DarkFury

A few months ago... I finally retired my trusty Supermicro SC750A (which was one of the best designed cases I've had the pleasure to work with...)

It's main faults... 1) not so good a power supply (which died long ago and has been since replaced) and 2) it only comes in BEIGE.

With more and more newer components and accessories now coming in Black and Silver.... I decided to upgrade a few months ago (or so I thought) to the Antec Performance Plus 1080AMG...

Now granted, the Antec case is nice... however in my opinion it really just isn't suited in being a "server type" full tower. My SuperMicro was a bit taller and wider than the Antec... and after stuffin' it to the gills with hard drives, optical drives and all kinds of other goodies, it began to feel cramped. Also... with all those HOT drives in there, it just couldn't release the heat fast enough like my SuperMicro used to (hell that mutha had 10 fan locations... yes it sounded like a vacuum cleaner.. but dayuum it ran cool.)

So now I was gonna look for yet another "Black" case to transfer all of my stuff to... and I came up on this...

The CoolerMaster CM Stacker...






Pretty much Maximum PC gave this case the "KICK ASS" award for it's flexibility and cooling capability. (I guess being able to house 4 120mm fans will do that for a case huh?). It suppports all ATX form factors and is even convertable to be compatible with the BTX form factor (TRANSFORMERS... more than meets the eye....)

Man... I am so amped that I'm getting this case... I sure do hope that it lives up to its hype. Even better yet, it can run 2 power supplies simultaneously... so now I can run my HD group and fans separately from the PS that will run my motherboard, video card, and optical drives. So NOW we're gonna be playing with POWER!!!!!

I even ordered the optional "cross flow turbine fan" and the "4 to 3 hard drive bay extender". This mofo is gonna be loaded... I sure do hope that it is big enough to handle all of this stuff.


/me drools waitin' for the UPS guy to bring me my new toy...

__________________


DarkFury's Pimptopia - Don't Hate the Playa, Hate the Game!
Home of the Original OG Pimp (accept NO imitations)

Yossarian

why don't you decide to send money to your fro-brother for college

__________________
"So cheers all and remember, don't mistake my old age for maturity. Just because I grow old does not mean I grow up. " -Merlin

"Now that your limelight has been sufficently trashed I will leave"- Nija

Each religion has got their own way of making you feel like a victim. The Christians say 'you are a sinner', and you better just zip up your trousers and give the money to the pope and we'll give you a room up in the hotel in the sky.
~Timothy Leary

Merlin

I don't know that particular case but I do use a Coolermaster myself and love it. Right now I don't think there is any other brand I would use. They are made really well and have a pretty classy look to them. It should serve you well. A nice little bonus is that you can also buy perfectly matched aluminum drive face plates. I know it sound a little anal but I get tired of my computer looking like Frankenstien's Monster. So those things made a difference to me.

Everyone will have thier favorites - and Coolermaster is mine.

__________________

DarkFury

Well actually, I am putting aside quite a bit so that DFJ will have that opportunity in about 15 years.

nate el bueno

my coolermaster has horrible airflow! 1 80mm fan in front and a 120 in back. the front fan has hideous airflow, so i normally leave the side pannel of so it doesn't start smoking. just last week, i decided to cut a hole in the side pannel for a 80mm fan, and use a soughtering tool to cut through the plastic window. my mom screamed when she saw all the smoke in my room after that, but it was a pretty nice hole. then, while shaving the extra peices of plastic off, the whole window cracked in half!!! now i dont have to leave the side pannel off because there is a big square hole in it where the window used to be!! i still love Thermaltake's Highest Xaser III's and Aspire's X-Qpack.

DarkFury

But look at the design... straight in... straight out.... with a chimney fan to boot...

How can airflow be any better than that?

Also.. the side panel has a huge mesh insert to also help in cooling the case...

Merlin

If a poor power supply is a fault in you opinion you may be let down by the Coolermaster as it typically does not come with a PS. I'm assuming that you have a good one to drop in so this won't matter but from the way you wrote that I don't want you to be surprised.

DarkFury

No.. that is not a problem, I know that a P/S is not included.

I already have power supplies (Asus TruePower 550 and a True 350) that I plan on putting into the case).

