Saw it, found info about in on the web, and ordered one right away (from TechonWeb instead of NewEgg because NewEgg wanted 50% more $'s). It's sitting on my living room table. Haven't actually used it yet, though. (I'm waiting for a new model of video card to become available.)
To me it seemed like a wonderful new evolution of the p180 targeted at gamers. Takes some of the p180 design ideas, improves some things (incl. shave 3 inches off the height), and instead of sealing it up, go the opposite route and maximize the potential for low-speed airflow with 3 (optionally 4) 120mm fans and an even larger one on top.
It certainly isn't targeted at the silent PC audience. Afterall, who would imagine such an open air design "gamer's case" could be anything but noisy? Well, maybe it does have some potential after all:
- Start with a passive CPU cooler. Like the p180, it's wide enough to accomodate a Scythe Ninja CPU heatsink, probably passively given there's a 120mm and a 200mm fan in that corner . . . maybe even at low speed.
- A passive PSU should work, helped by the bottom front fan that would blow right over & through it.
- Add a passively cooled video card.
- Add an already-quiet hard disk sealed in a Smart Drive 2002c enclosure.
- I can't think of how to silence the DVD drive, but I don't use that much.
- Not quite good enough? Well, I've had a furniture cabinet idea in mind for years: put a whole regular PC inside a wooden cabinet with ample sound absorption material. Design ample air intake for the front and side (deflecting any noise down to carpeted floor) & design ample exhaust in the back. (I envisioned an intake opening under the front, and an exhaust chimney with sound aborption interior in the back disguised as part of semi-custom desk wall unit.) It gets a little more complicated when I think about access to the cables & side panel, but you get the idea. The Nine Hundred's ample airflow design seems perfect for use in such a cabinet.
Sound intriguing?
Still, it's hard to recommend the Nine Hundred for absolute silence, and I haven't actually tried the above ideas yet. No matter what you do, there'll still be air turbulence noise leaking out. (All cases with multiple 120mm fans will have some of that.) But it might have surprisingly more potential than its open-air looks suggest.
One drawback to the Nine Hundred is that it the exhaust fans have more capacity than the intake fans, so air could get pulled in from all the holes around the card slots, which is right above the hot PSU exhaust. Adding a 120mm side fan for the provided hole would probably fix that nicely.
Another drawback is the big side plastic window. I can live with it, but don't like the lack of EMI/RFI shielding. I think I can easily solve that and improve the look with some black
Modders Mesh.
It's perforated sheetmetal front (and part of the side) looks aggressive and a bit industrial, but it works for me. I normally prefer a very conservative style. (I still love my old black aluminum Coolermaster case with plain solid front door, but a case with only 80mm fans (x 4) just doesn't seem enough anymore, not without watercooling.) I'm sure my perception is colored by my appreciation for the engineering design, but it's one of very few cases I actually like the looks of (and the p180 isn't one of them).
Craig in NJ
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but it makes an excellent job (the photos don't do it justice actually). I had some self-adhesive real carbon fibre lying around so I added some of that too.
