They FINALLY Did It! Jonsbo D31 Mesh SC Review.

well you knew this was going to be a PC case option eventually [Music] hey guys welcome to elevated systems I'm your host CJ and today I've got a real treat for you I'm checking out the johnsbo D31 mesh SE micro ATS case and man let me tell you I've never had so much chatter in the comments about a case I got a ton of requests to review of this after I did a review of a similar case the Asus ap211 a few months back and since John's bow really impressed me with their v11 case I figured I had to give the D31 a try now with the popularity of LCD displays and Center panels and gaming rigs these days it was only a matter of time before his case manufacturers started incorporating directly into the cases and it looked like John's bow is leading the charge with the D31 but is it worth the 150 I paid for it we're going to take a deep dive into all the specs and features see what fits in the case and what doesn't go over my build notes check out some thermal performance and wrap things up by weighing the pros and cons to see if the D31 is a good value for a Micro ATX enclosure let's kick it off with the specs and features the E31 has dimensions of 440 millimeters Deep by 205 millimeters wide by 363 millimeters tall for a total volume of 33 liters it can accommodate CPU tower coolers up to 168 millimeters graphics cards up to 400 millimeters and ATX power supplies up to 200 millimeters the case comes with zero fans but can accommodate one rear and one front mounted 120 millimeter fans and up to three 120 millimeter or two 140 millimeter fans on the top and on the bottom of the case the case supports liquid cooling with the ability to top mount up to a 360 millimeter radiator or AIO there is a mounting location for a 3.5 inch hard drive on the bottom of the case as well as two two and a half inch SSD mounting trays behind the motherboard there are multiple tie down points and up to 35 millimeters of space for cable management the front i o includes a 10 gigabit type c port a 5 gigabit type a port a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack and a power button ringed with a power indicator light the left side panel is made of clear tempered glass and the right sided panel is powder coated steel both of which can easily be removed without tools the top panel is made of full steel mesh as is the lower front panel the rear of the case includes four bridged pcie expansion ports and there's a full coverage magnetically attached dust filter on the bottom of the case and finally mounted directly to the front of the case is an 8 inch IPS that's display the display has a resolution of 1280 by 800 a 16 by 10 aspect ratio and is USB powered with a single mini HDMI input just like the panels the display has toolless installation and can be used externally with the included mesh panel to cover the opening on the front of the case I'm given to the setup and use of the display as well as some of the considerations in its use in a bit but let's go over some of my build notes first this is the third case in this form factor I've reviewed in the past few months and compared to the Asus AP 201 and in-win A3 while it's the most expensive the D31 is definitely the cheapest when it comes to materials build quality and finish the case is constructed from 20-year 21 gauge steel which is on the thin side for a PC case the tolerances are pretty wide with large and uneven gaps between the panels the tool-less panels are a nice feature but after pulling the side panel off for just the third time one of the plastic retention Clips broke I assume johnsbo knew this was a problem as luckily they included two spares with it in the hardware also the powder coat finish is thin and uneven this doesn't show up on camera really well but under my studio lights I can definitely see lighter and darker areas of the finish on the top and right steel panels now despite the build quality which I'll address a little bit more in a bit the build went together smoothly there's plenty of room around the motherboard for all the cables to fit without issue my 165 millimeter Tower cooler and 335 millimeter graphics card fit without problems however with any smaller form factor case you do need to plan properly for a build for example if you go with the 360 top mounted AIO you'll need to drop the PSU down which reduces the max graphics card length from 400 to just 335 millimeters if PSU raised there will still be the cables under it to contend with so I wouldn't try stuffing an Rog strix 4090 card in here another consideration is Aio thickness while there is plenty of ram clearance if your AIO is much thicker than the standard 55 millimeters the vrm heat sink Heights above 30 millimeters will be a problem also if you use bottom mounted fans graphics card thickness and placement is a consideration my 6750 XT is only a two and a quarter slot card but because it's installed in the second PCI slot due to my motherboard's m.2 slot placement there's less than 20 millimeters of space left between the fans this case does however have more vertical interior space than either the ap201 or the A3 while the semi-modular PSU helped cable management was easy with just a few zip ties I was able to keep everything tied down well enough not to interfere with the pop-on side panel there was also the fact that there were no case fans to manage but for testing I did add a basic 120 DC rear case fan and I got thermals that were a little higher than the other matx cases with Peak seat Pew temps of 72 degrees Celsius above ambient vrm temps of 23.5 degrees above ambient and GPU Peak temps of 54 degrees above ambient now while that covers most of my usual case review points I know the vast majority of people considering this case is because of the built-in display so let's look at that a little more closely now the first thing to know is this is a USB powered HDMI display it comes with a usb-8 USBC cable and a mini HDMI to HDMI cable which routes from the front of the case behind the motherboard and then out through the bottom pcie slot which is modified with a couple of cable notches and then it plugs into an HDMI port on the graphics card and a USB port on your motherboard so you will need an open HDMI port and less critical an open USB port there's also no proprietary software for the screen it's simply a secondary display that you activate in your operating system from there you can use it just like any other display now if you want to run something like wallpaper engine or a sensor panel like this you'll need to pay for those wallpaper engine you can get from Steam for like four bucks and it's a neat little app or you can just do something like Loop of video for a similar effect but Ada 64 will cost you sixty dollars if you want to run a center panel there are cheaper and even free programs for this but nothing is Advanced or as customizable as the Ada 64 panel John's boat does provide a basic 1280 by 800 Ada 64 panel template in several colors so you can get up and running with a panel pretty quickly there are a lot of videos out there on how to set up and customize these panels there are a ton of resources to find free or paid panels I bought this one this template for five bucks and just made a few quick edits so I had something pretty cool looking to show on this video now regardless of how you want to use the screen and despite the overall quality of the rest of the case the display is really nice really high pixel density nice size and aspect ratio and it's even 60 hertz which really isn't necessary unless you want to like game hunt it I mean after all it's the same specs as the steam deck display but an inch bigger I mean actually gaming on your actual gaming PC I mean it could be a thing but seriously I can't comment on long-term reliability of the screen but if you look at the cost difference between the D31 mesh without the screen and the screen version it's about sixty dollars which is a great price for an HDMI display with these specs in fact it's cheap when compared to other comparable displays you can buy separately so after testing out the johnsbow D31 mesh SC My overall conclusion is that it's a good case easy to build in holds large larger moderate components has pretty good thermals with just one fan and keep in mind there's room for up to seven more however it might be a little overpriced just based on materials and build quality the version without the built-in screen retails for around 80 to 90 dollars but given the lightweight steel and mediocre build quality and lack of any included fans I feel like this case is more in the 60 to 70 dollar range which is what it actually sells for on AliExpress keep in mind though when you buy it in North America you also have to factor in additional costs like shipping tariffs and general inflationary fees while it might not be as much of a value compared to the similar cases from in-win or Asus the John's boat does have a unique feature a built-in relocatable high def display as far as I know there are no other cases currently on the market with this option so in that sense I think the price is fair just be sure to plan your build carefully and budget for any additional components or software you might need like you know case fans so what do you guys think of the johnsbow D31 mesh SC is the display worth the extra cost and if so what would you use it for let us know in the comments and don't forget to hit that like And subscribe button and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Elevated Systems

Views: 94,513

Keywords: jonsbo d31, johnsbo D31, aida64 sensor panel, pc case display screen, best micro-atx case, mini tower pc case

Id: 4oLhQqBUeeo

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 25 2022