How important is the choice of PC case for a self-built video editing system?

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

This is important. In fact, I can no longer recommend most of the Antec-branded gaming cases because they are cramped on the inside even though they look big on the outside (specifically, the permanently-integrated drive cage gets in the way in those cases, and the cases can barely fit a typical X58 motherboard as a result). With my Nine Hundred, I had to completely remove the motherboard just to connect additional internal SATA hard drives to the front-edge-mounted ports. And it offers barely enough room (length-wise) to comfortably fit my current HD 5770 in there without having the cables and connectors bent or pinched by the card and case.

Originally Posted by Robert M Wright

Looking at photos of the insides of a Cooler Master Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN2-GP, I can all but promise that it won't cool hard drives, under a load, nearly as reliably as the Antec Nine Hundred (or Twelve Hundred). The Antec Nine Hundred's hard drive cages are somewhat unique in their design, essentially insuring excellent forced airflow above and below each hard drive. Throw a hot running Maxtor HDD in that Cooler Master case, and I can assure you that it will have a shorter life-span than it would in the Antec. (Not that I would recommend Maxtor HDDs nowadays - unless you need a HDD that doubles as an egg fryer.)

I took the above two quotes from earlier threads about PC builds.

On the topic of adequate case ventilation, I also found the Antec Nine Hundred (and Nine Hundred Two) to be very limited as to which PSU can be used with it. Because those cases offer no room at all whatsoever between the bottom of the PSU and the bottom panel of the case, the PSU to be used with those cases should have a single 80mm fan at the rear of the PSU. {For the record, I used a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W (not to be confused with the newer and IMHO inferior-quality Silencer II) PSU with the Nine Hundred, but also found it not very well suited to the case because it has way too many nondetachable cables, which are very thick and extremely stiff. And the cable management features of the Antec Nine Hundred something cases are very rudimentary, amounting to no more than two plastic straps tied down to the motherboard mounting panel. Those two combined resulted in the cables themselves choking off much of the case's ventilation.} The PSUs with large fans at the bottom of the PSU are not really suitable for use with these Antec cases because the PSUs must be turned upside-down so that the fan faces up - but all that does is to suck the heat from the PSU itself back into it (since radiant hot air tends to rise straight upwards), significantly reducing the efficiency and/or maximum usable power output of the PSU and may lead to early death of the PSU.

And the Antec Nine Hundred case (as stock) cannot accomodate some of the tower CPU coolers. I had to cut one of the two plastic supports of the side panel's fan mount just to even fit a Noctua NH-U12 SE2 cooler on the X58 motherboard. Plus, the Nine Hundreds are not as wide as some of the cases from other brands (yes, even cheaper cases).

I replaced the Nine Hundred with a CoolerMaster CM 690 II Advanced. (Also bought an Antec TruePower New 750W Blue PSU, which is partially modular, with the case.) However, my initial testing showed an increased CPU temperature with just the stock fans. The case can accomodate additional fans, including at least one left-side panel 120mm fan, an additional 140mm top-mounted fan and an 80mm right-side panel fan. (As shipped, it comes with one 140mm front fan, one 140mm top fan and one 120mm rear fan - plus separate blue LEDs around the front fan that can be turned on or off without shutting off the PC - in contrast to the blue LEDs on the Antec case fans, which are always on whenever the PC is turned on.)

If you have a favorite PC case, post your impressions in this thread.

Happy editing!

[Craig Coston]

I personally recommend any of the CoolerMaster FULL tower models, depending on one's visual taste. I've built numerous editing machines based on their models.

[Randall Leong]

Craig,

If anything, my new CM 690 II Advanced is larger on the inside than the Antec Nine Hundred (and Nine Hundred Two) cases, and also offers good cable management. However, the stock fans are designed for quietness first, performance second.

[Craig Coston]

I use stock fans as often as I use stock CPU coolers. =p

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

I replaced the Nine Hundred with a CoolerMaster CM 690 II Advanced. (Also bought an Antec TruePower New 750W Blue PSU, which is partially modular, with the case.) However, my initial testing showed an increased CPU temperature with just the stock fans. The case can accomodate additional fans, including at least one left-side panel 120mm fan, an additional 140mm top-mounted fan and an 80mm right-side panel fan. (As shipped, it comes with one 140mm front fan, one 140mm top fan and one 120mm rear fan - plus separate blue LEDs around the front fan that can be turned on or off without shutting off the PC - in contrast to the blue LEDs on the Antec case fans, which are always on whenever the PC is turned on.)

