Actually, after working and experimenting with half a dozen or more gaming builds these last couple months, I understand and appreciate why the Bitfenix Phenom style of case is popular. Thermally, they are probably better than most conventional tower style mATX cases when using a hot gaming VGA card + high performance CPU -- as long as there's enough space for a 2+ slot VGA cooler and good side venting. The VGA heat doesn't rise up to affect the CPU temp as much, and a tall CPU cooler can be used. In a conventional vertical mATX layout, the rising heat of the VGA card really affects the CPU temp. A fair bit of airflow seems necessary to counter this, and that airflow costs something acoustically. And a bottom mounted PSU tends to impede airflow from bottom vents to the VGA card, at least partly.edh wrote:The same people will also disagree with us on many other things, like running 1kW+ PSUs when you use ~300W, or having cold cathode lighting, or thinking that an i7 actually has benefit in gaming over a similarly clocked i5.MikeC wrote:You know that there are thousands of gamers using huge mitx system who disagree with you.
We'll know more after we do detailed analysis of gaming builds in mATX cases, but I suspect a large well-vented mITX case that allows the motherboard to sit horizontally will generally offer better cooling for the core components than most similar sized (or even larger) vertical mATX cases.