Lian-Li PC-9F a viable choice.

[PMcG]

So I have been waiting months for the Fractal Design Mini and it looks like it just got pushed back again to late May so I am now looking at other options. I want a very clean looking case (think Lian Lis and Fractals) in which I can do positive pressure with 3 low rpm fans which are filtered. I have read up in the case post that aluminium cases are risky due to vibrations but noticed that the Lian-Li mini-ATX case was one of the best rated.

This is my favorite case so far:

Lian-Li PC-9F
Here is a forum with good shots of the details and a system installed that would be pretty similar to mine.

My plan would be to remove the HD rack and suspend a Western Digital Caviar Green (WD15EARS) in one of the 5.25 bays and have a 64gb ssd (C300 or m4) below it. I already have an ASUS HD5670 which should not make much noise due to its low power and will be putting a Sythe Slipstream PWM on my Noctua U12P. Two Noctua NF-P12s would be put on the front intakes with the low noise adapters attached and controlled by the motherboard and the back fan I would probably replace with another slipstream.

What do you guys think, would this be a silent build?

Oh and PS would be a Seasonic X-560 (it would be fanless most of the time) MB a Asus P8P67 with Patriot Gamer 2 Ram (8gb 1600mhz) and i5-2500K.

[quickdraw427]

My system currently lives in one of these cases and I'm pretty satisfied. I originally had NF-P12s with the ULNA adapters in the build. It was quiet, but there was a slight hum from the fan motors - maybe I got bad samples; my P12s just aren't as quiet as reviews have suggested. I decided to try the stock fans along with the ULNA adapters. I got quite a surprise. The Lian Li fans are a little clicky when you put your ear right up next to them, but it's so soft as to be moot when the case is closed up. Overall airflow might be a touch less than the Noctuas but still quite adequate for me. I had a pair of platter drives mounted in the stock drive rack which did resonate from the drive vibrations, but with your plans for suspension, I imagine you'll avoid that issue. After switching to an SSD, moving my storage out of this computer, and using those stock Lian Li fans with the Noctua adapters, my system is effectively inaudible in an already very quiet environment. The rest of the hardware is pretty basic: Intel i5-2500 on an H67 board using the i5's onboard video, Thermalright Silver Arrow with only one of the fans mounted in the middle, Seasonic X-650 PSU.

Cliffs version: Pretty nice case, no rattles with the right hardware, and try running the stock fans undervolted before you replace 'em.

[PMcG]

Thanks for the reply and info. Yes I think I am going to go with the PC-9f, I could probably wait for the Define mini (going to see what Z68 holds before building) but I am getting the impression that Lian-Li has superior build quality and I can get it for the same price when taking shipping into account. Anyone else have an opinion on this to sway me towards the define mini?

[whispercat]

The thing is, if you are only going to have one Caviar Green and one SSD (both low heat) you don't really need an open front with two fans. On the other hand, it should be relatively quiet depending on the other components (is the Asus 5670 passive?). But not silent. If you want close to silence, the front intake vents and fans are going to be a problem unless the fans are really slowed down, which if slow enough could make the whole design redundant, since at that point you'd get about the same airflow with the Fractal close door design anyway.

Bottom line: The Lian Li should be pretty quiet with suspended HDDs. But the Fractal Mini (which you seem to prefer) would probably be quieter, everything being equal.

[PMcG]

Bought the Lian Li and I am loving the look and build quality. Couldn't wait for the mini and I am not sure that it would be better anyways with my limited cooling needs. Thanks for the advice guys.

