Geez, I wrote 'cute and sexy' and look who showed up in the banner ads -

Mace, the Antec 902 looks good but expensive for it's price point (£92), the Corsair Carbide 500 (£86) offers more features for less money.

WC, I've built my current rig myself too and yes, my cables are stuffed beside the HDD drive bays. I must admit it may be easy enough to do some cable management on my own using loads of zip ties, but I prefer to have the cutouts as well for an even easier time and a (hopefully!) tidier result. Pics of your cabling would be appreciated...

Oh, and I'd rather have something a bit bigger... my current Antec 300 fits everything nicely (CM Hyper 212 Evo cooler, 6790 GPU, two HDDs, one DVD writer) though the GPU just barely clears the HDD assembly. This isn't a problem anyway since I can just relocate the HDD, no big deal. But the extra space and cable management would make for a tidier system and hopefully run cooler due to better airflow. I hope to put a fan in front of my HDDs this time for active air intake rather than the passive method for now. Plus the bigger case interior will make future modding/upgrade installs easier.



I LOL at this since I know you buy stuff for testing and for fun. Allen, I do understand your point and I do want to spend as little as possible, however, I am also wary of spending TOO LITTLE and end up with something that does not fit my needs. So I am a little bit flexible sometimes, as the budget and budget officer allows. Based on my experience, my Antec came with a top 140mm and a rear 120mm fan -- I bought the extra 140mm side fan but not used it. The 912 plus (£65) comes with a 200mm front fan and a 120mm rear fan, the Carbide 500 (£86) comes with a 200mm side fan, two 120mm front fans, and a 120mm rear fan. I could probably put my unused Antec side fan as a top exhaust fan, or take one of the front fans and move it to the top. Or do both. So as far as case fans go I can live with what comes default with the case. The £21 price difference I can easily put down to going from a strictly-budget 912 to a slightly-more-enthusiast Carbide 500. Or downgrade to a Carbide 400 (£77) for a £12 price difference.

Thank you very much for your opinions and words though. I appreciate you showing these points for me; I am simply explaining/defending my decisions as well, so as to check if they make sense at all


So... current choices are:

• Cooler Master HAF 912 Plus (£65) - painted interior, cable management holes but no rubber grommets, one 200mm front fan, one 120mm rear fan, modular HDD bays. Front and bottom (PSU) air filters.
• Antec 302 (£65) - unpainted interior, cable management holes but no rubber grommets, one 140mm top fan, one 120mm rear fan, front and bottom (PSU) filters, optional back-of-motherboard exhaust fan.
• Corsair Carbide 500R (£86) - painted interior, cable management holes with rubber grommets, one 200mm side fan, two 120mm front fans, one 120mm rear fan. Front and bottom (PSU) air filters.

The CM HAF 922 and Antec 902 come in close at just over £90, but the 902 sports an "older" layout similar to my Antec 300 so I think I'm better with the 302 and cheaper too! The HAF 922 also has a limited cable management system so the Carbide 500 has better options at a cheaper price.

Not in any particular rush to buy a case so still open to recommendations for evaluation and further research

Yes, you've got me pegged

Maybe I will use that Antec 300 after all. Its been many weeks since I've put a system together. You got me thinking (of an excuse).

All those unused fun parts laying around my "build room" waiting for a "purpose". For the price of a 4 core Bulldozer (a few of which can OC to 5.0GHz some say) plus 8GB 1600 speed RAM (net $133 on sales today), I can have yet another HTPC up and running. And, my wife has a good use for it -- making the $133 expenditure legal in her eyes

Heck, a chanced to finally try Bulldozer cheap and use the Antec - no brainer. "Pulled the trigger"

A pleasure doing business with you

Lol, glad to have helped.

Regarding that HTPC for my wife:

I added an ASUS Radeon HD7750 (just on-the-shelf in the last few minutes) at $110 plus shipping. Today's official launch day reviews put it as a great HTPC card that can actually play most of the new games on high settings with FPS above 20 and often in the 30's 40's (which is my personal criteria for playability). I'll be trying Skyrim with the HTPC on our 54" Plasma TV. However, FWIW, the HD7750 is not considered a serious gamers' card -- one can do better for the money, today at least -- its a high end HTPC card.

So, without dropping a fortune ($870+ for FX8150 plus HD7970 plus memory), I get to experiment with Bulldozer OC and HD7xxx while potentially getting a large screen gaming system and using up excess components -- for a total of roughly $250 net new purchases -- and make my wife happy -- win win win.

I'll report back in a new thread how it turned out -- I assume a week or two depending on deliveries.

My FX8120 arrived today,

Still waiting on the XFX 7950 BE to be restocked, now sold out at TD, and amazon jacked their prices to $600+.

I cannot be happer with the HAF922 though,

i was able to route all the Power Cables for the CPU and stuff behind the mainboard, and twist tie all the FAN/LED/Power-Reset/USB2.0 cables and stuff to the frame behind the mainboard, everything i've installed thus far goes in with no problems, plenty of space, and plenty of "cable management holes" on the frame to Ziptie wires down (i'm just using the twist ties that I have an abundance of from items shipped. The Airflow is really good. (the case does come with Zipties and all that stuff too.)