Help me Choose a New Case

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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NeilBlanchard
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Did you check the recommended cases here at SPRC?

Post by NeilBlanchard » Fri Apr 16, 2004 8:44 pm

Hello:

My two favorites right now are also well regarded by many folks here:

Antec SLK3700-BQE

Evercase 5242

Both meet your basic requiements, and the BQE is more "stylish" and it has a door. However, it usually comes with a PS which is somewhat quiet, but not great. The Evercase's stock PS is noisier, so avoid buying the case with a PS, or plan on using another one anyway. The Evercase is less money and I think it has better air flow.

Four drive bays *was* standard on the Evercase, now it is often a very inexpensive option. Ditto for the HD suspension grommets -- though I think the stock mounting is quieter than other typical cages. The BQE comes standard with space for 4 drives and with suspension grommets for the HD.

The Evercase is slightly shorter, and has less places to hide wires. But, having better air flow is more important, IMO. Both take one or two 120mm fans.

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Post by Edward Ng » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:42 pm

I haven't tried one, but the Ahanix Black Knight looks promising as well, and it's under $60. I think it looks snazzy; it uses dual 120mm fans, and it has the front door, and its door conveniently swings away if you're working the opticals a lot.

-Ed

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Post by Farnsworth » Sat Apr 17, 2004 2:49 am

Antec SLK3700:

- 2x 120mm fan (front and rear)
- 5x internal 3.5" bays (with rubber mounting grommets)
- front door
- made of fairly thick steel
- quite stylish

review @ http://www.silentpcreview.com/article76-page1.html

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Post by Edward Ng » Sat Apr 17, 2004 10:13 am

The "front" intake fan is better set up in the BQE than in the Sonata, a fact I learned too late.

I can't stand where they want you to put the "front" 120 in the Sonata, behind the hard drives, so instead of bringing in cold air, it recirculates hot air.

-Ed

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Post by dasman » Sat Apr 17, 2004 11:56 am

Aside from being less expensive, I think the BQE is the superior case. Better airflow, better position for the front fan, the stock 120mm fan it comes with is quieter than the Sonata's stock fan and both side doors are operable (makes it easier to run cables to the back side of the case).

Dave

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Post by JimK » Sat Apr 17, 2004 3:41 pm

There is an AcoustiPack precut kit for the AcoustiCase C6607 that is a better fit. See Ralf's review here.

There is supposed to be a kit designed for the 3700 AMB & BQE that should be out shortly.
Last edited by JimK on Sat Apr 17, 2004 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by JimK » Sat Apr 17, 2004 4:42 pm

Maxamus wrote:any idea when it will be for sale?
Writing about the BQE AcoustiProducts websitesays:
"We recommend that customers wait until we have released a pre-cut kit specifically for this case. It is likely to appear in late Spring 2004, and be called the 'AP AntecBQE'."

They are in Birmingham so drop them an e-mail and see what they say.

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Post by Edward Ng » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:20 pm

Forced to get a 250GB drive? Wow; you must have a lot of data! You do know about the ST3200822AS, no? Seagate's 200GB SATA drive?

-Ed

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Post by Edward Ng » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:37 pm

I save 30-60% space on average by using FLAC and Monkey's Audio lossless compression for all my audio instead of WAVe...

I'm into high fidelity audio, so only lossless will do for me; I'm using an Echo Mia MIDI sound adapter with coax digital output to an Onkyo TX-SR501 receiver, powering a pair of Paradigm Studio/20 loudspeakers using silver speaker cabling.

You should see my dad's setup! :shock:

-Ed

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Post by Ralf Hutter » Sun Apr 18, 2004 6:21 am

Maxamus wrote:Heres the full setup:


Abit IC7-G
The IC7 comes with a fan cooled northbridge. You'll end up having to replace it with a passive cooler, or you could use something like an Asus P4P800E-Deluxe or the P4C800E-Deluxe. Both are great boards and have passively cooled NBs.

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Post by Edward Ng » Sun Apr 18, 2004 6:29 am

I second Ralf's suggestion of the ASUStek P4C800-E; it's a rock solid board that can o/c if you want to and the passive northbridge is automatically one step closer to acoustic nirvana.

I've seen many others state that the SATA drives from Seagate, with 8MB of cache, are locked for high performance seek mode. How quiet they are is a matter of subjectivity (compared to WD2500JDs, these things are quieter by an order of several magnitudes, but compared to laptop drives, they're louder by an order of several magnitudes). If your performance and capacity reference point was the WD2500JD, the ST3200822AS should at least match, if not exceed performance, it will easily exceed in terms of acoustics, and it comes with the same 3-year warranty.

Comparing the two Barracudas, the 200GB model should sound virtually the same (same spindle rate, same number of heads and platters, just higher density, same seek mode) as the 160GB model, but the 200GB will easily outperform the 160GB, due to its industry-first 100GB/platter technology.

-Ed

EDIT: Fixed formatting error.
EDIT 2: PS, as I said, do yourself a favor and consider storing some of your audio data in FLAC and/or Monkey's Audio format. It goes a long way towards fitting more audio data onto the same space, without any degradation in audio quality.

JimK
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Post by JimK » Tue Apr 20, 2004 12:15 pm

Maxamus,
BangoO got the latest word on the AcoustiPack precut damping kit for the BQE here. Looks like another six weeks :(

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