[figment]

I also just got a PC-9F. The build quality is impressive. A few things I've noticed, if anyone is interested:

• It is a very light case, considering its size. I've worked with aluminum cases before, but I was still surprised.
• Unfortunately, I don't think its possible to use a 140mm Slipstream or TY-140 in either of the front fan positions. The clips for the filter would block the fan housing. Even if you got rid of the filter, I don't know if they would fit. You might be able to do it if you got rid of the HDD cage and used something like 1/4" offsets with some of the rubber mounting systems.
• There are actually more holes for passing wires in and out from behind the motherboard than the product photos show. Most importantly, there is a hole in the upper left corner for the auxiliary CPU power.
• There is a nice wire-mesh grille on the back exhaust, but they mount a heavier, much more restrictive stamped grill on the intake side of the same fan. This seems silly to me. I know its there to stop wires from getting caught, but with all the wire management put into the case, I don't know why you'd choke a fan like that. It's easily fixed, though. Just remove the inner grille.
• The side panels are a little more loose than I'd like, but we'll see if that's a problem or not.
• The side panels don't clang, but they don't thunk either. The sound is more of a tong. Both side panels are surrounded by some folded ribs of aluminum that make the panel stiffer than I've seen from other manufacturers. I added some Acoustipak to make them heavier (a sheet of triple-layer foam more than doubled the weight of the panel) and capture some high frequency noise. The end result doesn't sound quite as good as a P182 side panel, but the thump noise does seem to be a lower frequency and I can't really hear any resonance in it.
• The HDD cage is both large, and (in my eyes) fairly restrictive of air flow. I wish there were two or three modular cages. As it stands, I'll be discarding the cage entirely to get better air flow. I'll be mounting a 5400rpm drive in the second 5.25" bay (with a pair of these) and putting one or more SSDs in the third bay. This limits my storage expansion, but leaves the front intakes unobstructed, which seems more important.

My biggest concern right now is the top-panel buttons. They're a little softer on the touch than I expected and I'm worried that my cats are going to be pressing them too often. I'm not yet sure about how I'm going to deal with that.

[figment]

Slight Update: I just threaded the CPU cable from my X-650 through that nice cable port I mentioned... it took 10 minutes and its the trickiest threading I've ever done. It will work. It required me to twist the plug around quite a bit to slip it through. I've got nice sleeving on the cable, but if you don't, a little filing on the bottom edge of that cutout might be a good idea. And if you've got a Dremel, it might be worth a couple minutes of time to enlarge the hole.

[David Cole]

Figment - can I be clear that you are saying you just cannot put larger (140mm) fans into the 120mm housings? But it would be no problem to put different 120mm fans in?

Does the 3.25 hdd cage come out easily (ie you just unscrew some screws) or do you have to drill out some rivets?

I am thinking about this case, though there are currently none in the UK.

Thanks.

[figment]

Figment - can I be clear that you are saying you just cannot put larger (140mm) fans into the 120mm housings? But it would be no problem to put different 120mm fans in?

Exactly. I've already replaced one of the fans with a NoiseBlocker BlackSilentPro, and I even managed to do it using the NoiseBlocker's dampening system along with the PC-9Fs system (the PC-9F uses four grooved rubber washers to de-couple the fans from the frame, much like Lian-Li's hard drive de-coupling, I think). I know I didn't have to, but I wanted to see if it could be done. There were no problems at all. It almost looks like Lian Li intended for them to be easily replaceable. Any standard 120mm x <=25mm fan should easily fit. Note, however, that there aren't standard screw holes to mount into. You'd pretty much have to use Lian Li's rubber washers.

In theory, it would work for the 140mm fans from Scythe or Thermalright that use 120mm mounting holes, but I don't see it being easy or even possible with two of them. I have some photos I can post later, but the issue is the small gap between the two 120mm fans. There is probably only 10mm or so of space between a pair of standard 120mm fans. You might be able to do one 140mm fan, but even then, you'd have the issues I noted above.

Does the 3.25 hdd cage come out easily (ie you just unscrew some screws) or do you have to drill out some rivets?

Yes.

The bulk of the cage comes out after you remove four thumbscrews. There is still a retention bracket like thing at the bottom of the case which is riveted in place, however, its only ~2 centimeters tall and only comes up to the bottom of the lower 120mm fan. The top of the cage screws into the 5.25" bays and is clean once the cage is removed (as well as being well clear of the top of the upper fan).

