i see that no one's vouched for the sg03 yet. i own an sg03. best affordable sff case in my opinion. qmicras are awesome, but cost a pretty penny. i spent months comparing cases. went to frys just to compare them, but although light they always seemed like aluminum chassis with cheap plastic slapped on. one day though as i was admiring the slick look of the lanbox lite with the various shuttle cases, x-qpack2, sg01 evo, lanboxes, and the microfly; some sleek brushed aluminum caught my eye.
i took a gamble and chose the sg03 because i looked at measurements and found that it just might fit a coolermaster geminII, which was free after mir at the time. it kind of limited my ram as i couldnt buy the reapers, but my gamble paid off. the geminII fit. works very nicely. get two 120x20mm yate loon fans on the front for the most compatibility /w video cards. i've shoved in all kinds of video cards into this sucker too. evga 8800gt, evga 8800gts, sapphire 2900pro, galaxy 8800gt (aftermarket cooler), x1800gto, x1900 all in wonder (very long card), and an ecs 8800gt /w an accelero S1.
aside from limited choice of coolers, short ram, i've never really been dissapointed by this little guy. haven't made a mod to it yet, and it's done all i ever wanted it to do. well except sli... yah... two 8800gt's sitting in my lap and i can't use them because no one wants to make an sli motherboard. that's why i'm goin crossfire next... wooohoo! the sg04 at CES showed a system using a ga-g33m-ds2r (my mobo! woohoo!) with crossfire enabled. similar to what the sg02 was to the sg01, the sg04 is based on the same chassis as the sg03, but supposedly has a few improvements. aside from the good idea of an ugly front power button, these improvements are yet to be seen in my view. sg04 info
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1260888
in the case:
e6550 /w geminII
Gigabyte G33M DS2R
4gb Crucial DDR2 667 D9FTB
ECS accelero S1 8800GT
used to have an x-fi plat card too (no front panel as i'd sacrifice optical)
abit airpace
Seasonic M12 700w
250gb seagate 7200.10 sata
Silver NEC 3550a
three yate loon 120x120x20mm fans
i've owned a lian li v300 and those things are bulky, and hard to work with. i take my time with installs as to avoid knicked knuckles and what not, but i got quite a few. the psu was a p.i.t.a to install as the wires were always wanting to bump uglies with the 5.25 bays. i bought from someone else on a different forum, and it came pre modded so that it would fit the newest 8800gts video cards. many cards with aftermarket coolers won't fit if they make the card any taller, as they'll hit the top collide with the case if you install them from outside. most times you have to slide them in after you've gotten the mobo tray inside (i remember having to put my drive on uppermost rack so that it would interfere with the video card below. i've had one hard drive get stuck in the case and had to almost rip it out. pretty much stripping the threads on the hdd.
from what i can tell the only big changes on the v350 are the mobo tray includes the whole back side so that pre installed cooler height wouldn't be an issue, people still have problems with it nonetheless (aah, remember all the painful memories of trying to install an aftermarket hsf with the mobo partially in the case). PSU still sits right above the cpu so cooler height is still an issue (same as the sg03, but much bulkier in my opinion). they also made the front prettier. i guess they didn't need all that mesh in the front anyways.
love the sg03 though. come on, who wouldn't love to play with something taller, lighter, slimmer, and far more elegant (still fits almost whatever you want to shove into it too).
sized up comparison between antec p180, sg03, lian li v350, microfly mx6, and shuttle p2
http://www.sizeasy.com/page/size_co...vs-Lian-Li-V350-vs-microfly-mx6-vs-Shuttle-P2
other good links:
http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewthread/100617/
http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=102
ahh yes, and don't count out the nzxt rogue.