Silent case with decent ventilation for a casual gamer

[Riggins11]

So, I wanna buy a case for my pc, I had an CM 690, and by God that case was noisy and attracted all the dust.I was being transformed in the case's maid!.

I'll buy myself soon an i5 2500k setup,oc the cpu to 4 ghz, 6950 ( or maybe 6970) , and A fan Controller . But now I want a new case.

I found some second hand antec 900's, I think I can get a second hand P182 aswell, HAF 932, but I saw an interesting case..
Zalman Z9 case.Looks really promising found it new and quite cheap. If you have any other suggestions please let them out.

I will replace the case fans or whatever case i'll buy with some silent ones, with rubber feet. ( was thinking the nexus real silent 120mm)
So round up: Second hand cases: Antec 900, P182, HAF 932 ~ about $100
buy new case: Zalman Z9 ! $80 ( thinking of gettin some aksa foam for the side window)

What I want from a case: To be silent when im surfing the web, BUT when I'm GAMING I dont care about noise, I just want the system to be properly cooled. I play about 1-2 hours a day of call of duty.

[Flanker]

personally i would go for the P182, swap out all the case fans and CPU and replace with arctic cooling F12 PWM's, daisy chain them together so you can control them according to the CPU's temperature (most motherboard manufacturers offer this feature)

other then that, as soon as your PSU and GFX fans are quiet when idle, you shall be fine

[Riggins11]

That's the one I want too.But can't find some decent priced ones.Other suggestions?

[Flanker]

others are the NZXT H2, silverstone RV02 (assuming FT02 is beyond your budget), fractal define R2/R3 (maybe the XL?)
the H2 could use more airflow though, personally i'm waiting for a revision of H2 with improved intake

the principles are the same replace the stock fans with PWM, either daisy chain them like AC's PIST or use a PWM splitter (although the stock fans for RV02 are possibly quiet enough)

[Riggins11]

H2 is $180 here, Frctal $170
Rv02 is almost $280
FT02 is $400
Cant aford them.I wanna buy second hand.About $120 max

[flemeister]

H2 is $180 here, Frctal $170
Rv02 is almost $280
FT02 is $400
Cant aford them.I wanna buy second hand.About $120 max

Where is "here"?

Maybe hunt around for someone looking to offload their P180/P182 after years of service. Might be able to find one within your budget in decent condition.

[ntavlas]

The dust problem seems to depend a lot environmental factors, ie how much dust there is in your apartment. To deal with this problem properly you would need a fairly elaborate positive pressure setup, with easily removable filters (since you will need to wash them pretty open). Personally I prefer to clean the case twice a year than washing the filters every couple of weeks.

As far as noise is concerned, if you can keep the noise produced by your components low you don`t need an expensive case to enjoy a quiet system. At idle you should have little trouble keeping the noise level low, as long as the gpu fan is quiet and disk drive noise taken care of.

So how about the antek 300? You could completely remove the front fans and use the open front as a passive intake (less $ for fan replacements too). You could then use the 5,25' drive bay to suspend your drives.

I`ve also been able to find some lian li cases for about $120 (pc-60/pc-a4) and the lancool pc-k58 for even less.

[Riggins11]

thanks for your input ntvlas!

I was thinking about antec 300 but I saw a lot of angry customers complaining about the low space and poor design.
I found antec 900 prety cheap at $80 , already used ofc.
For the moment I cant find some decent priced P182, one guy was asking $130 for it ))
Found a Haf 932 decent price.

The haf 932 and antec 900 wouldnt be so great for my intent,eh? The old CM 690 was hell! I dont wanna go trough that again! Tbh my soon to be ex- my soon to be is not silent but hey..that cm 690 kept my up at nights lol

[GuyClinch]

Silverstone FTO2 (or Raven) - if you can afford it. Otherwise I go with the Lancool.. The Lancool has less side vents - and less vents overall then the 690II so while it doesn't potentially cool as well (though it still cools great)..its pretty quiet and they tend to come with pretty modest fans.

Honestly the Silverstone flat out beats any other case in terms of cooling per DB. So that's the one to get - the 03 revision isn't as good though.