Watercooling Case Standards Proposal

[jayhall0315]

Dear Case Manufacturers -

For the past several years, many of you have made cases that you claim are 'designed for water cooling components'. The problem is that often, this is only true if you do extensive cutting with a dremel tool and then more modding. So, just as the power supply industry has the Intel ATX specifications to follow, I thought, since water cooling has now grown to a much larger base (from say 2000 to 2003, I mean), it is time for what I would like to call WCS 1.0 (which means watercooling case standard first edition). I would further propose that WCS 1.0 have three divisions, namely super tower, full tower and half tower. What follows is a draft of what (I feel …. and I am always right ) should be included in any case which is marketed to water coolers under the three divisions:

Super Tower -

1 – Precut mounting points for a 140.3 or 120.4 (or greater) 60mm thick radiator in the top or front face panel. (without blocking more than 1/3 of the top two or three DVD 5.25 inch slots)

2 – Room above the motherboard for a full 140.3 or 120.4 60 mm thick radiator with push/pull configuration 120mmx25 mm fans (without blocking access to the top of the motherboard)

3 – Precut holes and spacing for either a 140.2 or 120.3 60mm thick radiator that is front facing (behind the front panel) or bottom facing. (without obstructing the power supply cabling or drive cages)

4 – Support for workstation or HPTX standard (EVGA SR-2) motherboards, including 10 (or more) full PCI slots in the back of the case.

5 – Removable motherboard tray with cut outs in the tray for cpu waterblock removal and chipset waterblock removal if necessary.

6 – Room for up to four 13 inch (or longer) dual slot graphics cards, without hitting the top of the power supply.

7 – Room in the bottom of the case to mount a 250mm long power supply, with an extra 40mm of space to allow cables to flow out of the PSU and be routed behind the motherboard tray. The space between the bottom of an HPTX motherboard and the top of the power supply must be 25 mm or greater.

8 – At least 30 mm of space between the motherboard tray and the back panel, to allow plenty of room to hide cabling behind the motherboard tray.

9 – Minimum of six 5.25 inch front facing bay slots with tooless design for easy DVD, Blue Ray or Reservoir changes.

10 – Room to mount internally, ten or more 3.5 inch hard drives, with all 3.5 slots also being dual 2.5 inch compatible for Solid State drives (SSDs).

11 – One (or more) back mounted 140mm fans. One (or more) front mounted 140mm fans.

12 – Top or front facing mounted I/O hub that includes two or more USB 3.0 ports, standard headphone and microphone jacks, eSATA port and one Firewire.

13 – Minimum dimensions of 270 mm width, 625 mm height, 625 mm of depth (and those dimensions do not include the wheels, handles, etc...)

14 – Precut mounting holes for both rolling case feet (if the uses prefers) or top mounted handles (if the user prefers) with rubber grommets to conceal the holes if not in use (in addition to regular column case feet). Regular column case feet must be 25mm or greater in depth.

15 – Tooless motherboard mounting, tooless PSU mounting, tooless DVD mounting, tooless HDD/SSD mounting..... basically tooless everywhere.

16 – Both side panels, the top panel and the front panel can all come off easily and without tools

Full Tower – Similar specs to the Super Tower but for 140.2 or 120.3 60mm thick rads and EATX motherboards. Room for three 13 inch dual slot cards. Dimensions of 245mm x 590mm x 590 mm

Half Tower – Similar to Super Tower but down graded for 140.1 or 120.2 60 mm thick rads and ATX motherboards. Room for two 13 inch dual slot cards. Dimensions of 220mm x 525 mm x 590 mm


Basically, adapting a universal set of standards means that all future water coolers, will need to do a lot less dremeling. Also, to the many other experienced water cooling guys here at XS, feel free to add a specification, if you feel I missed something important.

- Jay

[jumper2high]

I'd love to see a case with at least 1/2 of these features for less than 300$

[MagisD]

90% of what makes watercooling great is the individuality. The skill you bring to the build what you learned.

The orginal ideas and mods.

I would love to see more WC cases but a full standard.... You might as well stick a coolit in a corsair and call it a job well done.


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[asura]

5 – Removable motherboard tray with cut outs in the tray for cpu waterblock removal and chipset waterblock removal if necessary.

