Looking for a Case: Good Air Flow, Toolless, Air Filters

My recommendation: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Not tool-less but another great case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Check out the Lian Li Lancool Series, most of them tool free, and good airflow, as well as dust filters. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=E...

^+1. The Lian Li K59 might be just what you are looking for and is on sale this weekend for only $59.99 + FS with a coupon code. It is solid and completely toolless. Just picked one up for myself on Friday.

I was about to order it and it is now sold out. Now it's between the haf 912 or antec 300 or Thermaltake armor a60.

I like the HAF 912 for more reasons than just airflow. The cutout in the tray behind the CPU allows you to easily swap out cooling solutions and there are a decent amount of cutouts for cable management. Also, you can pull out the middle drive bay to facilitate longer video cards and improve airflow even more, if necessary, and still have 2 HDD 3.5" bays and 2 bays for 2.5" SDDs or HDDs (all toolfree).

I built a system with this case a few weeks ago with using a hyper 212 plus cooler and still have room for a side case fan and top case fan without a problem.

The 912 is an impressive budget mid-tower case with features you usually only see on the $150+ cases.

The Antec 300 is a decent case, but you'll never know if you'll end up with the one with the cpu tray cutout or not and it's not quite as toolfree as the 912. Not much cable management whatsoever. The 300 is definitely more of an old-school case.

The A60 seems like a decent option. It seems like it is toolfree for the most part and the design is very much like the 912, though the CPU cutouts dimensions seem a little odd. What I absolutely do not like about the A60 is the lack of cutouts for cable management.

The 912 is definitely your choice here.

@all,

Can I say that most if not all cases are NOT 100% tool-free? ie. only DVD/HDD drive bays are tool free? MB tray, side-windows etc are usually not? In that case, I am thinking I'd my as well forget about tool free since I will require a screw driver anyways?

By thanks for all the insight

I can't comment directly on the HAF 912, but I have an HAF 922 and love it. Everything stays super cool with stock cooling and the cable management was much better than I expected. The only part that I don't love is the tool-less HDD bays. They work well for mounting drives, but the bendable plastic they are made out of seems like it could snap (even though I've abused them and have yet to break one). Also, if you want air filters for an HAF, DEMCiflex makes custom magnetic filters that work really well. It adds to the expense of the case, but they work well and are easy to clean. You can find the filters at FrozenCPU:

http://www.frozencpu.com/search.html?mv_profile=keyword...

Just my two cents.

You are correct... There is not a 100% tool-free case. When most people talk about "tool-free" they are talking about the 5.25" & 3.50" bays being tool-free. I have not seen any case with a tool-free motherboard tray, as you utilize the standoff's and screws to ground the case and prevent it from shorting out (not sure how you could do that "tool-less" outside of breadboarding [outside of a case all together]).

I use a Silverstone FT02, it has amazing airflow but is a bit expensive ( $200+ ). With its 3 x 180 MM fans at the bottom ( possitive airflow ) it lowers all my component temps for 5c to 10c.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMcKvI-zWi0