While many of us love modding, and all of us (should!!!) love water cooling, sometimes adding $125.00, $150.00 or more for a good quality water cooling case can be a bit of a tough pill to swallow.
While I'm a huge fan of the latest offerings from Caselabs (X2,X2m yum yum), the new limited run EK Vulture, Parvum cases, and some of the more dedicated water-cooling centric products, I also get a big kick out of finding inexpensive cases that offer a lot of bang-for-the-buck and generous features for water cooling.
Hardware Canucks recently posted a Youtube video for the latest Silverstone Mid/full tower ATX case, the KL05. The KL05 is a shared design that seemed really familiar. I had seen the identical mobo tray in another case: The Thermaltake Core V31.
This case has all the same features as the KL05 with a different look similar to the Core V1, V21, V51 and V71, but is closer to a mid-tower ATX chassis size at 506mm deep, 470mm tall, and 208mm wide. This is approximately the same (or less) displacement as popular cases like the Fractal Design Define R5 and NZXT H440, but at a noticeably lower cost. At one point NCIX had this case at around the $65.00 mark and I believe DirectCanada sells it for around $75.00.
It has a lot of thoughtful features like:
1) Twin SSD trays behind the motherboard tray with 4 possible mounting options (two behind the front optical cages and two behind the mobo tray)
2) Decent cable management room with a "bumped" right side panel to allow for thicker cables
3) Full size, NOT tinted side window
4) Up to 8 fan slots with the front and top allowing for 140mm fans
5) Fully filtered bottom, front and top intakes
6) Removable front 3x3.5" disk cage that can also be relocated up or down for bottom mounted 240mm radiators
7) Fully removable optical "trays"
It also has the optical trays off-set down about 60mm so a 35mm top mounted 360mm radiator plus single set of fans would still allow for a front dual-bay reservoir without clearance issues, and the top 120mm fan mounts are off-set to allow for components on the motherboard tray to be up to "I/O shield" height and have a thick radiator plus fans, or a push-pull configuration.
But the real kicker to me is that, as a case that is nearly an inch narrower, 2.5" shorter, and 1.75" shallower than a Phanteks Enthoo Pro, it can house dual 360mm radiators. And it can do it much more easily than a case that is directly advertised as having this feature: The NZXT H440.
I bought this case a while back for around $85.00 with taxes and recently was surprised that I could fit an Alphacool UT60 up top in PUSH-PULL with a 30-35mm 360mm radiator in front. Because the Alphacool, and the thin/slim Darkside radiators have "tapered" end tanks, they can be pushed all the way to the back of the case to get a 35mm XSPC EX360 or Swiftech MCR320-XP in the front, as long as no high profile RAM is used (like Dominator Platinums).
It also has the top screwed in so it can be removed to make integration really easy, where you can screw a 360mm radiator to the top while it is off the case, making assembly easy-peasy.
So yeah, color me surprised. Now it's not as rigid or sturdy as some of the more recent cases from NZXT like the H440 or S340, or the Enthoo Pro/Luxe, but the metal is folded to afford better rigidity and it doesn't feel overly flimsy, though it is quite light.
Here's a cell phone pic of it with dual 360mm radiators installed, with an Alphacool ST30 up top and a Swiftech MCR320-XP in front. I removed the ST30 and stuck a UT60 (60mm thick) Alphacool up top wth the same fitment possibilities.
So if you're looking for a fairly compact water cooling friendly case that has enough room for dual 360mm radiators, and doesn't have some of the build process problems like the H440 has due to the 3.5" disk bay side plate, the Thermaltake Core v31 is a great case.
While I'm a huge fan of the latest offerings from Caselabs (X2,X2m yum yum), the new limited run EK Vulture, Parvum cases, and some of the more dedicated water-cooling centric products, I also get a big kick out of finding inexpensive cases that offer a lot of bang-for-the-buck and generous features for water cooling.
Hardware Canucks recently posted a Youtube video for the latest Silverstone Mid/full tower ATX case, the KL05. The KL05 is a shared design that seemed really familiar. I had seen the identical mobo tray in another case: The Thermaltake Core V31.
This case has all the same features as the KL05 with a different look similar to the Core V1, V21, V51 and V71, but is closer to a mid-tower ATX chassis size at 506mm deep, 470mm tall, and 208mm wide. This is approximately the same (or less) displacement as popular cases like the Fractal Design Define R5 and NZXT H440, but at a noticeably lower cost. At one point NCIX had this case at around the $65.00 mark and I believe DirectCanada sells it for around $75.00.
It has a lot of thoughtful features like:
1) Twin SSD trays behind the motherboard tray with 4 possible mounting options (two behind the front optical cages and two behind the mobo tray)
2) Decent cable management room with a "bumped" right side panel to allow for thicker cables
3) Full size, NOT tinted side window
4) Up to 8 fan slots with the front and top allowing for 140mm fans
5) Fully filtered bottom, front and top intakes
6) Removable front 3x3.5" disk cage that can also be relocated up or down for bottom mounted 240mm radiators
7) Fully removable optical "trays"
It also has the optical trays off-set down about 60mm so a 35mm top mounted 360mm radiator plus single set of fans would still allow for a front dual-bay reservoir without clearance issues, and the top 120mm fan mounts are off-set to allow for components on the motherboard tray to be up to "I/O shield" height and have a thick radiator plus fans, or a push-pull configuration.
But the real kicker to me is that, as a case that is nearly an inch narrower, 2.5" shorter, and 1.75" shallower than a Phanteks Enthoo Pro, it can house dual 360mm radiators. And it can do it much more easily than a case that is directly advertised as having this feature: The NZXT H440.
I bought this case a while back for around $85.00 with taxes and recently was surprised that I could fit an Alphacool UT60 up top in PUSH-PULL with a 30-35mm 360mm radiator in front. Because the Alphacool, and the thin/slim Darkside radiators have "tapered" end tanks, they can be pushed all the way to the back of the case to get a 35mm XSPC EX360 or Swiftech MCR320-XP in the front, as long as no high profile RAM is used (like Dominator Platinums).
It also has the top screwed in so it can be removed to make integration really easy, where you can screw a 360mm radiator to the top while it is off the case, making assembly easy-peasy.
So yeah, color me surprised. Now it's not as rigid or sturdy as some of the more recent cases from NZXT like the H440 or S340, or the Enthoo Pro/Luxe, but the metal is folded to afford better rigidity and it doesn't feel overly flimsy, though it is quite light.
Here's a cell phone pic of it with dual 360mm radiators installed, with an Alphacool ST30 up top and a Swiftech MCR320-XP in front. I removed the ST30 and stuck a UT60 (60mm thick) Alphacool up top wth the same fitment possibilities.
So if you're looking for a fairly compact water cooling friendly case that has enough room for dual 360mm radiators, and doesn't have some of the build process problems like the H440 has due to the 3.5" disk bay side plate, the Thermaltake Core v31 is a great case.
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