Best PC Airflow Cases of 2020 So Far: $60 Budget to $200 High-End

this video is a roundup of some of the best airflow cases out currently so that's not just 2020 it includes 2020 so far but also the years before it anything that's available right now to buy for a pc case that's still within msrp range that's what we're talking about today with a specific focus on best thermals and fortunately because acoustics often follow thermal since you can just lower the fan speeds on higher airflow cases and achieve a better net results this also will cover that territory to some degree now this is not our yearly best and worst of roundup we'll have one of those later in the year after the rest of the cases launch or after most of them launch but it's a midpoint look at a really heavy year for airflow focused cases before that this video is brought to you by gigabyte's aorus rtx 2080 ti extreme the rtx 2080 ti extreme is built with a triple axial cooling solution and ready for anyone interested in intermediate gpu overclocking although it's also up for gaming out of the box the gigabyte 2080 ti can reach the higher performance range required to play games at frame rates at and beyond 144 fps cupholds particularly well with games like call of duty warzone rainbow six siege and other competitive fps's gigabytes extreme is built to be a looker for system builders going for extra visual flair learn more at the link in the description below so as usual for these roundup videos we'll have links in the description to a few things one of them is the article accompaniment to this video and that article accompaniment will have the links to the reviews for each of these cases almost all of them if not all of them should be available in written and video form on our channel if you want to learn more about any specific case we're not going to go through all of it for each one today we'll also have links to the product pages if you want to pick one up and then we've got uh the methodology and stuff like that linked in the description below as well so in this type of content what we aim to do is sort of create a just collect all the data that we've gone through over the last year or so and look at it at a higher level to try and help people who aren't as in it day to day looking at the thermals for each of these cases as we review them so we'll have some of the charts in here from our case reviews but a big part of the focus will just be on recapping things including some of the key features that are actually worth considering in each of the cases and discussion today this roundup will be looking at cases as low as about 60 or so starting point and up to about 200 so it's a pretty wide range we've split it into three categories of what we're going to just go ahead and call budget cases so that'd be closer to the 60 to 80 point and then we'll be looking at mid-range and then the higher-end stuff that's a hundred-plus now of course there are also cases in the sub 60 price bracket we're not looking at those today our bigger focus is on cases that uh have a higher effort invested into overall build quality and especially airflow or thermal performance that does unfortunately mean we're leaving out cases like the zonda oh by diy pc for which we have a separate review on the channel one of the cheapest cases we've ever intentionally spent money on for purposes of review but we've got a lot to go through today the year thus far has been really heavy with airflow and mesh focus it's been looking good for the case market this year versus the last few years and that's exciting so we need to recap the last year or so of reviews and especially the stuff from 2020 thus far let's get started let's start with the category we see the least of sub 90 cases 90 to 100 has become the most hotly contested price bracket for airflow mid towers so any cases that slip below that limit automatically differentiate themselves the nr 600 is currently 70 sticking to the same msrp that we published in our review back in 2019. its most positive feature is its cost followed by the superfine mesh front panel that allows plenty of air through it as we showed in our review the negatives are mostly related to the cost as well it's an extremely basic enclosure with only two 120 millimeter stock fans that don't provide great cooling when unassisted buyers should stick to that size when adding additional fans as well the whole case is designed with 120 millimeter fans in mind with the exception of the top panel there is a separate variant of the nr600 with a cutout in the front panel for an optical drive as well which has become rare enough that it's actually wrapped around from being obsolete to being a potential selling point a lot of our viewers have asked us to highlight which cases support five and a quarter inch drives since at this point it's still viable media just rare enough that there aren't really many cases that do support it this is useful for people who rip or back up data using optical disks and so cases that have five and a quarter inch support have now become something of a rarity on the market the nr600 is on the smaller size of mid towers but it still fits atx motherboards that said expect it to feel a little bit cramped in the top when working around tower coolers or with eps cables the nr600 feels like its price point is set the steel panel uses an older style of tabs and hooks to latch into the case which isn't a big deal but it does show where cost savings come into play another artifact is the riveted hard drive cage which imposes restrictions on cable management and the power supply dust filter is also just a simple square of cup mesh that's shoved into some taps making it slightly more inconvenient to clean upsides include good kale management pathways otherwise aside from the limitations of the drive