Gadgetory

cases at Computex 2019 range from unobtainable like the $4,000 semi custom cocoons to questionable like the $40 cut apart five-gallon buckets with a cloth on top of them and that was just from one booth the show had a lot of promising cases some with mesh and some just unique and we're looking forward to the industry's investment into more performance and quality focused trends for 2019 for this video we're looking at the best cases that were at Computex and we have everything from standard designs to abstract or straight bizarre enclosures with a lot of the design standards shifting toward mesh for this year's launches before that this video is brought to you by thermal grizzly and their high-end thermal compounds thermal grizzly makes cryo not paste for high thermal performance and conductivity without being electrically conductive so you don't have to worry about shorting components cryo knot is particularly good for replacing stock GPU pastes as cryo knot is a non curing compound learn more at the link in the description below as a reminder we still need to test all the cases displayed at Computex 2019 but this list gives a recap of the most interesting enclosures we saw at the show of course until we can test them properly we'd advise holding on purchases our our best of show nomination for this year's cases goes towards silverstone who've reinvented their chart-topping raven series with the raven prototype and the alte which uses a raven chassis the rv0 2 is among the top three cases we've ever benchmarked released originally circa 2009 and its high performance was primarily results of managing to cram 3 180 millimeter high static pressure fans pointed straight into the tower and GPU coolers into the bottom of the case the alter revisits this design with raven tooling but now with three 200 millimeter bottom mounted fans instead Silverstone is also moving to support the RGB trend in these fans if a bit delay it on its support of that trend with further trendy moves illustrated by the accompaniment of curved tempered glass for the side panel the altar rotates and inverts the motherboard tray positioning the GPU cooler in a slipstream from the 200 millimeter fans and enabling tower coolers eight directs a bottom to top air stream this is improved with a 120 millimeter top mounted fan for exhaust this approach allows Silverstone to keep a closed front panel instead orienting its intake toward the bottom and push it out a fine mesh filter at the top the PSU is rear mounted in this one and hidden with cable management's concealed by a solid panel on the opposing side price will be in the range of $300 with a release target of to be determined it's not finalized yet Silverstone also had its Raven prototype present which should be priced significantly more affordably while still maintaining the airflow focus the Raven prototype isn't completely finalized either but it is improved beyond what was shown at CES this is more of a true successor to the rv0 2 finally Silverstone earned its spot and best of show by closing out its stack with a more affordably priced Farah v1 case the Farah v1 is meant to sell at $70 it will have a mesh front and apparently intends to ship with three 120 mil a RGB front fans and one 120 millimeter exhaust fan will believe this pricing when we see it but if they can hold it it's a promising goal and it would make for a strong successor to the RL 0-6 the next award is for most improved which goes to fan text this year the fantex P 400 a improves upon the 2016 design for the P 400 by adding a fine mesh panel to the front this is similar to the cooler master and our 600 panel in case we recently reviewed in that the ultrafine approach to the mesh allows for the size of the mesh holes to act as a dust filter without needing a dedicated dose filter the fans XP 400 a is supposed to carry new fans that are as yet hum detailed with options of blackout or RGB at either $70 or $90 respectively the P 400 a is among the more promising cases we saw it for its mixture of exterior design and performance and we look forward to its release later this year before moving away from air flow and towards just unique cases we have a runner-up for the most improves category fit Phoenix and its Nova mesh TG land on the list for this one the last time we worked with BitFenix the company had released one of the worst cases we've ever reviewed the Enzo which was bad in terms of build quality airflow and ease of installation features but BitFenix has had some time to improve the BitFenix anova mesh TG moves to a fine dust filter on the front following trends other companies have discovered this year although it still includes a dust filter in the front which is probably not fully necessary we think that Phoenix could drop the filter to improve performance without much sacrifice but in the very least it's something that user can remove if the user desires the case should ship with one 120mm rear fan with LEDs one 120 front fan with LEDs and a price of about 70 dollars for the glass version or $60 for the steel side panel variants support for radiators goes up to 360 millimeters in the front 240 on the top and 120 in the rear with 28 millimeters of kale management space in the back BitFenix with the nova mesh TG has made a major move back into our spotlight and we'll make sure to review this one as soon as we're able to this is a good move by a company that otherwise demonstrated some serious design issues in the Enzo and the ante up mash has further proven that BitFenix is serious about fixing its case design and moving forward with something competitive not every case has to be airflow focused of course it just has to be good enough thermaltake gets noticed for bringing one of the two most unique case designs we saw at a Computex thermal takes was the distro plate 200 or DP 200 Plus which is an acrylic water cooling distribution plate that has its own feet and a motherboard tray the point of the case is throughout water through the acrylic body using an inlet and outlet on the motherboard side of the case for feeding water into the distribution channels the back has a fill and a drain port and an LED PCB although the placement of the LEDs is still being finalized Thermaltake is still deciding on several of the features of the case like if it should have a glass panel or aluminum bars like the core p3 does but it's nearing completion on the design the DP 200 is unique in its approach to eliminate the case itself and merge it instead with a water cooling component and we're curious to see how it turns out once finalized price and release date are still TBD but as far as unique cases go if you can still call this a case the DP 200 plus definitely