Gadgetory

Tommi tax included all sorts of oddities this year like the wheel of star mod at : masters booth the massive Corsair concept slate enclosure that used to lean costing nearly three-quarters of a million dollars and the throne will take level 20 monolith of aluminum and glass but we also had a chance to cover more consumer targeted cases and today we're looking at the best ATX cases at the show including Leon the Silverstone EVGA cooler master thermaltake and be quiet in the front-runner group there's also a bonus entry in the micro STX category as well before getting to that this coverage is brought to you by Corsairs new at t1 race chair which is a $350 gaming targetted chair using a bucket style race seat the chair arms have four directional movement for configuration to your liking and has a bonus they use rollerblade wheels learn more at the link in the description below this case roundup won't include every single thing we saw at the show and will exclude some of the more exotic cases like the concept slate the in win-win bot for example the floating and the Thermaltake level 20 but there's still plenty to get through the article below contain an updated table with each case and links to further information on everything here if you want more depth we're starting with Leon Lee is a new alpha series of cases as the company makes another attempt to enter the mass consumer market rather than use aluminum and lots of glass in the Alpha 330 and 350 cases Leon Lee is instead using steel to help lower price and bring it to mass market this means that shipping lower end alpha 330s will not include any fans with them as Lee only wants you to buy your own to again help lower price the Alpha 330 targets a $100 price point and using the same tool and as the 350 internally just with a difference in top and front panel height where the 350 is running a taller build with front IO and additional buttons for LEDs we think of 330 is the most interesting here given its lower price and could make for one of Li only the best ventures in the consumer market last far we're not sure how airflow will pan out with the glass panel front but the company might still make some changes like slits on the side panel or the side of the front panel for better breathing but we'll look at all that in due time for now the Alpha 330 is one of the best cases to watch from Leon Lee in both cases come in both black and white ishes silverstone had three new ATX cases on display that will talk about the rv0 for in a moment for non ATX case the PS 15 is Silverstone's most noteworthy case from the show we think everything is still subject to change here including case tooling but most of the cases use some sort of familiar Silverstone cooling from me the red liner could buy cases of the past we saw bits and pieces of the previous Qi and redline case in the newcomers and the PS 50 makes the best mixture of function focused cooling ventilation and some of the front panel looks that Silverstone is trying to adopt given the current market trend the RL 0-6 recently chart topped in our benchmarks with significantly better cooling than all of its competition that we've tested something afforded by the cases that mesh front intake and focus on removing solid panel restrictions to airflow and while the PS 15 takes parts of this approach they also try to account for that current trend of covering up the front with something solid so they do that with a somewhat mesh and ventilated front panel that's a bit denser in the steel parts of the mesh also keeping with trends the PS 15 uses a tinted tempered glass side panel with a minimalistic approach to drive support another major trend lately the case is more of a mid tower like all three cases that we're looking at from Silverstone right now the PS 15 will be priced at $60 the other cases at the show where the $70 are l08 those Silverstone might rename it to the cupola family and the 80 to $90 redline o 7 which features a geometric split down the center whereas the RL 0 8 uses more of an s-shaped curve with red lighting neither of these two cases have a focus on cooling and are clearly trying to stick with trends of blocked front ventilation for this reason we think the PS 15 is the most interesting of the lot right now as for the honorable mention from silverstone the new raven r VZ 0 4 is the smallest possible form factor that can still support a gaming machine it's able to achieve this by using a micro STX motherboard which are available rarely but primarily from asrock along with an MSM video card here's the problem though this case and its platform hinges on users being vocal about one in it the r VZ is 0 for can fit an MX m gtx 1070 and a micro SD x motherboard of the high NCP but that won't matter until AMD and NVIDIA make em X em cards available through retail channels right now you can only get them really in sort of a gray market meaning that they're expensive as well we think Nvidia and AMD might be hesitant to make em XM cards available because they don't want users keeping old laptops alive or not really sure if there's a legitimate reason otherwise if mxm ends up on retail channels the RV's e04 and its micro-st x platform could permit one of these smallest gaming PC builds possible silverstone is even making custom MXM GPU coolers to accommodate the platform Coolermaster is making a big return to cases this year primarily there are older case lines the cosmos is they return to the big cases of your though it's still useful for a shrinking market of data enthusiasts or large at workstation users the cosmos C 700p leverages its size to permit an invertible motherboard tray similar to the be quiet dark bass pro 900 the motherboard tray can be completely removed from the system the system can then be installed and it can be placed back in the case facing either left or right depending on preference the side panels are also sigh diagnostic making it easy to completely rotate case layout if desirable and this follows cooler masters new modular focus aside from this the C 700 P can outfit 8 drives in the front something we haven't heard much in the last few years and has additional space on the front of the power supply shroud for a primary SSD mount the front of the case folds out for access to a dust filter which also folds out and the 140 millimeter fans sits behind this another large dust filter covers the bottom of the case where the C 700 P is higher legs elevate to the enclosure for cool air intake and a radiator cage is present under the PSU shroud for this region of the case given it exposure to outside air through the underside of the enclosure there is support for 3 140 milliliter fans in the front of the case 1 140 millimeter in the rear and then a couple of the top as well and stock the case comes with 2 140 milliliter front fans in the bottom two sections of the installation area and one 140 millimeter rear fan none of these have LEDs just a bit different from the H 500 P that we'll be talking about later this is a true workstation enclosure for now coolermaster is expecting pricing to be in the 300 to 350 dollar range partially because of the 4 to fake tempered-glass side panel with tapered sides and its hinge and release is sometime in October if you're building a machine that's going to be working with a lot of data and as more of a workstation focus this is a good case to look at and in that similar market this next one is quick since it's