Is this a good replacement Case for my GPU rendering rig?

Immitem

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Hello there, my main rendering and storage rig, while performing up too snuff, is far bigger than I need it to be. It is currently housed in the Rosewill Blackhawk Ultra which is taking up too much room and is limiting what I want to do in here. In order to alleviate this I have decided to purchase a different case and am currently eying up the Corsair Vengeance Series C70 but before I do I want to make sure that I am not passing up something better first.

1. It must house 4 video cards without the last GPU interfering with a long 1600 watt PSU which will be facing up due to carpet.
2. Support a 240mm radiator
3. Have at least 3 external 5.25 bays
4. At least 6 3.5 bays
5. Decent cable management
6. And must have a depth of no more than 20 inches otherwise the furniture I want to bring in will not fit.
7. EATX Motherboard Support
8. Lastly, it needs to have enough airflow to allow 4 GPUs to rendering 24/7 without overheating

Right now the C70 seems to fit the bill but I want to make sure I get the best bang for my buck and do not want to go through the process of transferring my components and finding some things do not fit for one reason or the other or the case is just shoddy to begin with.

Thanks for any input you have!

P.S. In case you are wondering what I am rocking right now:

Case: Rosewill Blackhawk Ultra
Motherboard: Asus ROG Rampage V
CPU: 5930K
GPU: Titan XM, 2 GTX 1070s with a 3rd hopefully sometime down the line if prices smarten up.
HDD: 5 HDD and 2 SSDs - I will use an ICY Dock I already have for the 2 SSDs and 1 HDD to free up even more room for more storage!
Cooling: 240mm Corsair Closed Loop Cooler
 
Solution
Consider this. With 4 GPU it isn't so much the capabilities of the case. Rather it is the closeness of the GPU. Having GPU packed together limits the amount of airflow GPU receive. Practically any case which is large enough for five good fans. Should provide all the air the GPU need.

The problem for the GPU is the type of cooling the GPU uses. Most cards use one to three fans designed to recirculate air. When packed close together these style fans have difficulty drawing in air. Since the air is recirculating. They also draw in a lot of warm air.
Example: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814932013&cm_re=gtx_1070-_-14-932-013-_-Product

What you want for the cards is blower style fans (reference design). They...
the C70 does not support EATX motherboards.
The Fractal Design Define R6 is close to the requirements with the following exceptions:
1. only a single external 5.25" bay
2. its about 21" depth

There is also a Phanteks ENTHOO PRO cases that almost fully meet the requirement. only exceeds the depth limit - 21.6 inches
 

Karadjgne

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There's only 2 cases that are currently optioned for EATX, with a minimum of 3/6 in a mid-tower chassis, that's the Corsair C70 and Nanoxia Deep Silence, unless you try and find some older cases on ebay etc. For the most part, cases are getting away from all the external 5¼ because nobody uses them or wants them, limited to maybe 2 if lucky. DLC, OS on USB, mp3 on cellphones etc has rendered optical drive needs almost obsolete and with the sheer amount of motherboard bound fan headers, usb3 etc there's little need for the 5¼ for fan controllers or even flash card all-in-ones.

Looks like the C70 is going to be your best bet with all those hdds, unless you change up designs and run a NAS instead packed with 4Tb+ hdds, and keep a small, basic hdd system for general working
 

Immitem

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Unfortunately it is going on the floor in the path of high density foot traffic so someone is going to bang into it eventually so that rules out an open case. That is another reason why I want a smaller one.
 

Immitem

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I will take a look at those other cases and see what they have to offer but on newegg in the item description it says that the C70 does supports EATX ( https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139013 ) or is there a missing asterisk in the sense that it will fit but the bottom of the board will be without screws? That is a problem I actually read about another case back in 2011!
 

Immitem

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Thanks for the heads up, I will give that other case a look but if the other ones suggested do not make the cut I will at least feel more satisfied that with the C70 as there always seems to be niggling issues with just about any single one on the market.

P.S. Is there a way to multi-quote so that I am not cluttering up the thread?

 

Karadjgne

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That's Corsair website. According to Corsair, the Vengeance C70 Gaming case does support E-ATX mobo's. Whether that's real or a misprint, that's where newegg gets its info.

