All I have to say is that I've been buidling computers for almost 20 years... I own a Antec P182 and it is BY FAR the best case I've ever seen..... This case should *seriously* be on your radar... I would pass over all others... honestly..

Jon

What would you guys choose:
CM HAF932 or CM CosmosS?

Hi Jon,

Thanks for your advice! I was hoping you'd chime in and lend me your much needed 2 cents :)

I'm going to wait until after the new year to make the upgrade. For one, I'm hoping to get some money during the holidays; and second, I'm hoping I'd get a good deal on the Intel i7 CPUs. (Hope to get 'em down low enough to buy a matching mobo :)

Also, would you mind terribly if I email you with my PC laundry list, so you could comment on them?

Thanks again Jon!

i7 processors are now $599 at Newegg, and Gigabyte has an appropriate MOBO for under $300. It's the memory that will kill ya., DDR3 is all you can run with those MOBOs.

Hi Andriy.......
 

Well, according to this web site:

Cooler Master - Ultimate provider of Computer Chassis | Cooler | Power Supply

the CM Stacker that I have is still available (tho' whether I really believe that is another matter).

Depending on what sort of beast you are thinking of creating, still feel it's the bees knees if you want to "go large".

For the first time in over 2 years I have had to work on my beast - just adding the originally supplied (additional) rear panel USB and Firewire ports, it's a gem to work on and in.

Cannot believe just how much crap had built up on the internals in the intervening time tho' - the CPU cooler was a solid block of crud, took ages with a fine brush and vacuum cleaner to free it up again.

Not a case issue, I hasten to add, just what happens when you have a machine with this much fan power running nearly 24/7 for well over 2 years and not a jot of maintenace.

I am firmly of the belief that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Good luck in you quest.

CS

Alternative case - rack mountable
 

Just throwing this out, as it might not have been considered yet -- a rackmount case.
iStarUSA D-407PL is an example.

Also consider "iStarUSA BPN-350SAS-Black 3x5.25" to 5x3.5" SATA/SAS Trayless Hot-Swap Backplane RAID Cage " This allows five drives in the space designed for three. Also supports SAS drives. Despite the not so glowing reviews on newegg dot com, I've been running it and not seen the heat issues they are complaining about. However, it's a bit nosier than I would like. Supermicro makes a similar version if you're put off by user comments about IStar.

You may also want to consider the Antec 1200. Huge tower case that is very affordable. I currently in my 900 have 8 drives(6 harddrives and two burners), RTX2 HD and full length gpu. The 1200 is much larger and has even more space. Because it is longer, if you decide you wanted to do say Crossfire, SLI or editing cards, etc, you would not have to edit the case at all. The downside to these cases like most other quality cases is that they weigh like 50 lbs when fully assembled. But for the price and what you get, it really can't be beat. The only thing close IMHO is one of the nicer Lan Lai towers with wheels.

You also have full fan control on the actual case, and the cooling to say "cold" is an underestimation! Nothing has ever gotten hot in my case and I only run the fans on medium. The 1200 is the evolution of the 900 with a few extra twists!

Good luck in your decision....

Absolutely, I do think it makes some sense to hold off for i7... For an application like video rendering the horsepower offered by that processor/platform should be worth the added expense...

Jon

Antec P182
 

Another vote for the Antec, i just built up a new PC using one of these cases, very stylish looking and super quiet once I swapped my standard cpu & vga coolers for aftermarket ones. Its hard to believe I have 7 fans running in this case!