cage and also good cable tie points the ultra fine mesh is the obvious biggest upside this one overall excels mostly for its airflow potential cooler master further makes a micro atx version of this case which we haven't reviewed and that's the nr400 if we ever get back to small form factor cases it'd be on the list in the meantime though the nr600 is one of the better low-cost airflow oriented cases right now but it really does need an extra fan to get that good performance fully unlocked we have some charts to reflect this for cb performance where we saw a reduction from 56 degrees delta t over ambience in full stock configuration down to 47 degrees over ambient with one extra fan and that was in the front consider the case 80 instead and then out of fans of the order our next one is also a cheaper class of case and that's the silverstone phara r1 the fara r1 is similar in both intent and appearance to the nr600 but it's currently cheaper using amazon's sale price of 61. one of our main gripes when the r1 first launched was that we couldn't find any listings cheaper than the nr600 and yet the r1 didn't offer any significant advantage over it at this price point a difference of even a few dollars matters a lot in terms of competitiveness versus other cases the main downsides when compared to cooler masters case are the single stock case fans versus the nr600s2 and the maximum of one three and a half inch drive supported compared to the nr600s4 the r1 also has a layer of fabric mesh that's glued in behind the front panel that we believe to be unnecessary as we showed in our review but it wouldn't be that hard to cut it out the fabric is the reason that the r1 doesn't measure up to the nr600 and thermal performance outright even in our standardized fan test the biggest upsides to the r1 are mostly aesthetic the r1 is available in white while the nr600 is exclusively in black and a full tempered glass panel is present on the r1 rather than the nr600s half panel it also has better support for 140mm fans at the front of the case our opinion of the r1 at launch was neutral to leaning negative maybe lukewarm at best with the primary downsides being that it just wasn't cheap enough when considering it needed the extra fans and considering its close competition from the nr600 it's a tough market to fight and when the same price or higher although that's changed with the prices on a daily basis with the lower prices post-launch this has become a more viable case overall these two budget cases are similar enough that whichever one is cheaper at any given time is the better bargain but the hidden cost of another fan should be added onto the price for both if we were going to cut one case from this roundup it'd probably be the silverstone r1 the cost savings are obvious in this one it still shares weaknesses with the flanking p300a and nr600 and examples of cost savings would be most of the r1's pcie slot covers being the punch-out variety rather than removable and also full width atx boards would cover up half the cable cutouts and power supplies can butt up against the shroud and limit the space for i o cable routing from the front panel the front panel also has the i o wired into it making maintenance more annoying there are upsides like the unique floral pattern cable tie points that are more useful than standard lubes but this case has a few more shortcomings than nearby competition it's mostly worth considering for the looks and the color options the p300a is next fantax follow-up to the gn award-winning p400a airflow case this is currently available from a third-party seller on newegg with a 10 rebate but the real price if there is one should be sixty dollars in theory inventory of fantax cases has been shaky for the last few months so your decision might be made for you when it comes to their enclosures although we weren't particularly impressed with the p300a's thermal performance in comparison to the p400a and the p500a it all comes down to a problem that it shares with the pharah r1 a lack of stock fence our standardized fan testing shows that the front panel isn't significantly more restrictive than it's a much higher performing sibling the p400a which makes sense they're similar in designs but the fan count is what changes in some testing of just the p300a and p400a we plotted results of the p300a with two extra case fans at 47 degrees over ambient for the cpu and that provided a reduction of 17.7 degrees celsius over the stock configuration mentally adding the cost of a couple 13 fans to the p300a still keeps it below 90 bucks especially with a rebate but when doing this kind of math we'd advise considering slightly more expensive cases that do include the fans instead like the p400a the p300a has a few features that make it worthy of consideration over some of the other budget cases nearby one of them is shared with other fantastic cases as well like the removable top panel it's about 13 screws give or take a few based on the model to remove the top panel so rather than being riveted in place and immovable it can be taken out for managing larger tower coolers eps 12 volt connections or just getting better access to the case this is a massive ease of installation feature that sets some of the fantax cases apart from the rest of the pack and that means that even cramped interiors like the p300a don't have to make cable connections a hazard when working around sharp fin stacks the p300a is smaller than the average mid tower just like the nr600 and farah r1r and so this feature is disproportionately useful given its cramped corridors just under 100 is the sweet spot for airflow focused mid towers at least those that come pre-equipped we'll lead off with the star of our most recent review the lanqual ii mesh this is a refresh of the earlier lian li lancole ii non-mesh