole, but I re-tapped the hole and all is well.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    What is the case temperature, though? And what HSF are you using? Also, does the top of the case ever get warm at all (like after folding for a while)?

    I've got some 1.7GHz Celeron systems at work, and they run ~38*C in Antec SLK-3700AMB cases (2 120mm fans; 1 intake, 1 exhaust) but that doesn't mean they're good cases. Far from it, in fact. I've got one that I bought because I thought they were decent, and it is one of the worst cases I've ever used. I had to put 2 80mm blowholes in it just to get halfway decent cooling out of it, and even with those, the only system I'll trust that case to cool is my 1.5GHz (1.3 OC'd) Celeron print server.
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