I've just recently upgraded my
living room PC with a GTX 460 for gaming purposes (need to upgrade the thread with the current stats). While my now-stage 2 LRPC is up to task for gaming, I'm again running into cooling issues in my P182 as when transcoding media the CPU is up at 60C (GPU idling at 38C) and the fans as they are now are still audible at couch distance (3-4m, but with the PC placement behind an A/V cabinet there's a bit of a "tunnel" available to focus noise versus a free-air placement). It got better when I blocked up the top exhaust fan (both top and rear were outfitted with the standard TriCools on low), but considering how warm the system is able to get now, I would hope for better performance out of this noise level.
As a recap of the LRPC, here's the specs as they stand currently:
- Case: Antec P182
- PSU: Corsair TX650W
- Motherboard: MSI 785GM-E65 (microATX)
- CPU: Athlon II X4 630 (quad-core 2.8GHz, 95W)
- Heatsink: Xigmatek HDT-S1283
- Video card: MSI Cyclone GTX 460
- HDD: 320GB WD Caviar Blue (3.5" 7200rpm) + 1.5TB WD Caviar Green (3.5" 5x00rpm), but will end up with a couple more drives over time
- ODD: LG CH08LS10 Blu-ray combo drive
While the P182 is really a nice case, I expect that this system has too much "dead space" to be efficiently cooled in it and I should really downsize to a microATX case (which will likely necessitate downsizing the heatsink). The two sticking points (other than "what will be able to cool my system quietly") are whether a GTX 460 will be too long for certain cases (sounds like it's a fairly standard size so probably not a big concern) and finding a good case with good airflow that could accommodate around four drives (current two plus a little room to expand before the drive array gets too big to live inside the case).
Had I only needed two 3.5" drives, something like the Fusion seems like it might work for me, but to get four from Antec it looks like I'd be back into ATX size and then I'd probably be back to where I am now on cooling performance and possibly noise level.
My odd setup (gaming and media storage in microATX form) is a little off the beaten path, I'm sure, and so I'm not sure if anyone here has really gone this way before to provide some personal experience, but any suggestions even on thing to consider when looking at cases would be much appreciated.
TL;DR: What's a good microATX case that can quietly cool a quad-core, GTX 460, and has room for four 3.5" HDDs?