CPU cut-outs are slowly becoming the norm with what are considered investment cases, however chipset/mosfet cut-outsmight be a little tricky, as there's much more variation as to the exact positioning of them and the more material the less material you have... to hold your expensive motherboard rigid with all it's heavy copper on it, and the heavy copper on your GPU's...

10 – Room to mount internally, ten or more 3.5 inch hard drives, with all 3.5 slots also being dual 2.5 inch compatible for Solid State drives (SSDs).

A big yes on this one. I'm currently trying to figure out how to shoe horn 8HDD into my case, but that's another story.

15 – Tooless motherboard mounting, tooless PSU mounting, tooless DVD mounting, tooless HDD/SSD mounting..... basically tooless everywhere.

I hate tool free junk, really I do. Adds to the cost, looks like pants, isn't much quicker than a couple of screws, and in my (all be it limited) experience doesn't hold drives/etc. as well.


I'd like a dedicated space for a MITX board, I want a small, light, always on system running as a file-server/print-server/web-browser, so that I only need to boot up my main system when I'm doing something serious. And an integrated KVM to go with that.

[Waterlogged]

I too despise tool free cases for all the same reasons as asura. When I look at new cases for my builds, two things I always make sure to check are; 1) if it comes with the crap on it and 2) how hard does it look like it'll be to take it off.

[BeepBeep2]

I'd love a mid tower case capable of:

2x120mm rad on top
2x120mm rad in front, with two 5.25 drive bays and three 3.5 bays tucked behind the rad (I'm saying just move the 3.5's back some)
Space for a pump

Oh well.

[Waterlogged]

I'd love a mid tower case capable of:

2x120mm rad on top
2x120mm rad in front, with two 5.25 drive bays and three 3.5 bays tucked behind the rad (I'm saying just move the 3.5's back some)
Space for a pump

Oh well.

I wish Silverstone would make a properly scaled down mATX version of the TJ07. While I prefer cases with horizontal MoBo's, I don't think I'd be able to restrain myself from buying one if they made it. Make it able to hold a triple and a double in the bottom with a full size PSU and I'd be set.

[Utnorris]

I just wish more companies would produce cases for horizontal MB placement besides a HTPC case. Stack two on each other and you have about the right size for a case that could do water cooling.

[Fitseries3]

OP...

you described mountainmods pretty well.

perhaps they should be first to receive this "standard" you talk of

[jayhall0315]

OP...

you described mountainmods pretty well.

perhaps they should be first to receive this "standard" you talk of

No case has all the items checked that I put into the Super-Tower specs, but you are right, the two that come closest so far:

Mountain Mods Ascension Extended
Lian Li V-2120 (soon to be released)

For the full tower specs, I would say the cases that come closest are the:

Lian Li PC-A71F
Lian Li PC-A70

[Fitseries3]

have you seen my MM ascension?

i have 2 hwlabs gtx560 rads and a gtx280 rad in it along with an evga sr2 and 4 gtx480s and dual 1200watt psu's.

if it were the extended version it would be near exactly what you listed.

[jayhall0315]

Curiously, Fit, what are you using all that for ? The most demanding non-folding thing I can think of at the moment related to gaming is perhaps Nvidia 3D Vision Surround, but even that is way overkill. If you lived in California and kept that rig on even 8 hours a day with four GTX 480s, drawing say 1200 watts, you would have a ~ $600 per month electricity bill.

[MagisD]

I have an extended acension on my work table right now. Its my current build, I still want to mod the crap outa it but don't have the tools or the space while renting.

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[Sparky]

Tool-less is a joke... Usually need to use tools anyway, they don't hold tight enough, whatever... Does putting in 4 screws really take so much time?

Thumbscrews are nice for the side panels, but other than that, standard screws are fine.

[Waterlogged]

Ummm Spots? That thing is bigger than a TJ07. While a nice looking case, it's not really my style. . .though, I suppose if it were made from Dark Walnut with a clear satin stain I might change my style but, I don't even want to know how much that would cost. I was thinking more along the lines of 220mm wide, 425mm high and 430mm deep.

[rehpyc]

Put another tally mark down against tool-less drive bays.

What does one need with 10 available slots for hdds?