I'll likely be using some closed-cell foam to fill in and flatten the bottom of the case to hide the retention bracket (I'm trying to avoid drilling the case as I don't have a great drill).

I am thinking about this case, though there are currently none in the UK.

I see a place listed here that claims to have it in stock. 17 pounds shipping, though. Dunno how much that hurts you.

[David Cole]

Thanks. I went to another German shop - Caseking - which advertised the 9F as being in stock, ordered it and then got an email saying it wasn't in stock. Atelco seems to be another German company. Given the additional shipping cost and fragility of aluminium cases, I think I'll just wait till a UK shop gets the case back in stock and go for a shorter shipping journey. I have also been looking at the PC-50B which is widely in stock here.

[ntavlas]

The first two things I would do to improve the acoustics of an aluminium case would be suspending any disk drives and attaching some vinyl tiles to any big surfaces. Most of the time, this should take care of vibrational noise once and for all. Usually I add some open cell acoustic foam on top of that, to take care of higher frequencies (idle disk drive hiss, fan clicks, coil whine) though the last part is not always necessary, depending on the components and ambient noise level.

[figment]

Thanks. I went to another German shop - Caseking - which advertised the 9F as being in stock, ordered it and then got an email saying it wasn't in stock. Atelco seems to be another German company. Given the additional shipping cost and fragility of aluminium cases, I think I'll just wait till a UK shop gets the case back in stock and go for a shorter shipping journey.

If it matters, the case is really light, built pretty solid, and packed tightly with lots of open room on the sides. Mine traveled across the US. The box was scuffed and mildly dented. The case is pristine.

[figment]

The first two things I would do to improve the acoustics of an aluminium case would be suspending any disk drives and attaching some vinyl tiles to any big surfaces.

I'm dampening the only spindle drive (a Samsung F4EG, selected for having quiet seeks, and only slight vibration) and covering nearby surfaces (back of the faceplates, upper cage surfaces) with acoustic foam. For the sides, I skipped using vinyl tile because I couldn't find any of the good (heavy) tiles in the immediate area and the side panel was already pretty stiff. They do have some heavy acoustic foam on the main side panel, and I'll put some more in the back-side panel, top, and bottom panels as I work out where open space will be.

We'll see how it goes. I'll be sure to post my results.

[David Cole]

Figment - I used to own a Lian Li pc7 case for some years and liked it. I moved later to a P183 but now find it so heavy that I risk a heart attack every time I try to lift it - I want to go back to an aluminium case. The biggest breakthrough in both cases for me was using an SPCR hdd elastic suspension. It is easy to kill high pitched noise but low disk hum was a nightmare until I adopted the suspension. I use it with two velociraptors now (both out of their 3.5 frames) and to cope with these (because they still hum) it is a requirement for me that my new case can accommodate an hdd suspension. I'd like to take out whatever hard drive cage(s) are currently in-case and put in a simple suspension structure. Alternatively, I will mod any existing hdd cage to accommodate an elastic suspension system - drilling holes as necessary. I wouldn't mind using NoVibes frames on the case floor but you cannot buy them in the UK now (or in Europe so far as I can see). I can't decide whether to hang on in the hope that the 9F will turn up in the UK soon, or go now for a P50B. I'll be inherested to hear how your work on the 9F develops.

[whispercat]

Fig, are you having any problems with your cats and the soft top panel buttons? (hopefully your cats won't teach themselves to turn on the computer, steal your passwords and credit card numbers, and order $3,000 worth of cat toys)

[figment]

The biggest breakthrough in both cases for me was using an SPCR hdd elastic suspension. It is easy to kill high pitched noise but low disk hum was a nightmare until I adopted the suspension.

