LIAN LI PC-V1000BPlus II Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Put together great, comes apart fantastic, and overall just one of the best cases around. It looks like the wheels would come off if that really bothers you, but once you fill up the case, it would probably be difficult. They are not exorbitantly big though or anything and very tastefully done. Case feels solid and the amount of fans and their placement provide for excellent air circulation. This case and Zalman 9500 are keeping my Core 2 Duo e6700 idle at 25C. It felt like the case was built for my setup. I was very impressed.

Cons: Not necessarily a con, because they do warn you, but I was installing a 3 1/2" floppy drive for RAID purposes and they warn you to leave 5cm clearance between the front of the drive and the part on the case where it meets. If you don't do this it won't read the disc correctly because it won't fully seat. I thought I was fine cause it gave the "click" noise that the drives make when the discs are in, wasted a few hours on it, ended up taking the drive out to get ready to return it, and it started working. So make sure you leave plenty clearance.

Overall Review: The important stuff:

Core 2 Duo e6700
MSI P6n Diamond 680i
2 WD 10,000 RPM in RAID 1
MSI Geforce NX8800 GTX HD-OC 768mb
2gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 Ram
Zalman 9500
PC Power & Cooling 750W PSU (825W Peak)

Everything fit very well. The PSU was a little big and I had to take out a support piece, but I *was* able to keep the hdd bay that others reported having to remove. It was a snug fit, but in a good way, not too tight. The Zalman fit on the CPU just fine even with extra fan that comes on the North Bridge of the P6N Diamond. Left me maybe 1/4" to 1/2" clearance on 1 side of the case, and the same distance for the North Bridge fan. I got the Zalman 9500 over the Zalman 9700 because I didn't want to have issues with fitting it. I've heard some people got it fine, but didn't want to take a chance. The 9500 fits fine, but I'm not convinced a 9700 would have. Like mentioned in the Pros, the case keeps everything extremely nice and cool.

Pros: Great looks, light, Good construction. Decent amount of room. Great aluminum casters.

Cons: Noisy. Does hardly anything to cut down fan/HD noise. Resonates - this is the case with many aluminum cases. I had to Dynamat half the case and had to use silicone fan/power supply dampners and the thing still hums.

Overall Review: Difficult, but not impossible to use with modular power supplies due to space constraints. Works reasonably well with my Seasonic m12 500w PS.