[mav2000]

I'd love a mid tower case capable of:

2x120mm rad on top
2x120mm rad in front, with two 5.25 drive bays and three 3.5 bays tucked behind the rad (I'm saying just move the 3.5's back some)
Space for a pump

Oh well.

Well the 690 II does all that for you, right...only change would be a 240 at the bottom and not behind the front fans.

[MpG]

I'm going to say that not many of the points listed have anything to do with watercooling, so I'm not sure why you'd call it a "Watercooling standard". And given the propensity for unique solutions in watercooling, I can't see any in-depth standards having much use. The closest thing to a standard might be what Coolermaster does with their cases - leave room and space the fans properly for a ceiling triple rad, and put grommetted holes for external solutions. Although proper cutoffs behind the motherboard are certainly nice too.

[nysulli]

+1 for not liking tool-less cases, thumbscrews are great, but I can't stand tool-less, removable motherboard trays on a case that size would also be pointless, you've have so much room to work around the motherboard that it wouldn't be an issue, in a smaller case like say an old pc-60, sure the removable tray was great because you didn't have a whole lot of space to work around.

but I also think a case meeting all those specs would cost upwards of $600-800, very few people require all of those specs, and it would be exceedingly large to fit all of that internally.

I personally think case manufactures are doing fine on their own providing us different case designs, we've got a number of choices for cases that can drop in a triple rad with zero mods, and a number of those can add a 120.2 with little effort.

having to mod cases to fit an extreme system like the one your describing is half the fun anyways, I remember way back when you couldn't buy a case designed to fit any watercooling gear into, thus everyone's build was unique, watercooling isn't meant to be cookie cutter with everything just bolting right up, its about doing something different in your own unique way that works for your setup

[jayhall0315]

Fellas - Tooless designs, can be like anything else, there are mostly crappy ones and a few good ones. It is just that the crappy ones in cheaper cases dominate the market and give 'tooless' a bad name. And those are the ones most of you (and I) have experience with. With proper CAD techniques and management support, it would be fairly easy to design some high quality tooless systems.

MpG - Totally disagree, ....sorry. Most of today's cases, once you put in a 120.3 rad, you either have it running too close to the top of the motherboard or taking up space in one or two DVD bays. You have to make trade offs like that in almost every 'watercooling' case.

[WrigleyVillain]

Well the 690 II does all that for you, right...only change would be a 240 at the bottom and not behind the front fans.

Oh hey the 690 II also has the tray cut out for cooler access but the damn thing isn't spaced correctly and thus is useless.

Really, what the hell? When I discovered that (the hard way) I must have stood there staring at it in disbelief for like 20 seconds.

[shazza]

Interesting post ... generating some good discussions. It'd be nice to see some standards (or more options) for water cooling cases - I imagine we'll see more, although something along the lines of jayhall's specs will cost a mint. Have you noticed number of companies that are now offering water-cooled builds?

Also had to smile - the Black Pearl I have is "water-cooling ready." Far as I could tell, it has two holes in the back to run tubing for an external rad, and possibly you could count the two 120mm fan holes on the top as being "radiator ready" -- but hardly enough room for a full sized motherboard with the rad installed.

[MpG]

MpG - Totally disagree, ....sorry. Most of today's cases, once you put in a 120.3 rad, you either have it running too close to the top of the motherboard or taking up space in one or two DVD bays. You have to make trade offs like that in almost every 'watercooling' case.

Most cases, sure. But ultimately, we're still a niche market, so "most" cases aren't going to target us. Again, you look at a typical Coolermaster tower-build with a triple in the ceiling plus fans, it doesn't extend below the top edge of the mobo or obstruct cabling paths. It may occupy the few 5.25" bays, but it's not like there aren't more to spare. And you can reclaim those if you're only using a double rad. And it's better than having a bunch of empty space up top that's useless if you're not filling it with radiator. To do otherwise is to offer a case that's not just specialized, but specialized towards a particular watercooling build. I'm not sure that's the kind of thing that would actually benefit the hobby.

[Manicdan]

i would like to see more mid tower cases support more 120x2 or 140x2 and less HDD or optical bays

[justin150]

There is a lot right in this thread.

Having built my current set up in a TJ07 I am now thinking small say a cube approx 340x340x340 with a 200x200 rad at front and top. Only problem is where to put the optical drive