A horse of a different color? (Rosewill cases on newegg.com)

natethegreat · Post by **natethegreat** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:44 pm

newegg link

Saw a discussion about some new Rosewill cases being carried by Newegg. What suprised me was they appear to have the same chassis as the Antec SLK-3000B. Might be an alternative for people who do not care for the SLK styling...

openwheelformula1 · Post by **openwheelformula1** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:27 pm

yep, same chassis as my tsunami

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:00 pm

not to mention that its almost half the price!

natethegreat · Post by **natethegreat** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:02 pm

yes, good eye, I forgot that the Tsunami was similar in layout. The Rosewill seems like it is a 3000B with tool-less card slots.

Thermaltake Tsunami:

Antec SLK 3000B:

Rosewill R6A34-BK:

ozdoc · Post by **ozdoc** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:08 am

A small detail - the rear fan grill is not the same as the open honeycomb design of Antec. The Rosewill seems much more restrictive.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 6:28 am

Dang, seems like a hell of a deal for $30.

...but:

Look for the front air intake. Newegg's pics are super-dark, but it looks like the only front grills are a small section along both sides of the bottom part of the bezel. Troubling....

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:04 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:Look for the front air intake. Newegg's pics are super-dark, but it looks like the only front grills are a small section along both sides of the bottom part of the bezel. Troubling....

Ralf, the "features" list a filter on the front panel, not an input fan. I think we're seeing modern case air flow thinking here.
Once case manufacturers caught on that modern CPUs and especially modern GPUs burned a lot of power and needed a lot of cooling, a lot of cases turned into wind tunnels with huge air openings in the front. The problem is, anything inside the case that made noise had the noise escape out the front.

Then the problem was re-thought. All the hot stuff is in the back of the case; only the HDD(s) get hot in the front, and not very hot at that. Cooling requirements in the front of the case are very moderate.

So one now commonly finds cases with little air intake in the front. And little noise escaping out the front. This Rosewill case seems typical of a modern case. My Evercase ECE3505s are designed the same way, and they work just fine.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:44 am

Felger Carbon wrote: Then the problem was re-thought. All the hot stuff is in the back of the case; only the HDD(s) get hot in the front, and not very hot at that. Cooling requirements in the front of the case are very moderate.

So one now commonly finds cases with little air intake in the front. And little noise escaping out the front. This Rosewill case seems typical of a modern case. My Evercase ECE3505s are designed the same way, and they work just fine.

Um. . . I don't think that's how it works. Proper case airflow for an ATX case has always been: intake in bottom front, exhaust in upper rear. Closing up the front doesn't just reduce cooling for the hard drives, it reduces cooling for the whole case in general. Unless you consider the side intake as the main intake, then you might have a point. But then your southbridge and graphics cards might not get enough cooling. Also, its probably better noise-wise to have a fan up front than an opening on the side.

The Antec 3000B is a better case because it has larger intake openings up front, but the openings are indirect so the sound is baffeled on the way out the front, thereby minimizing noise escaping out front. The Rosewill and your Evercase 3505 just seems to close up the front, resulting in smaller openings that require higher speed fans to get the necessary airflow for adequate cooling.

Felger Carbon · Post by **Felger Carbon** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:03 pm

stromgald wrote: Um. . . I don't think that's how it works. Proper case airflow for an ATX case has always been: intake in bottom front, exhaust in upper rear. Closing up the front doesn't just reduce cooling for the hard drives, it reduces cooling for the whole case in general. Unless you consider the side intake as the main intake, then you might have a point. But then your southbridge and graphics cards might not get enough cooling.

I do consider the side intake as the main intake. My southbridge doesn't even have a passive heat sink on it and I have no graphics card, so I don't worry about my graphics card not getting enough cooling.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:52 pm

Felger Carbon wrote:Once case manufacturers caught on that modern CPUs and especially modern GPUs burned a lot of power and needed a lot of cooling, a lot of cases turned into wind tunnels with huge air openings in the front.

When was this mythical age when there were a lot of cases with huge air openings in the front? As far as I can recall, there have always been excessively restrictive front intakes--even back in the old AT days when the CPU was right up against the front intake.

The problem is, anything inside the case that made noise had the noise escape out the front.

Given the design flaws of most cases, I don't think case manufacturers generally put any thought into noise or airflow. Or maybe they did but they really didn't care.

Now, I don't blame them for not thinking about noise. Most PC users aren't like us and they simply accept noise as a normal aspect of computers.

However, I do think it's stupid that they never put any effort into properly implementing airflow. Instead of providing an adequate unrestricted front intake, all I've ever seen is adding extra intakes in less useful places (like the side of the case, or holes in the rear next to the expansion slots).

natethegreat · Post by **natethegreat** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:39 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:Look for the front air intake. Newegg's pics are super-dark, but it looks like the only front grills are a small section along both sides of the bottom part of the bezel. Troubling....

There may be another air intake at the bottom front of the case, kind of like the 3000B has.

David Mitchell · Post by **David Mitchell** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 1:49 pm

Whoa. Anyone else recall the Compucase LX-6A19?

Yes, the front intake doesn't look so good, and I don't like doors, but I'm still tempted.