Case Design for Liquid Cooling

[maddoggy]

@Mick64

I'm concerned is the use of 80mm fans w shrouds vrs 120s. that's 14 80mm fans... quite a bit of noise vrs the same number of 120s.

Surely if 120.4 and 120.3 rads fit, 120mm fans could with only a minor nudge?

I'd also love to see a bit more thought given to the front. Either vent the whole thing a la a Lian-Li, or do something like they did on my Omen, with a front, detachable facade about 3/4" forward of the front, flat and smooth, the front fan sucking around it, basically... but the single 200mm grille feels a bit odd there among the smooth flat curve of that case. [nvm, see below]

I'm also in the "use 140mm in the rear" camp.

I like the airflow over the HDDs, and the removal of all water cooled heat to the 2 chambers.

The Omen I have scavenges cool air from beneath the case for the PSU, which helps I imagine. You may want to consider the option of removing that hole on the interior chamber and flipping the PSU back to scavenge from beneath. One VERY BIG reason for that is the airflow over the RAM and top rear of the MB. MBs are designed for a crossflow frm bottom front to top rear, depressurizing the bottom rear with the PSU may not result in an advantageous setting for the MB's needs. The render with the PSU up top solves all this, of course.

Wondering if the window could be a bit longer, reveal more of the internals? Hard to tell if it would show off all the way to the drive bays, for those who might do something different up there. Perhaps as an optional side, with an "extended window". If I was using Solid-State drives, I'd be all about showing them off.

EDIT: just caught the renders with the square grille on the 200mm. That is beautiful.

Another suggestion that popped into my head: is the case long/thick enough to have an option to place 140mm rads pulling from the bottom and pushing out the top? I know, dumping the bottom rad heat back into the ambient is an ugly thought, but it just seems to me with all the new configs out there (Classified w it's 4 16x slots, for example), 140mm rads may become a necessity, better to plan now.

EDIT2: would you consider stretching the MB chamber a smidge to allow for one extra PCI slot panel in the rear? I ask simply because of an observation regarding the eVGA Classified MB: They placed a 4th PCIe x16 slot at the bottom of the MB. If this behaves in the same manner as my MB, that last one would be used for the PhysX dedicated GPU in a Tri-SLi/Multi-card-PhysX setup, with 3 GPUs matched for SLi, and a 4th not-necessarily matching GPU for PhysX (in fact, they specifically mention the MB has been rigged for this). In that arrangement, the last card wont get a full workout, and could go with a GPU-only block, with the surrounding RAM and components passively cooled with heatsink(s). This would neccesitate enough clearance for a 2-PCI height card in the last PCI slot, and makes most cases impossible to work with unless you go full coverage - unneccissary in this example.

If you added that much clearance off the bottom of the MB, and included that extra PCI plate in the rear, it would make this case one of the few (if not the only) to accommodate that 4th card being a double-wide.

I'd even suggest you go far enough to mount a 295 in the bottom with enough room for an elbow fittingfor the return, so 1 extra PCI plate + some room for a barb/elbow?