what/which is a really big pc case?

[Shambles1980]

ok so i always use full atx cases for my main system(s). but even these seem small to me. so what is the biggest full atx case available "without being stupid about it"
would like to have it taller and wider than a standard full atx case, Space to mount 2x 240 radiators at the back. (internally)
a decent amount of space at the bottom so i could have a couple of pumps with built in reservoirs, top mounted exhaust fan, those snazzy holes to rout psu wires behind the board where you want them. and atleast 5 5.2 bays. with the rest hopefully like 6 standard 3.2 bays..
all of this with a ventilated side no fan but a decent meshed cut out...

Anything like that on the market?

 

[sneekypeet]

Space to mount 2x 240 radiators at the back.

that is a really strange requirement, and would likely take a custom build to suit that need. If you are looking for large cases, look at the Corsair 900D, Phanteks Enthoo Primo, MountainMods, CaseLabs, even something like the Nanoxia DS6. There are a bunch of huge cases out there, but I have never seen one with 4 X 120mm fan mounting on the back of the chassis.

 

[Shambles1980]

yeah i havent been able to find one either. just figured i didnt know what to look for lol.
i would just make a case but my finishing skills suck. i could easily make the frame and everything to mount stuff in, but putting panels on it would be where i would epic fail and it would look like poop.

 

[sneekypeet]

There are cases out there that will hold your water cooling needs, just not in the rear of the chassis. Lots will hold a triple or quad 120mm in the top, front, maybe even in the floor, but most designers don't mess with much more than two fans in the back of the chassis.

If this is your first try at assembling a loop, read as much as you can on it, and look through as many images as you can find, it may throw a bunch of new ideas into your mind, and the original plans usually end up being changed once you find the right case. I would find yourself a chassis you find that you cannot get out of your mind, then plan the install since two 240mm radiators will go in a lot of the new cases out there today.

Also by a custom build, I mean that you could go through CaseLabs or MountainMods, and get the panels drilled how you want them. Both offer customization options in their builds.

 

[OneMoar]

if you are handy with a cordless drill and know your wall around your local hardware/home-store I can't imagine it would be to hard to rig up a duel rad mount
couple of strait brackets and a few L brackets and some nuts and bolts/washer and off you go

 

[Vario]

You could go wood case. I have been stockpiling components for a large wood case. For radiators/intake fans, use metal rad grills.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

HAF X is the biggest I know of but it would only fit two 200mm radiators instead of 240mm:
http://www.coolermaster.com/case/full-tower/haf-x/

 

[TRWOV]

There's the Corsair AIR 540. Basically two mid towers stapled together.

 

[Shambles1980]

air 540 looked promising till i made the picture bigger and that's not wide enough either..
(if you think about mounting 2 radiators at the back with 2x 120mm fans on each. with that width of case the gpu wouldn't fit and thatsd without thinking about the height.)

i wouldn't want to mount the radiators at the top of the case as that would just make the fans push warm air through the radiators.
i wouldn't want them at the bottom as its either going to push warm air out the bottom and straight in to my psu. or in to the case messing up my other cooling.
I also wouldn't really want them at the front either, i prefer having intake fans at the front.
it wont be my 1st custom loop. but last time i went over board and had a 20lieter plastic box outside the case for a resivuoir. the second rad had to be out side. the pump and small resivuoir were in the case. (i later replaced it for a huge fish tank pump that really made it look like a joke)
But the long and short of it was. there simply isn't enough room in a conventional case for a custom loop that will outperform good air cooling by enough to make it worth the hassle.
I guess if i want to go back to water I just have to make my own frame, maybe i can find some one to cut and mold acrylic sheets to go on to it afterwards.
But that air 540 did make me think i could buy 2 of these cheap and nasty full atx cases for like £10 and weld those together. and just use the outside one to house all the water cooling stuff.

going back to making my own from scratch though..
im no good with wood it always decides to split and stuff like that, so il just use angle iron or box sections or something similar, just stick them together with a mig or rivets or even nuts n bolts.

 

[eidairaman1]

Corsair,Lian Li, Silverstone,Aerocool/Rosewill,coolermaster,Antec/Chieftec

 

[OneMoar]

if your wood is splitting when screwing you need to predrill the hole
:sunglasses:

 

[Devon68]

maybe something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133072
you can take a look at the image in post #1794
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/naturally-aspired-pc-watercooling-club.52032/page-72

 

[Vario]

Yes don't need to even use screws just glue and clamp with simple butt joints. If you are careful in the clamping process you can get it looking pretty good and just sand it flush. For removable panels, drill a hole, run a bolt through with a nut on the other end. TitebondII glue is stronger than a screw if its clamped correctly.

Use pipe-clamps:

 

[Shambles1980]

maybe something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133072
you can take a look at the image in post #1794
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/naturally-aspired-pc-watercooling-club.52032/page-72

that has the same issues as most cases.. just dosent quite have enough space.. its not that far off. and i guess some angled pipe connectors could get around some of the issues.. but its still the same basic issue of not enough space.

 

[THE_EGG]

What about the Phanteks Enthoo Primo, I was seriously considering this case for myself but I couldn't get it as none of my local shops had it at the time I wanted it. It would be a dream for liquid cooling though. Also instead of having the bottom mounted rad pushing air through towards the ground, I'd mount it to have air pushed through INTO the case.

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/phanteks-case-phes813pbl

 

[MT Alex]

But the long and short of it was. there simply isn't enough room in a conventional case for a custom loop that will outperform good air cooling by enough to make it worth the hassle.

That statement couldn't be farther from the truth.

 

[AsRock]

Have a look on Mountainmods.com hopefully you will find one in your price range.