based on a case that we covered last year be quiet has refreshed it's dark based Pro 900 line with a new white edition which will ship in a limited quantity of 2,000 units at first but the white looks good on this case white is notoriously difficult to get right when mixing materials so be quiet spent most of its time ramping up this case manufacturing with tone matching the plastics and the metals of the case and was able to get the white to match on all the panels we can't say that for all the cases we've reviewed in the past that are white though the case should run about ten dollars more than the standard DB pro 900 making it around 260 dollars and will otherwise be identical each case will include a nameplate with the case number of the production run availability will start in late quarter three early quarter four and be quiet might add on more to the production run if it's in high demand and we're hoping to review this one once it comes out though the core features are the same as the previous black version which includes an invertible motherboard tray just like the C 700p with some more unique customizable and modular features that be quite advertised at last year's show for something more affordable EVGA zg7 series of cases will finally hit production after a long delay we first saw the D g7 at CES this year but the case has now been finalized into a series of D g7 cases including the G G 73 75 76 and 77 the only number they skipped is the 74 all three cases carry the same tooling with the difference primarily being cosmetic to where the tempered glass plates are the DG 73 will be more budget focused and should be priced roughly around $60 EVGA the G 73 will include a single stock fan will have only one tempered glass panel on the front and will use an acrylic side window on the left side this is a bit different from most cases that use tempered glass for one side since they tend to put it on the left so that sets the D g7 apart in some ways the higher end of the spectrum the 77 and 76 are differentiated from each other primarily by the presence of a K boost button and an extra fan on the DG 77 the cables button if you're not familiar basically just maxes out the the CPU in their highest P States at all times so if you wanted to run your max clocks for some reason you can do that with the KBS button without needing software so 77 should be priced under $150 and will include three tempered glass panels on the front and on both sides looking now at thermal takes view 21 and cord g21 these cases also targets the more affordable price point at around 70 dollars and they will do so with two different phase plates the view 21 uses an acrylic panel in the front with a rounded front end on the left side wrapping around the case and allowing intake on the right side the g21 meanwhile sticks with the mesh front the mesh is a bit dense and not as breathable as again the are l06 for example but still breathes a whole lot more air than most the cases on the market today both cases have a tempered glass left side panel continuing the trend of cases in the 60 70 dollar range with tempered glass paneling which seems to be a big theme this year and details are TVD on how many fans are included a lot of these cases are still prototypes or early versions Thermaltake also had new cases in the 7 & 9 TVs like the view 91 TG which has suicide doors on each side vertical GPU mount and some tooling from the W 100 just with a new back panel for the GPU mouthing and a different paneling on the outside of the case and next we're moving on to the case that takes our highest award for the best case at Computex 2017 and that's the cooler master H 500 P the H 500 P has the most excited for benchmarking and analysis because it is a revisit to the companies that critically acclaimed half-line we actually used the half ex heavily in one of our earliest test benches the half series hasn't aged well though it features old hat design cues with a dust heavy approach to the exterior and the H 500 P aims to resurrect the half brand but does so while borrowing modern design tropes to limit dust and noise while still hanging on to its signature 200 millimeter fans and high airflow focus this includes it - 200 millimeter fans on the front with RGB LEDs included in the case stock and then it's also got room for 200 in the top or you can go with 140 s on the top part of the top section so it's 2 top sections one on the inside of the case one of the top of the case the one on the inside allows for 3 120 millimeter fans the one on the top allows for 3 141 and we have a full video talking about the rest of details of this case including the price and the release date and finally we have the needs work category for some cases at the show that are still in prototype staging and have time to make changes that people have talked about online but we think aren't quite there yet the BitFenix and so lands on this list first it's another case targeting the 60 to 70 dollar range with tempered glass while keeping some RGB on it but it presently has absolutely no front intake this case will heat up like a hot box and has no means to get cool air in but after talking about Phoenix it sounds like the company is considering adding some mesh or ventilated front intake along with its included RGB LED strip this is a scenario where we see it looks taking priority over engineering but it's still possible for the two to co-exist and it's important that BitFenix realizes this and fixes some sort of intake before release in the case it does have a lot of potential though particularly in these 60 to 70 dollar markets and another case and the needs work category is the in when 806 though we do think it's getting there quickly the 806 shows in one's unique idea to add wood to a case making very sort of modern type design for a home this looks best on the gaming a1 cube which could find its place in the living room of a Frank Lloyd Wright house for example but it still looks ok on the 806 we're told that the 806 will use Sun wood which is effectively a plywood with the other two cases using it maple and Cypress the Sun wood panel looks ok but with a target of $250 we're hoping anyone does more to improve something else in the case maybe cooling for example so that is better on this halo case in the previous halo case which was the infinity so far it looks like they're on the right track there's about an inch of intake on the sides of the front and top of that wood panel which anyone specifically pointed out to us given our criticism of the infinity so that shows that they've really taken note of the cooling limitations of previous designs a bit more work to be done yet but it's well on its way to being a unique case that's still functional and that's it for this case roundup we have plenty of individual case coverage from the show at each of the booths there are some more halo type products or just interesting ones in general like we in wind wind bot be in win the floating case and then Thurman will take level 28 Corsairs slate con case which may not even make it to market though probably will in some form by the end of the year so check all that out if you're interested in more article is linked in the description below as always you can go to gamers nexus net you can support us at patreon.com slash gamers nexus or you can pick up one of our shirts at store dot gamers nexus nets thank you for watching I'll see you all next time you