Yeah, this is what I heard, and that's why I'm starting with some dampening right away. I looked at using suspension, but opted for the half-price dampening (rubber mounted heat sinks) since my drive is much quieter than the Velociraptor/Caviar Blacks that others were suspending and I'll be placing it in the upper 5.25" bay which will get virtually no air circulation.

it is a requirement for me that my new case can accommodate an hdd suspension. I'd like to take out whatever hard drive cage(s) are currently in-case and put in a simple suspension structure.

Well, its hard to be sure, but I would probably suggest removing the PC-9Fs cage and using zip-ties to put the other cage in. The PC-9F's cage is very tall and has sides which aren't very good for air flow.

I wouldn't mind using NoVibes frames on the case floor but you cannot buy them in the UK now (or in Europe so far as I can see).

Agreed. I can get them, but there were comments that they are extinct outside the US.

I can't decide whether to hang on in the hope that the 9F will turn up in the UK soon, or go now for a P50B. I'll be inherested to hear how your work on the 9F develops.

I'll try to keep you updated.

My plan for now is to limit myself to just one spindle drive, mounted in the upper 5.25" bay. All other drives should be SSDs and I'll be mounting (up to four of) them in the other drive bay (there is also a SATA DVD burner). I'll be putting a pair of NoiseBlockers in the front intake. The NBs were picked because of their reportedly ear-friendly sound. There will be another Noiseblocker PWM or Kama Flex PWM in the back, and I'll start with the blowhole blocked.

The big issue is that my heatsink still hasn't been shipped, so I can't really fire it up and see how it sounds. It should arrive by next week.

[figment]

Fig, are you having any problems with your cats and the soft top panel buttons?

Well, not yet. They only like computers that are running. I'm hoping that if I keep the blowhole blocked, they'll prefer the P182 and not lay on the PC-9F. I actually looked for a bottom-PSU case because the cats loved playing in the fan exhaust of my Sonata and they'd often hit the hard power switch in the back. The Sonata houses my Linux server, so its not the sort of box I like going down whenever the cats get bored.

Of course, if they realized that they could order cat toys from Amazon on the computer, I'm sure they'd be all over that. At the moment, they just seem to enjoy the warmth and faint hum. They don't yet realize that its the source of most of their cat toys and various cozy furniture. Perhaps they'd be more respectful if I managed to teach them that.

Or not. Cats are ultimately evil creatures. They love us mostly because they realize that if they ate us, they wouldn't have anyone to whine to when they were hungry and would be forced to actually work for their food.

[PMcG]

Looks like good progress figment, I have some similar plans but am waiting to see what z68 has in store before buying the MB/Memory. I put Noctuas from my U12P on the front 2 intakes (seeing how these work with the LNA and motherboard control) and have removed the hard drive cage. Hard drive wise I plan on suspending with clothing elastic/stretchmagic/bungee a WD15EARS (Caviar Green) in between a DVD burner in the top slot and 2.5 SSD in the bottom slot. I wish I could buy those Akasa HD mounts but since I am in Canada the shipping effectively triples the price so I think string suspension is my best bet unless anyone else knows about good soft mounting available in Canada.

One question Figment, how do you plan on mounting the SSD? I don't have one yet but noticed a lot of screw holes in the base of the 5.25 cage and figured maybe some of those would fit a SSD since it does not have to be soft mounted or anything. What do you think?

When you are done definitely post pictures since I am sure we will be having very similar builds and I would love to see what you did.

[figment]

Looks like good progress figment, I have some similar plans but am waiting to see what z68 has in store before buying the MB/Memory.

I considered doing that, too, but the more I learned, the less it seemed relevant to me (hybrid video... which I won't trust with Linux, more USB3... that I don't use, SSD caching... which I won't use as I've got a dedicated SSD and SSDs are just going to get cheaper)

I put Noctuas from my U12P on the front 2 intakes (seeing how these work with the LNA and motherboard control) and have removed the hard drive cage.

Sounds pretty standard for SPCR. That drive cage is just too restrictive. And your Noctuas seem to be the equivalent of my Noiseblockers... just from a different country (and drastically different design).