a case that had some remarkable lighting effects and some not so remarkable cooling the mesh version fixed to the latter and thermals are now excellent when compared to other cases in this price bracket improvements over the original were marked as seen in our land cool to mesh versus non-mesh tests and in tests against the rest of the case as it did well also the version we reviewed was the 90 non-rgb version which we prefer the rgb edition has three 120mm argb fans and comes in black and white variants while the non-rgb version is plain black and comes with two 140mm fans and one 120mm fan all black as well connected to a fan controller stock performance was among the best that we've seen and the 140mm intake fans allowed the lancoil 2 mesh to nearly tie the phanteks p500a for all-time best noise normalized thermals of cases that we've tested so far at least this is an ideal case for users who don't want to replace fans or buy extras as for features the lan cool 2 mesh has a quarter panel door at the bottom perforated heavily and that allows for airflow for shroud mounted fans if you want some gpu intake its hard drives can be ejected from the store as well without opening the main panel and a separately available hot swap drive backplane can be purchased for people interested in a mini raid maybe a raid 5 config or similar in that bottom panel there are some downsides like the front panel sticking with an empty hole for the usb-c port rather than offering a standard type a in its place liam lee sells type c cables separately for this but we don't like that approach and especially don't like shipping a case with a hole where something once was or could be the case also has a gaping hole in the bottom of the front panel and that isn't covered with the fine mesh so it just allows free flow of dust it bypasses any attempt that does control measures that are otherwise in place we recommended taping this closed in our review as the performance impact is mostly non-existent but the management and maintenance impact is severe for people who like to use their systems a long time without having to clean the inside of it the p400a is next returning to one of these lists for airflow once again chronologically and appearance wise the lan cool 2 mesh lines up with the new phantax p500a in terms of a direct competitor but the more appropriate price comparison is the phantax p 400a a case that we've already covered for the past year we're specifically referring to the p400a digital rgb which is the version that comes with three argb intake fans there is a cheaper version and that one has fewer fans and no lighting so it's important not to confuse them a large part of the p400a's value though is derived from the number and relative quality of stock fans that come with it we've given this case months of coverage and other reviews and our annual awards show from 2019 so we'll keep this summary short suffice to say that it's got good airflow for the price and check our previous content for more detail our best cases of 2019 would be a good place to look for a recap of this one although the review also remains relevant b quiets purebase 500 dx charts next on the best airflow cases for 2020 so far the 500dx came as something of a surprise to us because in the past be quiet has stuck to a narrow range of expensive noise damping cases with bad thermals and also slightly less expensive noise damping cases with also bad thermals that's not to say that the cases themselves are bad a lot of them have high build quality or good feature sets it's just that they're more focused on noise suppression over air and the purebase 500 dx broke with that tradition by including a mesh front panel and prominent rgb lighting another unusual feature for the company the pure bass line is the cheapest of be quiet's offerings followed by the silent bass line and then the top of the line dark base cases this means that the 500dx is not only the best be quiet case we've reviewed recently in terms of thermals but also one of the cheapest thermal performance with three stock pure winds 2 140 mil or 900 rpm fans didn't top the chart in torture testing but it's competitive to this day in our noise normalized chart in terms of pure dollar to performance ratio the other two cases in this category are better bargained but the 500 dx maintains a sturdy feel and understated appearance even though this is one of the less expensive enclosures be quiet has still chosen to include touches like a plastic framed magnetic top filter that fits flush with the top panel rather than sticking on a plain rectangle of mesh and a couple of the other ones we've discussed the case also has a movable and removable hard drive cage a frame for the power supply to insert through the back of the case and a cable management bar which they call an ssd tray the case is missing some cable tie points and is missing a radiator tray that some other cases in this category do include like the lancol2 mesh like the previous two cases in this category this one is also available in white now we get to the honorable mentions for this category those would include the cooler master td500 mesh at about 100 and the fractal mesh of ic at eighty to ninety dollars the mastiff ic was in the vanguard of a new wave of high airflow cases but given three years of emerging competition it has relatively few stock fans for the price and we're less inclined to forgive its flaws like the restrictive secondary layer of filter foam in the front panel than we might have been a few years ago its popularity may eventually make it cheap on the used market but this is one of those cases that you really need to add some extra fans to when you buy it offering a non-tempered glass version for 10 less is also a good move by fractal and one that more companies should consider