Actually, I did not fully tell the truth about the fans that the side panel can accommodate:

The CM 690 II's side panel can accommodate one or two fans of any size up to 140mm (mounting holes are provided for 80mm, 92mm, 120mm and 140mm fans).

[Steve Loeffler]

Originally Posted by Craig Coston

I personally recommend any of the CoolerMaster FULL tower models, depending on one's visual taste. I've built numerous editing machines based on their models.

I second that on the CoolerMaster case. I built mine using the HAF932 and am very satisfied. The (3) 230mm and single 140mm fans produce a nice airflow that's not as noisy as I thought it would be. It's also got enough room to install a 2 car garage, if needed. :-)

[Randall Leong]

I might end up replacing my current CM 690 II with a HAF 932 Advanced (which is an HAF 932 with USB 3.0 ports instead of USB 2.0 ports on the case). I noticed that the exhaust out of my current case is warm to hot during encodes. That signifies too little intake flow (and the case cannot accommodate a second front intake fan at all, forcing me to install a side panel-mounted intake fan - and even that fan is restricted in size to 140mm). The only other place to mount a fan would be the second hole at the top panel - but the fan that's already pre-installed in one of the two top holes is already set for exhaust, and any fan next to it set for intake would have canceled the exhaust flow, making the thermal issues worse.

And yes, I could have replaced the stock fans in my current case - but with the smaller size of the replacement fans (constrained by the cutout and mount size), higher-airflow fans would have increased the noise significantly.

[Harm Millaard]

I actually am a big fan of the Lian Li PC-A77 cases. Big and plenty of cooling.

I have this system with 17 disks and two BR burners pretty filled up and have added a 25 cm low speed side fan in addition to the standard fans, but if the need arises, I can still add two more disks and still keep temperatures under control. Average hard disk temps are around 30° C even under load (environmental temp around 23° C), even though the system is overclocked to 3.8 GHz and running a pretty hot GTX 480 (around 50° C idle and when rendering around 65° C).

The big advantage IMO of the Lian Li cases is the build quality, the space and the looks. I hate all those fancy cases with all those colors. Just keep it plain and straight.

[Randall Leong]

Thanks, Harm. I feel somewhat better about my current case: Spending the $150 to $200 or so on a new case would have merely increased my maximum usable overclock by about 200MHz or so on my i7-2600K but would not have done much to solve the thermal issues of my totally reference GTX 470. As such, I would have spent so much money just for a relatively minuscule reduction in the total PPBM5 benchmark times. And to be quite honest, the CPU temps barely touched 70°C in my system's current case with the CPU overclocked to its current 4.5GHz during encoding.

Though if I were to build a completely new system, I would have picked that HAF 932 as a minimum. The Lian Li PC-A77 case is nice to have, but it currently costs double that of the HAF 932 (at least here in the States).

[Kyle Root]

I acutally just built my first ever computer system for video/photo/audio work this past weekend. (Although I haven't had a chance to install Windows and do driver updates yet).

Anyways, I got a Corsair Obsidian 650D and am really loving it. It was super easy to work inside and has very nice cable management features.

I plan on posting more details about my build after I get it all up and running.

Also, waiting till Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales saved me almost $500 in parts cost, so I am stoked about that!

[Randall Leong]

I just reassembled my system without spending a single penny. I discovered that the left side of the case was sitting flush against the side of the office desk. That choked off the circulation to the GPU. Next, I found that the fan on my system's CPU cooler failed. (The CPU heatsink was the original CoCage TRUE Spirit with a Thermalright LGA 1156 bolt-through kit - but I decided not to order a replacement fan that matches the CFM rating of the original fan that failed on me.) Luckily, I have a spare Noctua NH-U12P SE2 that I replaced when I still was using LGA 1366 because it did not cool well enough - until my PC placement is at least partly to blame for its thermal issues (running noticeably hotter than expected).

Therefore, I will attempt another PPBM5 run and see if the GPU issues remain. But so far, I moved the PC so that the left side of the case is about a few inches away from the side of the desk, and the temps at 4.5GHz are so far hitting only the upper 60s °C.

[Panagiotis Raris]

Cooler Master HAF 932; big, cheap, flexible, standardized. The HAF X is bigger and ostensibly better, but not for almost $80 more. I have built 5 systems now, all in HAF 932 cases. Never had any issues, and always quality. My personal system is pretty jam packed, 10 hard drives (8 in a RAID, 2TB storage and SSD for install/boot), etc etc. Moved it around dozens of times, solid case, nice features, great price.