Hard drive wise I plan on suspending with clothing elastic/stretchmagic/bungee a WD15EARS (Caviar Green) in between a DVD burner in the top slot and 2.5 SSD in the bottom slot.

Sounds familiar. I was even considering putting a later of foam on the underside of the DVD drive (with some card stock). Dunno how bad of an idea that is.

I wish I could buy those Akasa HD mounts but since I am in Canada the shipping effectively triples the price so I think string suspension is my best bet unless anyone else knows about good soft mounting available in Canada.

There were a couple different manufacturers making things like them. I'd have thought you could track some down. I'll see if I can track something down.

One question Figment, how do you plan on mounting the SSD? I don't have one yet but noticed a lot of screw holes in the base of the 5.25 cage and figured maybe some of those would fit a SSD since it does not have to be soft mounted or anything. What do you think?

Well, there are definitely some holes in the bottom of the 3.5" cage that should work, but I actually ditched the 3.5" bay adapter for the cleaner front panel. I'll actually be using one of these, as I expect any storage additions will be SSDs not HDDs and I've removed all other drive mounts. Four is overkill, but with two I can be sure that I'll still be able to use elbow'ed SATA cables. The look is... not really my style, but its going to be hidden anyway. I'm hoping I won't have issues with either soft-mounts in Lian Li's toolless bays.

When you are done definitely post pictures since I am sure we will be having very similar builds and I would love to see what you did.

I hope to put up some preliminary photos tonight. I'll post them here since it seems to be gathering interested people.

[PMcG]

I wish I could buy those Akasa HD mounts but since I am in Canada the shipping effectively triples the price so I think string suspension is my best bet unless anyone else knows about good soft mounting available in Canada.

There were a couple different manufacturers making things like them. I'd have thought you could track some down. I'll see if I can track something down.

Ya I was thinking it is weird but the best I could find were these mounting brackets but I am worried about no anti-vibration in a aluminum case. Am I just over analyzing things so these should probably do the trick? I am fine suspending, but if the Caviar Green does not need it it would be nice to have something I never have to worry about.

[figment]

I am fine suspending, but if the Caviar Green does not need it it would be nice to have something I never have to worry about.

The 3 platter Caviar Green drives are some of the lowest vibration drives that SPCR has reviewed. (See here). If any drive can go without it, it's probably the drive you've got. Of course, my F4EG is only slightly worse, and I'm still trying to avoid vibration. We'll see how much its needed in a week.

[figment]

Okay, here are some quick photos of the 9F build in progress:

Here is a shot of the (mostly) empty interior. The flash really shows of that aluminum sheen. You can see the complaints I have against the case: the heavy punched (actually cut) grille on the rear fan, the louvered bottom intake for the PSU, and the comically long and stiff USB cables for the front panel (I joked about being able to route them out the back of the case and plug them into another nearby computer).

Here's a better shot of the front fans. The upper fan is a Lian Li, the lower fan is one of my NoiseBlocker BlackSilentPros. I don't have a good shot from the front, but you can see the large hole cut just above the top screw holes in the NoiseBlocker. Those are the holes for the rubber slotted-washer used to mount the fans. Also, note the filter clips just a couple millimeters from the near side of the housing on either fan. That's what would prevent mounting a 140mm-with-120mm-mounts fan in the front. On the bottom you can see the hard drive cage bracket which is riveted in place.

To reduce a bit of noise, I've got a layer of Acoustipack on both the side panel. I took the scraps and put a layer on the backs of the faceplates where the hard drives will be mounted. I've got more to use, but I'll wait until more components are put in place before I add that in.

Here is the PSU (X-650) mounted fan-up to avoid the bottom intake (because I know it will just get filled with dust/cat hair). You can see there is some room between the PSU and the bracket to do some things, but a drive enclosure/cage might be a tight fit with PSU cables.