for budget oriented cases the td 500 mesh by cooler master clearly has some inspiration taken from the fractal meshfy cases to at least some degree but it includes a full complement of three 120 millimeter argb front fans it's good we just don't see it as beating the similarly spec'd but cheaper p400a outside of looks and that's a valid category the td500 also has a newer interior whereas the p400 series is running on ancient tooling and you can really feel that in some of the ease of installation and build quality aspects of the case for more information on the td500 mesh we'd encourage checking out our review on that one because it is one that really does deserve the honorable mention now we're moving into the high end so that'd be cases over a hundred dollars the next one is the fantax p500a digital rgb case which is one of the newest two cases on our list like with the p400a we're again talking about the digital rgb variant the 100 p 500a non-digital with two 140ml fans should be in theory a good deal once it releases and that'd push fantax into competition with its own p400a the digital version has impressive thermal performance in every category especially gpu thermals in our testing and it briefly topped the chart for noise normalized thermals before the addition of the leanne lee lancole 2 mesh gave it some serious competition the biggest advantage over the other fantax cases listed here is size if the clearances and the smaller p400a are a problem the p500a can often solve it and in that instance the extra thirty dollars becomes more worth it than it might otherwise thermal performance is as good or moderately better than the p400as which also gets at a position on this list the p500a has inherited some fantax premium features like the plastic screw sorting box that they include and other unique features like the separately purchasable mini itx mounting bracket which technically allows the assembly of two systems inside of one case how viable this is becomes questionable as you'll see in our review of this case and more importantly in the evolv x since it's the same solution but it's one of the few differentiating features among cases at this price point and so if you're one of the very few people who needs that it's worth considering the largest flaw we noticed with the case was that there's not quite enough room for all three 140mm arg intake fans to be mounted on the outside of the chassis so they have to be mounted inside instead which partially obstructs the rgb appearance by way of the fan mounts next up is the cooler master h500 blank the h500p was a colossal failure for cooler master that also became a relationship ruiner for us and it was all for the simple reason that cooler master tried to trade on the respected half branding with a case that was anything but high air flow it also fell apart easily due to poor overall construction and build quality if it hadn't been for all of that we wouldn't have been so disappointed when we reviewed the case since then cooler master has rebuilt its reputation and has started working with us once again to cooler masters credit every h500 series case we reviewed subsequently has had at least the option for a mesh front panel and excellent airflow all of them cost more than one hundred dollars so we've picked one of our best reviewed options for this category and that's the h500 blank it's official name is h500 but be careful when looking around for it because there's the h500 the h500p the h500p mesh which was good the h500m which is good but expensive and then h500s from other manufacturers as well the hallmark of these cases is 200 millimeter rgb front fans something that coolermaster has largely cornered the market on with the occasional exception like the thermaltake level 20 rs that alone carves out a niche for the h500 some people want to use 200 millimeter fans or just like the look of them and there are relatively few cases that really support them it gives a unique look to the case as well although that does mean that front mounted radiators become a non-option unless you're planning to do something specialized like a 200 millimeter radiator or a 400 millimeter radiator from alphacool features specific to this model include a partial power supply shroud that doesn't trap heat and an optional acrylic front panel that can be safely ignored visually the most unique feature is its humpback profile a callback to the original half cases the hump contains a plastic handle that's actually useful for lifting the pc case without being over engineered this is one of the least expensive cases in the series but even so it's 20 more expensive than it was when we published our 2018 review and that's because of tariffs according to cooler master performance of the h 500 isn't any better than the mid-range cases we've listed so far so the premium here is for those fans keep an eye out for sales on this one because it becomes much more viable as it approaches that 100 mark we weren't sure whether to include this last one it's the lanley 011 xl on this list it sort of breaks with the pattern of the other entries though 11xl has no mesh front it has no stock fans and we constantly have to issue caveats about the fact that it's placed so high on our charts because we had to use a standardized set of noctu fans to get a quote-unquote stock set of results not only that but leon lee had also already released an air variant of the o11 dynamic which didn't perform especially well in our thermal benchmarks and didn't make this list despite all that we consider both the 011 dynamic and especially its xl variant to be high airflow cases in the sense that they're covered with ventilation and fan mounting locations it's just that it's up to you to leverage all of that it doesn't really do anything for you stock the interior of the