Awards: Best & Worst PC Cases of 2019
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Date: 2020-05-06
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Comments and reviews: 10
zetapal
Phanteks Eclipse P600s, much more to work with, quieter, sturdier, roomier, and so much flexibility. You'll never get the feeling of having to stuff everything in there and it's still a mid-tower case! Do you have large hands? I've built PC's for years and insist on quiet, roomy cases. You can put almost any sized AIO radiator in it in either top or front orientation without modification. If you want to do a custom water loop Barrow makes a nice waterway plate for this case. Me? no, I've decided to go all air cooling. I'm using the 3 fans they provided up in the top tray and then 4 Noctua industrial black case fans, 3 in front and one in back. Oh and look, they provided a nice hidden fan hub with plenty of 3 and 4 pin headers. Plenty of fans means more airflow at lower rpm/fan so it stays quiet. Then I'll be using a Noctua NHD15-S to cool the cpu. For the case, I chose the subtle two toned black and antracite gray paint scheme (choose all black if you want to hide, black/gray if you want to be handsome, or black/white if you want to be a storm trooper, and to brighten the interior I painted the 4 sliding plastic panels with some battleship gray primer. I'll probably be installing one of the Ryzen processos, (3700x, 38, or 39, in there sitting on that MSI motherboard with all the IO (Prestige X570 Creation. I already have a Seagate 850 Titanium sitting in there and the build is a Soviet Submarine themed build and its called either Crazy Ivan or Red Storm Ryzen, can't make up my mind which I like better. No rgb fans but I am doing a trick with running some luminescent plastic fibers under the cpu coolers Chromax covers connected optically to my own rgb diode connected to MB header. No rgb on the RAM either, so all rgb will be subtle and synched; some will bleed out from under the MB and maybe some indirect illumination in the power cage So this is a flagship build with a great case. Now, I wonder if I can convert that space up in the back into a drive bay, hmmm. So much to work with!
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Phanteks Eclipse P600s, much more to work with, quieter, sturdier, roomier, and so much flexibility. You'll never get the feeling of having to stuff everything in there and it's still a mid-tower case! Do you have large hands? I've built PC's for years and insist on quiet, roomy cases. You can put almost any sized AIO radiator in it in either top or front orientation without modification. If you want to do a custom water loop Barrow makes a nice waterway plate for this case. Me? no, I've decided to go all air cooling. I'm using the 3 fans they provided up in the top tray and then 4 Noctua industrial black case fans, 3 in front and one in back. Oh and look, they provided a nice hidden fan hub with plenty of 3 and 4 pin headers. Plenty of fans means more airflow at lower rpm/fan so it stays quiet. Then I'll be using a Noctua NHD15-S to cool the cpu. For the case, I chose the subtle two toned black and antracite gray paint scheme (choose all black if you want to hide, black/gray if you want to be handsome, or black/white if you want to be a storm trooper, and to brighten the interior I painted the 4 sliding plastic panels with some battleship gray primer. I'll probably be installing one of the Ryzen processos, (3700x, 38, or 39, in there sitting on that MSI motherboard with all the IO (Prestige X570 Creation. I already have a Seagate 850 Titanium sitting in there and the build is a Soviet Submarine themed build and its called either Crazy Ivan or Red Storm Ryzen, can't make up my mind which I like better. No rgb fans but I am doing a trick with running some luminescent plastic fibers under the cpu coolers Chromax covers connected optically to my own rgb diode connected to MB header. No rgb on the RAM either, so all rgb will be subtle and synched; some will bleed out from under the MB and maybe some indirect illumination in the power cage So this is a flagship build with a great case. Now, I wonder if I can convert that space up in the back into a drive bay, hmmm. So much to work with!
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Akib
I am sorry I had to press the dislike button because imho dust filters are extremely important. I would say dust filtering is most important in a case, and sound suppression is second most important feature. You have to understand that, not every one of us live in 24/7 air conditioning. A months of dust buildup in a non filtered case is a nightmare to clean (specially those fan blades) and its very bad for computer parts. Do we really need to care that much about thermals for most systems? Two intake one exhaust, even if filtered, should simply maintain a tolerable temperature even in a OCed system. I hate to say but the way your are focusing on thermal performance and ignoring dust filters/noise suppression feels like a promotional gimmick of your awards. For most of the users, a case that gets the job done thermally is most likely enough, we dont need the best thermal case in the market. However, utilities, features and things that makes the system more secure, and makes maintenance less hassle free are important. Looks are personal preference.