Here's the reason why I love modular PSUs. While some people argue that its not worth it and you end up with the same amount of cables, that's not my experience. I've got just four cables plugged in: ATX main power, CPU Auxiliary, PCIe power (2x6+2), and one SATA power cord.

Here is a shot of the foam used to fill in the bottom and hide the bracket. Its just the closed cell foam from my PSU box, and its a bit rough, but it will be smoothed over with a layer of Acoustipak. You can see the start of cable management to the left side.

A better detail shot of the rear panel interior. I've installed another NoiseBlocker (a PWM) and purposefully left off the grille. In the corner, you can see my great conquest: The CPU auxiliary power cord, threaded through the access port and waiting for the motherboard.


I'll post more when I make some more progress. I should be getting my HDD/SSD mounts soon.

[David Cole]

Great. Very helpful photos. Thanks. More, please. Is there enough room between the rearside of the MB panel and side panel with some acoustic padding to still accommodate and hide cables - or do you have to choose between cables' accommodation or padding for the side panel?

[figment]

Great. Very helpful photos. Thanks. More, please.

Feel free to request angles/subjects that interest you. It seems that my HDD/SSD mounts came in early, so I'll be putting those in tonight. I'll get some photos to show how (if?) they work with the tool-less mounting. If you want something else, let me know.

Is there enough room between the rearside of the MB panel and side panel with some acoustic padding to still accommodate and hide cables - or do you have to choose between cables' accommodation or padding for the side panel?

There certainly is some room, but I don't know if its enough to be indiscriminate. One of the reasons I threaded the cables was to see how the side panel handled the width of the cords. The X-650 has nice sleeving on the cables, but the cables aren't designed to be thin. I haven't gotten after them with cable ties and anchors yet (I've got some waiting), but at the moment, the motherboard power cable presses lightly against the mobo side panel.

The first plan for dampening will be to apply patches of acoustipak to any part of the mobo side panel which is visible from the opposite side, that is: the far right third of the panel and the bottom third of the panel. From there, I'll experiment to see how much room there is. In general, I'm not terribly worried. The side panels are pretty well secured by the thumb screws and part of the function of the foam block on the bottom is to press against the side panels and keep them from rattling. I don't think the mobo side panel is usually responsible for much resonant noise.

However, in the mean time, I'll try to get you a photo to estimate the amount of space that's available.

[PMcG]

Hey figment, I have just been fiddling around with my case and realized something which may help you and future users with the top motherboard cuttout (for the CPU power cable). If you remove the top of the case (2 screws at front and back) this will be a lot easier to access, not sure if you already did this. I think I am going to go with a cheap $5 bracket for the HD and if it does cause vibration then suspend it. Some z68 boards got previewed at Hardware Zone so they cant be far out, may be buying the power supply tonight depending on the NCIX sales.

[jrocks84]

Look's like either this or the Lian Li PC-A05NB will be the case I end up getting. I love the look of both, but can't decide whether it would be worth it to sacrifice a bit of the cooling of the 9F for the shorter size of the A05.

[figment]

Look's like either this or the Lian Li PC-A05NB will be the case I end up getting. I love the look of both, but can't decide whether it would be worth it to sacrifice a bit of the cooling of the 9F for the shorter size of the A05.

The A05 looks to be a good case, but its not the sort of case I'd choose without some extra thought. This is a rotated case. The "open" panel is the right panel instead of the left, and the motherboard is rotated 180 degrees in the case. This means that the GPU is near the top, the CPU is near the bottom. The PSU sits in the front-bottom, and the normal air flow is back-to-front. This should work in the generic case, but some heat sinks won't work quite as well, especially if you go for AMD CPUs and end up with a north/south orientation.

[figment]

More photos! First the requested shot of the back panel.

And here's a less oblique shot to give you an idea about what sort of surfaces and cable management options you've got:

Here's a few shots of the front fan mounts I was talking about before. You can see the slots for the screws, if you know what you're looking at. With a little force, you can push the fan up, and pull it out without unscrewing the screws.

