Recently, I've been looking into building a new rig. While I'm there, might as well go and try to do better than the manufacturers design-wise!
I had thrown around some ideas for a quiet ATX case for gaming hardware, but nothing really seemed perfect. However, after reading the review of the Silverstone Raven, I figured it out. My case, VECT, is based upon their design, but is smaller than standard ATX and offers lower impedance to airflow. It will house gaming-grade hardware. The name is either an acronym for 'Very Efficient Cooling Tower' or comes from Convection, take your pick.
The outside dimensions are 18x15x6.5 inches. Photo of integrated build:
![Image](http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/1996/vectintegrated.png)
And here's the innards:
![Image](http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9329/vectairflow.png)
Mobo is top-left, with ports top. HDDs are bottom-right, elastically decoupled with room for up to 2. Above that is the PSU, which will be removed from the housing and fan. ODD is very front, vertically mounted.The CPU cooler is a passive Scythe Ninja Mini. Three 120mm casefans go along the bottom of the box. They will be undervolted by a ramping thermal circuit.
There will be no top (back) panel in the strict sense. Mobo ports "float" in space, and the expansion cards will bolt onto a small rail. Rather, the top of the case will be covered in a hinged mesh hemibox, while the cables are ducted towards the rear. See below:
![Image](http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/1889/vectarrow.png)
Red/blue is airflow, green is cable alignment.
Hopefully, this will allow very quiet operation. The only fans in the build will be the three at the bottom and the GPU fan.
Questions:
Do you think this can cool a 95W TDP CPU effectively?
Is it OK to mount the HDDs in that orientation?
Overall, is this layout conductive to silent operation?