However, it doesn't say if you'll need to remove drive bays in order to get the longer gpus to fit, which is what has to happen with many smaller or mid-tower designs.
 

Immitem

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I will keep that in mind. I think the best way to figure it out would be to compare the length of my longest card, the Titan XM if I am not mistaken, to my motherboard, find the screw holes relative to the board, and then take some measurements from the side view of the case using the screw holes on the motherboard tray as a starting point.

Just eyeballing this picture alone, without taking any measurements, makes it appears as if the cards will fit but those mid-case fans might be in the way:

11-139-013-09.jpg



EDIT: Nevermind, I found a video that showed 12.6 inches of clearance with the cages/fans installed, it is golden there.


 
Consider this. With 4 GPU it isn't so much the capabilities of the case. Rather it is the closeness of the GPU. Having GPU packed together limits the amount of airflow GPU receive. Practically any case which is large enough for five good fans. Should provide all the air the GPU need.

The problem for the GPU is the type of cooling the GPU uses. Most cards use one to three fans designed to recirculate air. When packed close together these style fans have difficulty drawing in air. Since the air is recirculating. They also draw in a lot of warm air.
Example: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814932013&cm_re=gtx_1070-_-14-932-013-_-Product

What you want for the cards is blower style fans (reference design). They are louder due to spinning at a higher RPM. They also generate a lot of static pressure. They are designed to pull in cool air from the case. Then exhaust the hot air out the rear.
Example: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAFVF75G4797&cm_re=gtx_1070_founders-_-9SIAFVF75G4797-_-Product

If a case is designed right. You don't even need five fans. As I didn't want to deal with dust. I designed and built a box for a twelve GPU mining rig with a furnace HEPA filter. I have all the cards spaced out like in an open air case but it is completely enclosed. Case airflow is served by two high performance fans. Which keep all my cards in the low 50's to high 60's C. Depending on ambient temperature. I only have nine cards right now but three more wouldn’t make a difference. Those two fans move enough air to replace all air in the case in about 2.5 seconds.

With either type of GPU. As long as there is adequate airflow and aggressive fan curves for the GPU. They should stay within safe limits. Before I made my case. I had three GPU packed together. My worst temps were about 75C. At room temperature.

With whatever case you get. You’d get far more than enough airflow with two Noctua NF-A14 IndustrialPPC 3000 PWM fans. These move a lot of air. Each moves 94CFM through a radiator/case filter or 136CFM unobstructed. They are loud.
https://noctua.at/en/nf-a14-industrialppc-3000-pwm

If you want to keep everything cool with the minimum of noise. I’d suggest an open loop liquid cooling setup.
https://images.techhive.com/images/article/2016/01/evga-quick-disconnect-water-cooling-100640100-large.jpg

Given your other requirements. I would suggest the Phanteks Enthoo Pro TG SE PH-ES614PTG. Since it can support dual front mounted 140mm fans. I’d use the dual Noctua A14 I mentioned earlier. This case is huge. It will provide lots of air space It can support up to a 420mm top mounted radiator, plus 240mm front, 240mm bottom and 120mm rear. I also like that the front doesn’t offer much intake restriction. Unlike a lot of cases. The size also offers plenty of room for open loop liquid cooling.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811854070&ignorebbr=1
 
Solution

Immitem

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I already have 3 blower type gpus and at one point had a fourth, a w9100 before I moved that into another computer, and was able to maintain stable temps below 80 degrees with a slightly more aggressive fan profile without making it sound like a jet engine. Except for when I added the w9100, there is no helping that beast. This was when I was only running a couple of fans from the front because I did not notice that several were not spinning up for some reason (they somehow started working after being plugged and unplugged multiple times) and the CPU radiator pushing its exhaust into the case. The problem however is stated in some reviews lately that newer cases are having trouble moving air due to focusing on aesthetics first.



I am simply moving all of the parts I already own into another case to save space, not undertaking a liquid cooling project. XD

I appreciate the enthusiasm but the Corsair 240mm closed loop cooler is the only liquid cooler that I own. I will take a look at that Phantek case and see what it has to offer and compare reviews but otherwise I have all the parts I need, except maybe swapping out some fans.

Thanks again for the case suggestion though.

P.S. I really need to get to bed because I edited this reply half a dozen times and I am still not sure I fixed my syntax. ^^;