Hiper Osiris
The packaging shows that Hiper has put some real thought into its Osiris case. One special feature of the Osiris case is the material used: the mid-tower consists of an aluminum alloy with special thermal properties that make it able to withstand high stress—the same material is used for the wings of fighter planes.
Both side covers are mounted with two hinges that are very unique: no bolts are used, rather large metal handles open the sides. The cover has a transparent window that you can open to reveal a very slick interior. The only thing that slightly lowers the positive overall impression are the two welding seams that connect the mounting cages for the drives.
The case comes with three pre-installed 120 mm fans for ventilation. As a special feature, each case in the Osiris series carries a production number on the back panel. In addition, each comes with a keychain of the Egyptian god Osiris and the serial number.
Same price range looks better and PSU at the bottom, i like that.
You could set these case up with a Q6600 @ 3Ghz, HD 4870 512Mb and a 650 watt PSU (with stock coolers) and loop 3Dmark06/Vantage for an hour and see if the cases can keep the PC cool enough for that long.
Side intake doesn't have a Dust filter. I had to use that fan as an exhaust until I can order one for it, which means that the case wont have positive airflow until then.
Its really heavy. This case weighs more then my Lian Li full tower case.
It doesn't have a removable Motherboard tray.
One thing that was well thought out was the 3 fans that were not included. While this sounds like a draw back, it isn't. The 3 optional fans that are availible are the 3 most visible fans in the case. Which means that you can customize the color of LED fans you want in it.
I used 3 green antec led 120 mm fans in this case and the air flow is phenomenal.
However having owned the Lian Li B25 I disagree with your comments regarding complexity of installation of the hard drives. Having only built one other system I can say that it takes perhaps 30 sec more than normal to figure out what to do. Also I would have liked to see more details about noise regarding all cases. i can't say for the other but the B25 had sound dampening foam on the front door and on the top cover, the side panels were hollowed out further dampening the noise, the hard drives were connected using rubber (grommets I believe) and there were additional anti vibration features (cant remember) and the feet of the case also used rubber.
1) You could've made a few pictures of the packaging. Cases are things your visitors can see, and you'd want them to be transported to you without taking any, visible or otherwise, damage. Silverstone do an outstanding job at this, and so does antec, but I don't think zalman or thermaltake would care much for the packaging quality (they care about flash stuff, not quality stuff after all). Also I'd have liked a list of noise levels for the cases.
Perhaps you can make another roundup, without limiting yourself to a specific case size and color, of potential gamer cases. And at the end of the roundup make a comparison list with external dimentions, motherboard orientation, weight and noise levels. I'm still using an old thermaltake lanfire chassis for a lan gamer, cause though it's ugly, it's very very light (3kg) and rather well built.
On another note - does anyone know if it is possible to only buy the side panel for that aerocool chassis ? I'd like to built such a door into a new top cover for my custom desktop system ...
Not sure why you would base a recommendation on this information however.
Throw a couple overclocked 4850s and an overclocked C2D in those cases and measure the various temps and get a decibel reading from a fixed point. Those are the things I should know before buying a case.
Some recommendation can be at use for many folks.
On a side note, I think coolermaster may not be represented because they didn't send in any case in time - it's entirely possible they were asked to take part.