However, back in the day when "power supplies were standard" equipment in cases, pretty much the one that came with my SuperMicro was a throw away supply in my opinion. I was just commenting on it as one of the few weaknesses of that particular case. Not that it matters much now. Honestly, it's kinda hard to find a case that really suits the need... so it was nice to find one that claims it is so "flexible".

Man... Aug 1st (the delivery date) can't come fast enough for me.... It feels like Christmas.

DarkFury

Guess what just showed up at my house....


<BIG GRIN INSERTED HERE>

ski

Publisher's Clearing House?

__________________
And closer...

Hoser

DF, where did you order it from and how much was it? I have a bunch of hard drives that would look right at home in one of those cases.

DarkFury

I bought it from Directron.com (one of my favorite online stores...)

The case was $156.00
The cross over fan was $28.00
The 4 to 3 module (to convert 3 5 1/4 bays to 4 3 1/2 bays) was $19.99

Shipping was about $24... Roughly the total came to around $227.00


I just finished getting everything transfered over to the new case... MAN IS IT ROOMY!!! This is a big mutha.... (hush yo mouth...)

Pretty much if you get this case, either a) have a REALLY big table to set it on... or be... have a deep enough desk so that it don't stick out. Personally, I like this depth... cause the Antec AMG1000 that it replaced really wasn't deep enough for my tastes and everything was crammed in there generating tons of heat.

BTW... with the cross over fan running... this mofo is REALLY COOL. Who needs to draw in air from the front fans, when I can draw it directly to the motherboard from the right side of the case. Them folks at CoolerMaster sure knew what they were doing when they designed this case. I'm truly a believer in CoolerMaster now.

The only complaint I have is that the 4 and 3 module fan pins are kinda cheesy. They tried to put these anchor pins in there to hold the fans to the hard drive cage (you know.. kinda like drywall anchors that spread out once you push the bolt in...) Well anyways these pins just didn't want to play nicely to be reattached to the drive cage... so I ran down to Lowes and bought some 10 x 1 1/2 Flat Head Sheet Metal screws and just replaced the anchor tabs with screws. Worked like a charm.

Merlin

Pics dog....

DarkFury

Maybe later today...

Man... I got this thing packed to the gills... I was up until about 3:30 am putting it all together last night.


2 Power Supplies (Antec 550W TruePower and Antec 350W SmartPower)
5 Hard Drives (2 250GB, 2 200GB, 1 160GB)
1 GeForce 6800 Vid Card

3 120 mm Fans (2 Coolermaster "quiet" fans (intake) and 1 YS Tech high speed fan (exhaust)... which I put on a rheostat since it can get quite loud at full speed, but pushes like 125 CFMs at full speed)

1 CoolerMaster Cross Over Fan (This fan is THE BOMB!!!!)
1 Vantec Stealth Fan (Right side panel intake)

I didn't get a chance to really "stress test" the setup last night... but I'll do that tonight after a good session of City of Heroes. My case temps usually rise to about 42 - 45 C during my gaming sessions... so we'll see if all these monster fans make a huge difference in my temps.

DarkFury

Here are some pics...





Pretty much, even though the wires look like they are everywhere, I have them arranged so that they don't restrict any airflow into the case. Cable ties are a PC builder's best friend

_=DeltaForce=_

Thats a scary computer!

DarkFury

but it works.. and it stays pretty dayuum cool

The wires are all pulled to this side because the cross over fan has a special opening on the other side... so I wanted to keep it as free of wires as possible.

Plus you gotta figure that with 2 power supplies... there's a bunch of wires in that case... and there is no where to tuck them for the 2nd P/S.

cheapchinese

what is a cross over fan?
what is it used for???

never heard of it....

i'm thinking of building a new pc... maybe i'll put it in for a try

is it like a case fan??? if it is.. then i have 2 120's already

DarkFury

Here is a picture of the cross over fan...





You can see it mounted on the mobo tray in the bottom photo.

The CM Stacker case has a special slot/vent on the right hand side of the case to draw in outside air into this fan which sits on the outside edge of the motherboard. It pushes a full stream of air over the entire motherboard so that the CPU, Video Card, memory, and all of the hot components on your PC get direct room temperature air on them.

I dont think that this fan would work in any other case other than a Coolermaster with the notch cut out for it's placement.