SPCR

Hi folks,

After a couple of years on a laptop I'm thinking of going back to a watercooled desktop PC. I've seen a lot has changed since, components are even hotter and more power hungry than before.

I'm looking at a i5/i7 CPU and 5850/5870 GPU and my preference is for quiet computing. That's what I like about the laptop.

I figure a low-speed 140mm fan solution is the way to go, don't need to overclock the components too much, just as far as I can keep things quiet.

Which brings me to the main question - what case should I get to hold a dual loop water cooling system?

I'm planning on getting a mATX board, and would prefer to keep things neat. I was looking at SFF cases but I don't think there's anything suitable on the market really. Mountain Mods H2go would have been my choice but I've heard of their bad build quality and atrocious customer support, so I definitely don't want to go through the horrors of that.

I'll mod whatever I have to, but I'd prefer a reasonably well built case with anti-vibe mounts for the drives etc. Also it needs to have at least 3 5.25" slots, I need two for a double bay res with two pumps and then one slot for a DVDRW or bluray. I can live with just one optical drive, that's no biggie. Dual bay res with pump mounts seems like the most elegant solution.

At the moment I'm thinking of getting the Lian-Li PC-B25F, but I'm not sure if there's enough clearance on the top for a rad, and if the fan mounts would align with a radiator. Also I'd like to remove the bottom part of the hard drive cage for the second rad. I only need room for two hard drives.

Any help or suggestions would be more than welcome

When you want a very quiet und powerful maschine, its better to buy a rad like the aquacomputer airplex revolution. (finest german engineering)

The BI are optimiized for fans faster than 1000 rpm.

Lian Li PC-A71F (the door adds silence compared to A70F).
A 280 rad will fit in front on stock mounts.
You'll have to cut the top but you can fit 280 there and have plenty of room left (i have a 360 there and still have room for a dual bay res in front).
Plenty of room left for whatever you want to fit. I'd fit the HDDs elsewhere (plenty options) or move to 2.5" entirely (which i'm doing on my new build in this case).
This case is HUGE, the photos cannot render the size of it.