Bought a new R9 390........

Jay20016

Jay20016

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.... only to find out that the margin of error of my measurements for it being able to fit into the case were... just off enough that it doesn't fit. I've had an original Antec Sonata from probably 2004 so I'm guessing its well past time for an upgrade, but still stinks to finally get the thing today, and now have to invest in a new case to hold the damn thing.

Any recommendations?
 
a dremel

I have one of those cases as well, very nice but my 7970 did not fit in either.

I went for antec 1100
 
I'm looking $100 - $150 range.

Been looking at these things all night, am leaning towards pulling the trigger on Fractal Design Define R5

I'm not a huge ZOMG IT HAS TO GLOW guy... I like things a bit more understated than that. The simpler, the better.
 
flopper said:
I like the define S model as you can hide drives and have more open space in the case.
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Unfortunately still need an optical drive. I do like the back mounted mechanical drives though...

MangaSpawn64 said:
We bought a bunch of Fractal ARC Midi at work, and I love them... really easy to work on and cable management / airflow kicks ass.

They seem to have a similar interior....
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They are pretty similar, but I'd have to remove the middle HD cage in order for the card to fit. With the R5, I'd be able to keep it, so it is an option, but 290mm seems to be where video cards are at now and who knows if that is the upper limit or are they going larger... so I don't know.
 
Im thinking of grabbing one myself.

Im on a corsair Graphite 600T right now.

Its a great looking case, but the airflow stinks.
 
I'm a fan of my H440. One of the best Father's Day gifts ever, best part was my kiddo helping me reassemble stuff. <3
 
Case should be coming in today. Really sucks to have new stuff and not be able to play with it. The other fan and SSD are shipping from further, so won't be here til tomorrow...

It is taking a lot to not also buy a new game to show it all off.... :(
 
So after having probably the worst upgrade time ever, it is all finally installed and working again. :D

Got the new case and what not only to find out that my non modular PSU was just not going to cut it since there wasn't too much room to neatly hide all of the excess wires without getting in the way of air flow. Picked up a semi-modular one at a local shop (24 pin and 8 pin are only permanent cables) to help with that, also bumped it up to 850w since I wasn't too sure if my 650w would've cut it under load.

Took a while to get the cables and what not cleanly installed, really wish I had bought some wire wraps for the case pins as they are way longer than needed. Used some zip ties to keep them organized, but still would look cleaner with some sort of wrap.

Got everything plugged in, turned on, and.... my computer would keep freezing while installing video drivers. Hell, it would freeze about 15 minutes into use... Load up HWMonitor and.... my CPU was idling at about 85C, and climbing. Odd... Open it all up, take a look at it, and it seems that somehow, the Intel locking pin on one corner of the HSF had come loose and wasn't making proper contact. Remove mostly everything again to get some room to work, and open up the back panel to find that the plastic locking pin snapped off somehow and could jiggle. When lying down, it was fine, but if stood upright (as a tower goes) it would lean out a bit. So I had to order a new HSF...

Fast forward to yesterday and my Cooler Master Hyper T2 arrives. For about $15 I got an odd looking tower and a fan that is a little noisy, but... even before really setting into a break-in period, my idle temps are around 30C with loads in most games not going higher than 55C, and 60C in Prime95 after about a half hour of testing.

Pretty pleased, it just sucks that what started out as video card upgrade, basically replaced everything, but my Ivybridge and motherboard.

Now to run some games, pissed that I missed out on the Division beta, was really wanting to see how it would run on the PC, still checked it out on the Xbox though.
 
yeah, ive had those stupid center pins break on the stock intel coolers as well.

The outer inserts also like to not go in the holes and bend so you have to take the whole damn thing off and bend them back into shape so they fit through the holes.
 
The Mac said:
yeah, ive had those stupid center pins break on the stock intel coolers as well.

The outer inserts also like to not go in the holes and bend so you have to take the whole damn thing off and bend them back into shape so they fit through the holes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they're not the best solution IMO, but.... when it works, they seem pretty solid and they're easy to install....
 
That looks like a nice case even though I'm not a fan of front doors on cases. I'm still using a Lian-Li PC-75B w/window. I bought it sometime around 2006/7.
 
Ford Freak said:
That looks like a nice case even though I'm not a fan of front doors on cases. I'm still using a Lian-Li PC-75B w/window. I bought it sometime around 2006/7.
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I loved my Antec, but... this thing is awesome. Can easily see myself with it for a decade like the last. :D

The door doesn't bother me, especially since it is a full one, and not just over the optical drives.

This Fractal though, has great airflow and has allowed me to really clean up the interior of the system. Being able to turn the HDs around and still having ample room to hook up/hide the wires is very nice. The 140mm fans are whisper quiet too, before the new CPU heatsink you couldn't tell that the system was even running. With the loud Coolermaster fan you can tell it is, but I'm looking into getting a Noctuna fan to push more air at lower dBs... so...

Honestly, for the price, this thing was definitely worth it.
 
I'll submit another vote for the fractal cases. I've got one of sound insulated models, with all the cables running under the motherboard tray. Very neat setup, and very quiet.
 
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