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New Generation of Cases?
mikeb55121 writes "In my never ending quest to build a bigger and better computer i have come across this new design of computer case that is prety intresting to me and possibly any one else out there who build their own computers. This case is very unique because it is shaped as a "T" and the manufacture says that it ends cable clutter and has very good airflow." The aesthetics aren't bad, and the concept is solid. It'll be interesting to see if this catches on. I kind of doubt it.
For those of you who don't much like macromedia stuff, you can see small pictures of these things on another page on the same site.
Well, that's pessimistic. "It's good, but nobody will buy it."
If the airflow is as good as they claim, then that's excellent. I've had a number of problems over the years with poor cooling, and I'm certainly not a hardcore gamer or 3D renderer.
Easy access to everything in the case is also a big plus. It just looks so elegant. No more fumbling with lots of little screws and trying to get Tab A into Slot B reassembling my case.
There are a few potential problems: the manufacture of this case will be more costly--it's not just a box. So bargain hunters won't buy it. The shape of the case won't fit into a narrow slot that some desks leave; it wouldn't be a problem at my desk, but I can see trouble in cramped environments. Aesthetically, the shape is novel, but I don't know if it's as attractive as the poster makes out. Finally, are drive cables long enough to reach all the drive bays, or are we limited to technologies that permit longer cable runs (serial ATA, for example)?
My two cents.
~Idarubicin
I've opened many a case in my time and I figure some of these case designers missed their calling, which was to design traps that guard Pharaoh's tombs.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Besides, it goes so well with the one perfect shape for furniture.
1. The cooling for the drives looks to be less-than-optimal. I tend to run SCSI drives in my systems, and many of them get hot. The intake for the fans would also pull air right off my nice cool 19" monitor, seeing as how my monitor is to the right of the tower.
2. There's a reason cables come out of the *back* of a computer -- you can route them to wherever you want them. Looking at this case, all the cables come out of the left side of the case. Looking at my desk, my tower is on the left side (which is by the wall). So with this, I'd have to route the cables *around* the back of the case....
Ob/.CaseMod: Where would you put the window and the neon lights?
>PC makers still have a lot to learn from Apple IMO
You mean Apple learned from PC makers, right? Apples loves to bring back really OLD ideas and pretend they're new and cool...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
A commonly held misconception. The truth is, however, that unless the hot components are in direct contact with the aluminum, the air will act as a thermal insulator, and given the fact that air is one of the best thermal insulators out there, the cooling advantage over a steel case is somewhere between jack and shit.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
The design of the PC system SUCKS from a thermal management standpoint.
Look at the old VME systems (e.g. what is in use at a telephone switching office).
The backplane board is vertically mounted along the back of the enclosure, and the cards are ALSO vertically mounted into the backplane. Any plugs on each card are on the front of the card. One whole section of the bus is reserved for I/O connections, so standard connections are on the backplane.
As a result, natural convection can move air over the system. If you need forced air, you put a fan at the bottom of the system, pressurizing the cabinet - that way you are moving denser, cold air with the fan.
When the S100 systems came out, they almost got this right, but they put the backplane on the bottom, and mounted the cards vertically. As a result, you now have the backplane blocking natural convection. Plus, with the connectors on the BACK of the card, you have yet another impediment to air flow.
When the first PC was designed, they stole the design of the S100 bus systems in that regard.
Now, you have one of two options - the tower approach, with the main board vertical and the cards horizontal - so your GPU cooks in its own heat, and the cards block the natural airflow over the main board, or the desktop approach - where your cards are vertical, but your main board cooks.
All case designs for the PC are work-arounds for this rather BAD design.
And until the PC industry starts making a change, no case tricks will completely ease this.
That said, I must say these things:
1) That was possibly the BEST use of a Flash animation for a site I've seen in a long time. Rather than wasting my time with BS, they show me the case in operation. Bravo to the webmaster!
2) The case actually would solve one problem I have in my setup - with all the cables exiting out the back of the tower case, and the tower being in the bay in my desk, it is a bitch to get to them, and they tend to get nibbled on by the fans I've put at the back of the desk. This case, with the cards exiting from the side would avoid that.
www.eFax.com are spammers
So your CPU, your graphics chip and all the chips on your mainboard are in full contact with your case, with no air in between, i.e. using thermal grease? Uhh huh, yup ... must have been one hell of a soldering job, connecting microscopic wires to all those 500+-ball BGAs ...
It also has three fans plus the one on the power supply. Now you're going to tell me fans are a misconception too?
Take some reading lessons. I didn't say that. Or are you trying to divert attention by making ridiculous comparisons on purpose?
Say what? Air is an electrical insulator, and only to relatively low voltages. Vide, e.g., lightning.
What are you, some kind of troll? Nobody was talking about electrical conductivity. But since you brought this up, it shows your lack of general knowledge. Relatively low voltages, yeah, about 25 kV/cm. Air is coincidentally also one of the best electrical insulators.
It is most assuredly not a thermal insulator. Put your hand near a cold window in Winter and see how much insulation you get.
Ok, you're definitely a troll. A simple experiment: put your hand in 212 degree hot air. Then put your hand in 212 degree hot (i.e. boiling) water. After that, hold a 212 degree hot metal bar in your hand. Then tell me which material has better thermal conductivity.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
"If it's an insulator, why does it get hot?"
"The fact is that trapped air is a good insulator relative to flowing air and to solid objects like lumber."
Good grief, make up your mind! The fact is that air is a very good thermal insulator, one of the best, because, like almost all gases, it has a very low coefficient of thermal inertia. That means that for a given volume of air, it will conduct less heat (energy) over a given period of time. One of the reasons is that the molecules of air are less dense than, say, a given volume of steel.
Why does the air get hot? Simple...you've got a limited volume inside the case and a number of components that are emitting a (relatively) stupendous amount of heat. The small volume of air in the case will most definitely heat up.
Although the fans in the aluminum case will transfer some small amount of the heat to the case, you'll actually find that because the coefficients of thermal inertia are so mismatched between air and metal that very little thermal transfer is taking place between, say, the CPU and the case. That's because the metal can conduct the heat much faster than the air can deliver it.
The real problem is getting the hot air inside the case out of the case. I design memory modules, and part of the work is doing thermal analyses of them. Our models (which reflect reality pretty closely) show that the material of the case is not particularly important when it comes to managing thermal issues within the case. What is far more important is getting the hot air out of the case as quickly as possible...and that's because the air itself simply will not conduct the heat to another location effectively. Why? Because it's an insulator!
Incidentally, air is quite a good electrical insulator, too, unless it is ionized by a fairly high voltage.
"Why is there always somebody who has to argue with the obvious?"
Indeed!
-h-