case is divided into two main sections the main chamber which houses the motherboard the gpu and all the associated components and a chamber behind the motherboard tray that houses the power supply or power supplies the drives and the cables this layout creates tons of space for cable management and allows fans or even radiators with fans to be installed in the bottom of the case since the power supply is stored elsewhere like the original 011 dynamic most mounting brackets are geared towards 120 mil fans so checking the spec sheet carefully is recommended before committing to a build unfortunately the xl is well past the point of trying to compete in price with the rest of this it's also targeted heavily towards water cooling builds and it works well for that the 011 was popular and that family's name in combination with their bowers commands a premium maybe the non-removable rog certified label scrawled onto the side panel added a buck or two as well for those to whom price is no object this is one of the best function focused cases for liquid cooling that we've seen and the quantity of fan and radiator mounts is hard to beat you're just going to have to pay for all of it we use the 011 xl in our production pc build for the video editors or bps customs joined us for a water quilt system with a high performance focus and it's been working out great so if you want a larger case to work with especially for water cooling with high airflow this might be worth the 200 bucks wrapping all this up then it's clear that this is a new era for cases it took a little while cases obviously are on a bit of a delay because they do have to design make the tooling and manufacture them and so that could be from point of initial complaint to point of something really happening at a low level you might be looking at 18 months now the h500p to the h500p mesh gives us a good idea of an accelerated timeline where in that instance cooler master lost so many pre-orders on the h500p off the back of our review that they really turned around the improvements fast and even that still was something like maybe six to eight months if memory serves correctly so there is always a bit of a lag there in improving a product if there are sufficient uh complaints about it and now we're in that period where pretty much everyone's worked on improving their case products beyond the the fad of let's shove glass a power supply shroud and rgb in there and that's a case that's a product that'll sell they move beyond that and it's the things that focus on function improvements like not just thermals and noise but also looking at as an example the uh leanly land cool 2 mesh and the lancool2 do some really interesting different things with the side door and the sort of quarter panel the silverstone r1 although it's not one of our favorite cases does some really interesting stuff with things as simple as the cable tie points so this is where the case manufacturers are finally starting to catch up now that they're getting bored of just doing glass and rgb and realizing that's not good enough anymore now the really heavy competition between all of these seems to be about the 90 to 100 mark that's where a lot of the cases are starting to land right now you have some that deviate from that like the p500a but then that's got its own predecessor the p400a in about the same 90 to 100 price bracket so in that range looking at things like the td 500 some of the fan tech stuff uh lee unleashed stuff a lot of those options they're really not too different thermally they're all good and at that point what you're differentiating based off of is things like looks or extra functionality you might not find elsewhere with the p 500 a if you spend more that might be something like dual system not commonly used but you're not going to find it many other places especially not for cheaper with liam lee and stuff like the 11 dynamic which wasn't in on this list because it's been on plenty of our lists or the 011 xl there are unique features in those cases that focus on water cooling builds for example and then you get to the stuff that's just purely focused on airflow and thermal performance and we've covered all those to death at this point so it's been a big improvement from years of just sealed off panels where nzxt was sort of leading the charge the h440 really changed the industry forever and in a lot of ways those were good changes like build quality changes but thermally it was kind of behind where it needed to be anyway the s340 was another one and we're moving past that era of clearly nzxt inspired design from all of its competitors into a new time where function is coming first once again so that's it for this one thanks for watching as always the links are in the description below if you need additional resources for this stuff we have reviews for all these feel free to just search youtube for gamers and access in the case name you'll probably find it you can subscribe for more or you can go to store.gamersnexus.net if you'd like to support what we do directly if this content helps you choose things you can pick up things like our new pc component t-shirt that i'm wearing here it's on the store already or patreon.com gamersnexus subscribe for more thanks for watching we'll see you all next time so

Channel: Gamers Nexus

Views: 1,313,186

Keywords: gamersnexus, gamers nexus, computer hardware, best cases, pc cases, case reviews, best gaming cases, best gaming pc cases 2020, best pc cases 2020, best cases 2020, airflow cases, best airflow cases, best pc temperatures, cooler master td500, cooler master nr600, phanteks p300a, phanteks p400a, phanteks p500a, lian li lancool ii mesh, be quiet pure base 500dx, lian li o11 dynamic xl

Id: XsMNu0gWlZw

Length: 27min 2sec (1622 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020