Looking for a new case

Hi guys. New to the forum, but I was looking through and found some really good posts, so I thought I'd join and ask my question. I'm looking for a semi quiet case with better cooling than the one I have now. I just bought a Gigabyte R9 390 card because it was the only card that would fit in my current case, but it turns out the cooling just isn't very good. I guess my Antec Sonata III case is getting pretty old.

I'll give you some specs of what I need. I have a blu ray drive, so I need at least one 5.25 inch bay. I'd like a case with quiet fans so I don't hear it very much. I'd also like a case with enough room for a Sapphire R9 390 in case the Gigabyte doesn't work out. One more thing. I'd like to stay away from water cooling for now, if possible. Other than that, I'm pretty minimal. I'd like good airflow, but I don't know if one fan on the front and one in the rear is good enough or if I should have, say, two fans in front with one on the back. I have the EVGA 850 G2 Gold PSU, a wireless NIC, a non SSD hard drive (regular 3.5 inch bay), ATX motherboard, and the video card and blu ray drive I mentioned. Every case now has plenty of expansion slots, so I'm not sure why I told you about the NIC, but whatever. The only two things sticking out the back are the video card and the NIC.

I'd like to spend around $100, maybe $150 if you guys recommend a case in that range. Any help you guys could offer would be much appreciated! If you have any other questions about my build, let me know. Also, whatever you guys recommend, if you could tell me how the front fan(s) connect to the PSU, I would appreciate it. Is it a molex connector, like in the case I have now? This would only be my second ever case in my life, so I've never had front fans before. Oh, and I'd like to stay away from any case with a fan speed control knob on top of the case, as I don't know what speed the fans should be. I'd like the case to decide for me, unless you guys think that's not a good idea. Thanks again for all the help.

The Fractal Design R5 would meet your criteria. In newer cases the fan will either be a 3 or 4 pin connector that connects to your motherboard, you can buy adapters to use a molex connector. It cost around 90-110 USD depending if it is on sale.

Welcome to the Forums Dravenspur. Have you seen our list of recommended Cases? The case names are links to some reputable reviewers.

For Silence the top case I'd recommend in that price range would be the Nanoxia Deep Silence 5 and it's on sale at Amazon right now for $150

From there I would recommend the Fractal Design Define R5 ($110 @ Newegg). Another fine and quiet case.

From there you could look into the Phanteks Enthoo Pro$99 @ Newegg. Another great case but designed more for airflow than silence.

As far as fan controllers you shouldn't be discouraged by them. Most users will set the fan speed to what they like and leave them. If the fans seem to noisy they'll turn them down. For heavy gaming sessions I would recommend switching them to full speed though.

Thanks for the response. Yeah, it looks like the R5 is a good way to go. I think I'll wait a bit though. While I would be fine spending $110, I know it goes on sale at Newegg for about $90 or so, or maybe $80, I'm not sure, frequently.