Here it is, pulled out. You can see the slotted rubber washers. Because the front of the case is designed for these washers, you pretty much have to use them (or find something that works just like them... or go ghetto and use something like zip ties).

The work for tonight was mounting storage. Here is a shot of the hard drive with its heat-sink/dampener. While this looks really cool, I'd say its better as a heat sink than a dampener. The rubber mounts are pretty stiff. Its better than raw metal, but not too much. Also, the fit is really tight in a 5.25. I had to use a bit of force to get this to work with the face plate, as the fins of the heat sink press into the tabs of the face plate.

And the SSD mount was even worse. I don't even have a photo of it because it was a complete failure. In its attempt to be cool, it was taller than a single 5.25" bay and so I couldn't fit it, the HDD, and the DVD drive into the 9F's three bays. Instead, I mounted the SSD into a foam block which is friction fitted into the bay. Here's the drive with its block. The block consists of closed-cell foam with a notch cut out and then covered with Acoustipak to help with the HDD which will hang out above it.

Here is a quick shot of the block mounted in place.

After that, I finished installing foam/Acoustipak on the bottom of the case to cover up the bracket:

...and then used the scraps to fill in a couple other flat surfaces:

And finally, a shot to prove why I was worried about a top mounted PSU and why I'm still worried about the top-panel power button:

[PMcG]

Nice figment, ya when I looked at those SSD holders I was a bit worried about the height as well. I just ordered a Lian-Li 2x2.5 to 5.25 tray for $10 so that should work well for my SSD mounting needs. Looking forward to mounting the power supply and optical while I wait for Z68. I am a little concerned about the WD15EARS Caviar Green now though. Looking on Newegg there are tonnes of bad reviews about reliability and dead drives and since it is a storage drive thats really all I care about along with vibration/noise. I will have to do more research on this, may be asking the SPCR community about it in a bit.

[figment]

Alright, I am mostly finished with my build and I wanted to give everyone some updated information. Here are some thoughts and things I've learned with this case:

• The case can be quiet. Mine is quiet enough that my wife was sitting a meter away and didn't know it was running. The two fans in front are actually pretty quiet, even though they are running at ~900-1000rpm. Part of this has to be blamed on good fans, but the front grille does seem to remove some of the higher frequency noise. I have a lot of Acoustipak left, I may add some to the front panel to see if it helps at all. The main source of noise for me is turbulent airflow from the rear system fan.
• The thumbscrews for the motherboard are handy, just make sure you use the short screws for the area around the slots or they will interfere with cards.
• The airflow through the front is just what you'd expect it to be. Holding my hand in front of the grille, I can feel a nice, soft flow of air being sucked in. The front grille is actually cool to the touch.
• The case seems to handle a positive-pressure setup pretty well. As I hoped, air is exhausted through both the rear fan and the vented slot covers. This should help push hot air from the GPU out of the case instead of having it get sucked into the CPU.
• PMcG's note about being able to pull off the top panel was actually very helpful. Since the motherboard sits so close to the top panel, it was hard/impossible to secure the top row of motherboard standoffs. Once I pulled off the top panel: Trivial. Thanks PMcG.
• Cable management is both better and worse than expected. The long, stiff USB cables were a pain, but you can wrap them around the edge of the back of the motherboard tray without too much trouble. Similar things can be done with the front audio, USB and eSATA cables. I managed to tie down all of my cables behind the motherboard. There isn't enough room for Acoustipak on the entire panel, but the cables don't make the panel bow out and there is plenty of open space where I can still apply some dampening.
• Wiring up the drives was a little annoying, as my unconventional storage strategy resulted in drive alignments that weren't easily supported by my cords. It worked, but its clear that stock cables are not intended to support hard drives mounted in 5.25" bays.

I hope to have some photos to show the end results in a couple days. I still have a lot of software to install.

If you want to know anything more, just ask.