 

[Shambles1980]

What about some oldschool?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chieftec-...ting_DesktopComponents_RL&hash=item4d1ecfd27b

lol thats the ugliest case i have ever seen. But i would have thought about it if the price was right, i could mod it a bit, but its collection only and im no where near there. and if i managed to get them to post it postage costs would be ridiculous. watercoolinguk sell cheap cases with nasty little closed loop systems installed for about £60 delivered which would probably end up better than having to pay the postage on that monstrosity.

That statement couldn't be farther from the truth.

for me persoanlly.. to get the results from a custom loop i wanted to see took a LOT more rooom than i was willing to give up. and i had a good % of the loop outside of the case. The temps were great. but the space needed was a trade off i couldnt justify after a while.
Thats why i went back to good quality air cooling. This i5 i have does get a bit hot though. i cant delid the thing and according to everything there really is no reason to do that.
I will lap it a bit Hope to drop 2-5c off the max. and i have some SHIN ETSU X23-7783D coming that may drop it another 2c or so. So im probably looking at 4c drop in temps max 7c. which would probably be the best i can manage with air.
Ideally though i want to drop 10-20c off my current temps so i can push the oc further.
The only way i can do that is with a custom loop. But i wont sacrifice the space this time. It has to all be contained in the case.
if it cant be then i know in 5-6 months time i will just dissasemble it and throw it in the box with my old block rad and other bits.
So its probably a subjective thing. but to me that statement is 100% on the ball.
To get the drops in temps i need "and keep them there with 24/7 running" i have to have 2 rads a 2 bay reservoir, a pump you could empty the oceans with in 5 seconds. and a case that can hold all of it Inside it.

 

[MT Alex]

I noticed in your Q6600 thread that there is no sense in arguing with you when you have your mind made up, but rest assured that things have changed since your last McGyver attempt at water cooling. You also either have a high ambient or a poor chip, because the 2500k, mine included, has a reputation for low temps and high clocks.

 

[Shambles1980]

at 4.7 it gets to 85c with intel burn in test on max. in general every day stuff, and even other stress testing software it is in the high 60's low 70's at an absolute max and idles at about 30c (hottest core) "i dont know if for you that would be high clocks and low temps with air cooling, but i think it could be lower"
and right now that is the thermal barrier to prevent me pushing further.
so i have it at 4.63 right now..

my last water cooling was thermaltake big water. i just had to improve it.
after improving the water cooling the q6600 at 3.7 would idle at 22c and full load at 35c and those are temperatures that make the efforts worth while.
i went back to air though due to the space and temps rose by 30-40c under load. idle was only about 10c more.

p.s

The only real issue with water cooling is its hard to get the water back to ambient again. its really good at picking up heat. its great at that. but releasing it again is something that it really isnt great at. This isnt an issue if your computer doesn't stay on 24/7 365 but mine does. even at low loads it will heat that water up gradually until its not working at the correct efficiency. the only real way to combat that is to have a large reservoir and 2 big radiators..
As long as you can get the water back to ambient temps by the time it hits the reservoir your golden. if you cant manage that then you need a large reservoir so it has some additional time to cool before going back round again.

thats the only issue. and thats not something that bothers me, provided i can get a case large enough to hold it all in

 

[Vario]

What about some oldschool?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chieftec-...ting_DesktopComponents_RL&hash=item4d1ecfd27b

lol thats the ugliest case i have ever seen. But i would have thought about it if the price was right, i could mod it a bit, but its collection only and im no where near there. and if i managed to get them to post it postage costs would be ridiculous. watercoolinguk sell cheap cases with nasty little closed loop systems installed for about £60 delivered which would probably end up better than having to pay the postage on that monstrosity.

I have an Antec full tower server built by the same OEM and nearly identical to that Chieftec, it would be no good for watercooling. You'd have to cut out a lot of material to get larger fans and the layout is terrible. Its a nice case though. Weighs a ton.

I will lap it a bit Hope to drop 2-5c off the max. and i have some SHIN ETSU X23-7783D coming that may drop it another 2c or so.

Good call on the thermal paste but lapping the CPU probably won't gain you anything, I haven't seen too many benefit from Sandy Bridge and later chips with lapping.

To fit 2x240mm radiators you could try buying two cases with dual front 120mm fans and just duplex them (bolt them together).

Antec 300 (but not the 300 Two) is a possibility. You could put the pump and other hardware in the other case interior. I think the HAF 912 could work too.

 

[Shambles1980]

lapping the q6600 helped a bit, but having said that it wasn't a perfectly flat surface when i started. i cant say i have noticed any irregularities in the i5. i have re mounted the heat sink the other day and cant say anything looked alarming with the thermal paste's spread, with the q6600 you could tell there was a low point when you looked at the thermal paste after removing the heat sink.

i was hoping to eek out a couple of degrees c reduction from a decent lapping. but it does seem like this 2500k is a good surface to mount on.. and the ihs on them have good solid contact. i would like to just get rid of the IHS and mount directly. but from what i have seen most who try it kill the chip. and the only reall way to do it is to cut the seal then heat up the ihs so the solder melts, i could hit it up with my rework station, but if it has that sort of contact to the ihs i dont see any reason in doing that either.

 

[Vario]

Don't delid a 2500k, you won't gain anything from it.
Here is an example of a vertical doubled case

dual hafs horizontal cases

dual lian lis

i think you get the idea lol


another idea is a test bench

 

[kiddagoat]

I would second a mountainmods case.

http://www.mountainmods.com/

You can pretty much customize it the way you want it to be.

 

[Shambles1980]

Don't delid a 2500k, you won't gain anything from it.
Here is an example of a vertical doubled case

dual hafs horizontal cases

dual lian lis

i think you get the idea lol


another idea is a test bench

i never thought of stacking one on top of the other...
if i did that i probably wouldnt need a second full atx case.. I probably have a case here some where i could use..