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I am sorry I had to press the dislike button because imho dust filters are extremely important. I would say dust filtering is most important in a case, and sound suppression is second most important feature. You have to understand that, not every one of us live in 24/7 air conditioning. A months of dust buildup in a non filtered case is a nightmare to clean (specially those fan blades) and its very bad for computer parts. Do we really need to care that much about thermals for most systems? Two intake one exhaust, even if filtered, should simply maintain a tolerable temperature even in a OCed system. I hate to say but the way your are focusing on thermal performance and ignoring dust filters/noise suppression feels like a promotional gimmick of your awards. For most of the users, a case that gets the job done thermally is most likely enough, we dont need the best thermal case in the market. However, utilities, features and things that makes the system more secure, and makes maintenance less hassle free are important. Looks are personal preference.
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durrik
Curious, in your video review of the 011 Dynamic, you said the best air cooled setup was 3 intakes on the side to cause positive pressure forcing air out through anywhere it can. This gave you the best results in terms of temperature and is in my opinion, better looking than your 011 Dynamic XL. So I'm wondering, why the two intakes on the bottom with the one exhaust in the back in the XL build? Was it tested? Did it prove to have better thermals in this setup? Asking because I'm doing a build in the 011 Dynamic in the coming weeks and I am going to be running air until I can afford a 360mm rad (probably Corsair. Looking for the best fan cooled setup for this case. I have 4 Corsair HD120 120mm RGB static pressure fans. 2 NZXT blue 120mm fans (prefer not to use because of the blue light. Also 2 corsair fans that came with my H100i v2 AIO. Just wondering what the best setup on air with this amount of case fans is. Using the stock wraith cooler on the 3900x until I get a 360mm rad.
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Curious, in your video review of the 011 Dynamic, you said the best air cooled setup was 3 intakes on the side to cause positive pressure forcing air out through anywhere it can. This gave you the best results in terms of temperature and is in my opinion, better looking than your 011 Dynamic XL. So I'm wondering, why the two intakes on the bottom with the one exhaust in the back in the XL build? Was it tested? Did it prove to have better thermals in this setup? Asking because I'm doing a build in the 011 Dynamic in the coming weeks and I am going to be running air until I can afford a 360mm rad (probably Corsair. Looking for the best fan cooled setup for this case. I have 4 Corsair HD120 120mm RGB static pressure fans. 2 NZXT blue 120mm fans (prefer not to use because of the blue light. Also 2 corsair fans that came with my H100i v2 AIO. Just wondering what the best setup on air with this amount of case fans is. Using the stock wraith cooler on the 3900x until I get a 360mm rad.
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Evan
I'm in the market for a new case, and I appreciate your reviews on cases. I have had the NZXT Noctus 450 White since it came out. I recall your constant annoyance at NZXT's lack of focus on airflow for their new branding of design. I am a big fan of nzxt and the direction they are going, I look forward to their future adaptations in to airflow focused cases. I feel like the last time they had anything close to a MESH case, was the Noctus 450. I'm currently debating between the Fractal Design Meshify C and the Phanteks P400A. I want a small form factor that fits everything I already have in the Noctus 450. Hard to pull the trigger though. Thanks for all your videos!
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I'm in the market for a new case, and I appreciate your reviews on cases. I have had the NZXT Noctus 450 White since it came out. I recall your constant annoyance at NZXT's lack of focus on airflow for their new branding of design. I am a big fan of nzxt and the direction they are going, I look forward to their future adaptations in to airflow focused cases. I feel like the last time they had anything close to a MESH case, was the Noctus 450. I'm currently debating between the Fractal Design Meshify C and the Phanteks P400A. I want a small form factor that fits everything I already have in the Noctus 450. Hard to pull the trigger though. Thanks for all your videos!
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Zerethon
My build is actually in a Versa J24, If you rip the foam out of the front (Easily done by bending the tabs and pulling the metal grille off) and replace it with a couple layers of the nylon-type window screen material, you get the Look of the foam where it dulls the fans down, and some filtering, but the windowscreen mesh doesn't affect the thermals anywhere near as bad as the foam did, as it lets a LOT more air through the front. Add in some new PWM fans (6x corsair LL120's in my case) so you can ramp them up as needed, and it's a wicked little tower.