deserves its spot on the list as a runner-up for unique cases as as pyramid enclosure takes a different approach to include a design as a brand you might not know but they're a common manufacturer for system integrators like CyberPower and they regularly make semi custom enclosures that our partner exclusive for short periods like 6 months the pyramid is a flashy case that's seen to desire a place in the showroom more than anything else using tempered glass panels on the four vertical faces and a centrally mounted system for maximum visibility to the components the case uses aluminum panels for the sides and uses mounting points for fans on the bottom of the chassis where three 120 millimeter fans were installed for the show and then there's one additional fan at the top the point of the pyramid possesses that extra 120 millimeter exhaust fan it's not really practical in any way really nothing about it is it's larger than it needs to be and the cooling it's probably perfectly acceptable but not going to be particularly good but it can be flat packed so that's good and it's absolutely unique and there might even be a table sold separately to flip the pyramid upside down because that was necessary the case should cost between 200 and 300 dollars when it's finalized this was blamed on tariffs although that percent change is much greater than the tariff so we're not sure what they're doing but it's interesting it's unique and even if it's impractical it's something that's worthy of being highlighted just for being different NZXT barely made it onto the list this year but we did want to highlight its refreshed series of cases as they address some major past concerns of ours NZXT it receives the GM Computex award for most decidedly average assigning neither praise nor condemnation for the products announced which really isn't a bad thing considering how bad some of the cases were on the show floor when we reviewed the original NZXT aged 500 not to be confused with these 17,000 other H 500 skews we found that its negative pressure stock configuration performed surprisingly well or at least adequately for our test system adding fans to intake actually began to regress and performance for GPU thermals and that's because the stock negative pressure setup drafts Aaron naturally through the rear PCIe holes by way of the GPU fan the new H 510 elite has the same panel design aside from the glass front and should have the same airflow pathways and behaviors at least it would with the fans on the same spot the intake remains on the right side panel although this time it appears that NZXT II has switched to positive pressure setup depending on the quality of the fans used this could end up potentially worse for GPU thermals are better for CPU thermals at least with our test platform but we'll look at that when it launches the case has managed to update with a glass front USB type-c to RGB fans and an RGB LED strip it's the same path that the s340 elite took for the s 340 this is a predictable move and one which doesn't make waves positively or negatively but it's notable enough to mention pricing should be $170 of the elite or $80 the h5 10 non elite version if you prefer something that sticks closer to the original price we also have a runner-up for the most decidedly average category and that's Lian Li with its 11 XL and similarly predictable but noteworthy news Lian Li is 11 XL deserves mention for its up scaled approach to the popular and jian award-winning xi dynamic chassis the OU 11 dynamic XL has more space in the bottom better accounting for the lower edge of motherboards while still fitting cooling components for example and can also now fit EA TX motherboard small improvements include optional SSD mounts on the side intake which we wouldn't particularly recommend using for air flow reasons but if you wanted them there there and it also has pre routed SATA and power cables for easy connection of SSDs behind the motherboard tray these allow for SSDs to connect in a semi hot swappable manner but it's mostly an ease of installation feature which is because at this point Lian Li is refining a case that was already an award-winning case cooler master and it's h100 end up in our category of cases we should keep an eye on the age 100 worries us in a few ways like the complete lack of any bottom ventilation to allow the GPU fan to take air in from the outside of the case but it's still an interesting enclosure and with the push of AP use in the future hopefully anyway this could have a good place for a small form-factor gaming system that might live in a living room it's a smallish box sort of similar at the old core v1 by Thermaltake but smaller than that and it has a 200 millimeter front mounted fan this alone gets it in the video as many IT acts with 200 millimeter fans are a rare combination and one that is interesting and looks kind of good despite the mesh front though the power supply ends up potentially in direct conflict with CPU intake and the video card is pushed against a steel panel at the bottom with lower TDP parts that should be workable and the more interesting use case will be when coolermaster launches its 200 milliliter radiator to fit in the front of the case something that they are working we're not sure how it'll do for performance but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on and that's why we're noting it in this video the case should be about $70 when it launches there were a lot more cases at Computex 2019 we didn't see every single case on the floor but we saw a lot of them especially from the bigger brands that you know and we cut a few from the list be quiet for example had its new pure base 500 which is a cheaper finally case from be quiet and one that might interest fans of be quiet cases who don't want to spend as much it just didn't really fall on a place on this list and then there were also plenty of cases from smaller manufacturers or suppliers even that we just simply didn't get a chance to see if there's something you think that we should take a look at or maybe we missed we didn't include in this video or in our Computex coverage please feel free to leave the name of the products below especially if it's case and we'll do our best to get our hands on it as soon as it's available and post a review we do pay attention to the comments especially when a lot of you want us to look at the same cases so be sure to post those because we'll actually take a look at them that's it for this one subscribe for more as always you can support us track that store that gamers Nexus that or patreon.com slash gamers access to get access to the behind-the-scenes videos coming up this week thank you for watching we'll see you all next time