Your going to get lots of opinions about this, but I personally run the two ugliest and in my opinion, best cases for high-end air.
-Antec 900 http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?Family=NA==
-Antec Skeleton http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?Family=MjM=
I modded the 900 by moving the air intake to the top, and added a fan controller to the middle module. There are 3 push fans going through the cpu cooler (Copper Scythe Ninja & Arctic Silver 5 tim) a large top exhaust fan, and rear exhaust fan.
With 65-70f ambient temperatures, I run 28-32c idle, 42c at 100%, and I've never seen it over 55c even after torture testing for 5 hours in a hot room. The rigs are in the sig. YMMV obviously, as we aren't running the same hardware. (Note I edited the temperatures to clarify conditions.)
The addition of a fan controller reduces the noise dramatically. (Edit #2: the stock fans on the Antec WILL NOT work with a fan controller. You'll have to replace them.) The 4870 Dark Knight edition is a very quiet video card, also outdated. But if you using the double slot video cards that blow out the back, you are going to deal with noise.
Edit: I've practically forgotten all my thermal managment issues since moving away from 55 nm CPU's. The Newer chips are so much cooler.
-Antec 900 http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?Family=NA==
-Antec Skeleton http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?Family=MjM=
I modded the 900 by moving the air intake to the top, and added a fan controller to the middle module. There are 3 push fans going through the cpu cooler (Copper Scythe Ninja & Arctic Silver 5 tim) a large top exhaust fan, and rear exhaust fan.
With 65-70f ambient temperatures, I run 28-32c idle, 42c at 100%, and I've never seen it over 55c even after torture testing for 5 hours in a hot room. The rigs are in the sig. YMMV obviously, as we aren't running the same hardware. (Note I edited the temperatures to clarify conditions.)
The addition of a fan controller reduces the noise dramatically. (Edit #2: the stock fans on the Antec WILL NOT work with a fan controller. You'll have to replace them.) The 4870 Dark Knight edition is a very quiet video card, also outdated. But if you using the double slot video cards that blow out the back, you are going to deal with noise.
Edit: I've practically forgotten all my thermal managment issues since moving away from 55 nm CPU's. The Newer chips are so much cooler.
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