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My build is actually in a Versa J24, If you rip the foam out of the front (Easily done by bending the tabs and pulling the metal grille off) and replace it with a couple layers of the nylon-type window screen material, you get the Look of the foam where it dulls the fans down, and some filtering, but the windowscreen mesh doesn't affect the thermals anywhere near as bad as the foam did, as it lets a LOT more air through the front. Add in some new PWM fans (6x corsair LL120's in my case) so you can ramp them up as needed, and it's a wicked little tower.
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FastCode
Do the PC cases reviewed by Gamers Nexus assume that you want to do overclocking and/or water-cooling? I'm doing my first build in many years, and I like the quality of Steve's reviews, but I can't tell if they assume a higher-end config than I'm planning. (I'm planning to build with AMD X570 + 3700X, RX 5700 XT GPU, air cooling, and no overclocking. I'm not interested in LED bling, nor glass windows for showing the internals. I just care about ease of setup, good build quality, and good thermals and acoustics)
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Do the PC cases reviewed by Gamers Nexus assume that you want to do overclocking and/or water-cooling? I'm doing my first build in many years, and I like the quality of Steve's reviews, but I can't tell if they assume a higher-end config than I'm planning. (I'm planning to build with AMD X570 + 3700X, RX 5700 XT GPU, air cooling, and no overclocking. I'm not interested in LED bling, nor glass windows for showing the internals. I just care about ease of setup, good build quality, and good thermals and acoustics)
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Xirtax
Worst Trend: Nearly no clean looking cases with good cooling without those damn glass side panels or even versions without em. I don't want to look at my hardware, I buy stuff with good price-performance-ratio and don't want to pay attention to colors of PCBs and RGB and whatnot. And even if I'd do, personally, I still think it's not good looking unless it's atrociously expensive. Good looking optically closed case, shove that shit in there, bam, done.
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Worst Trend: Nearly no clean looking cases with good cooling without those damn glass side panels or even versions without em. I don't want to look at my hardware, I buy stuff with good price-performance-ratio and don't want to pay attention to colors of PCBs and RGB and whatnot. And even if I'd do, personally, I still think it's not good looking unless it's atrociously expensive. Good looking optically closed case, shove that shit in there, bam, done.
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0FFICERPROBLEM
I bought a Silverstone RL08 and it really is an awesome case. Inverted design (GPU in top) means you can have the PC to the left of you and see inside. It's a bit small though and I had to take out the ODD bay cause my Nitro 5700XT was too long. It's freakishly long. Would you consider reviewing it, possibly doing a build in it? I saw it in a video of yours last year at a trade show.
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I bought a Silverstone RL08 and it really is an awesome case. Inverted design (GPU in top) means you can have the PC to the left of you and see inside. It's a bit small though and I had to take out the ODD bay cause my Nitro 5700XT was too long. It's freakishly long. Would you consider reviewing it, possibly doing a build in it? I saw it in a video of yours last year at a trade show.
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American
Could be more complete this video. SFF and mATX categories, difference cases for air/water cooling, best open-frame case, more budget cases. I also think Phanteks P600S should be one of the finalists. Personally, I decided for Lian Li O11 Dynamic last week for my PC. Getting fresh air directly to the GPU is great, with a 360 AiO in vertical and 3x360 for exhaust.
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Could be more complete this video. SFF and mATX categories, difference cases for air/water cooling, best open-frame case, more budget cases. I also think Phanteks P600S should be one of the finalists. Personally, I decided for Lian Li O11 Dynamic last week for my PC. Getting fresh air directly to the GPU is great, with a 360 AiO in vertical and 3x360 for exhaust.
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TheGoonDocks
Please do a best cases that is not just limited to just cases released in [current year]. In other words, what are the best cases out there that are still currently available, regardless of when they were released? The charts help a bit, but they can t capture things like build quality and features. so I am still left not knowing which case I should get.
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Please do a best cases that is not just limited to just cases released in [current year]. In other words, what are the best cases out there that are still currently available, regardless of when they were released? The charts help a bit, but they can t capture things like build quality and features. so I am still left not knowing which case I should get.
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