An oft overlooked benefit to pc

Aesthetics...consoles are junky hardware stored in a cheap plastic box with limited cooling capability. I have a Phanteks Evolv with Tempered glass and lot's of led strips (NZXT Hue + with 6 strips in the main side, phanteks led's on the cable side). It looks...great.

Here's another case just coming out: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/corsair_crystal_570x_pc_chassis_review,1.html

Some of us really enjoy the looks of our hardware in this hobby. Performance/functionality is, of course, a main stay in the argument for pc gaming. However, aesthetics and the ability to "show off" our hardware is another good reason to have a nice pc.

Thoughts?

Best looking PCs are just black matte boxes, in my opinion. I don't like when chassis look like ferrari cars or transformers or when there's lots of lights and fans and shit all visible. It should be sleek. And there are lots of those good looking chassis out there. Like this one for example, which is both good looking and silent as ****:

I wish beige would make a comeback

TBF, consoles have skins too, and some look good.

If looking for a sleek, business like look, I'd go with Lian Li (or even Case labs, if budget allows) over Fractal. No doubt though, Fractal has some of the best bang for the buck cases out! I still have a Silverstone FT-02 with a window sitting in storage...very clean, nice, subtle design.

@Litchie said:

Best looking PCs are just black matte boxes, in my opinion. I don't like when chassis look like ferrari cars or transformers or when there's lots of lights and fans and shit all visible. It should be sleek. And there are lots of those good looking chassis out there. Like this one for example, which is both good looking and silent as ****:

I prefer minimalist look to my PC. A big case with lots of air flow is all I need , the inside is another story though, nothing minimalist about it (beast)

I don't think much of aesthetics. Mine is a Cooler Master Silencio 352 microATX. The only thing I really care about is the built-in SD card reader up front.

• Expensive games
• Expensive peripherals
• Pay to play online
• lacklustre performance
• Console upgrades
• Limited control options
• Lack of customizability

PC gamers aren't the only ones that have to put up with shit on a daily basis.

Not sure you want to get into this argument, as there are plenty of facts to contradict how well games run on consoles these days.

The thing is, the PC tower (ATX, etc.) is a very poor design for cooling. It's made to be easily worked on and expanded, not for optimum cooling. Every corner is a place for dead air and heat accumulation. That's why the cases have to allow for multiple fans. When you design the system from the ground up like consoles, you can design the system with less airflow restrictions and have less need for multiple fans.

This is, of course, ignoring the extreme builds of serious overclockers that inherently require more than airflow cooling.

Having flashy lights on an overpriced nerdrig is extremely tacky and cheesy. Just stick a glow stick in some dog shit and call it a day. That would be just as impressive.

Please be sarcasm please be sarcasm please be sarcasm please be sarcasm please be sarcasm....

And there are custom console cases, though far and fewer between from the PC side of things.

I game on a gaming desktop, a work laptop (which is pretty decent) and my work comp. Had minimal problems with any game. People looking for fixes that can't be fixed on a console are the vast majority of those posts.

Sits on the floor in the corner, never look at the dam thing.

I game to play games, not to make my hardware of choice look like a 16 years olds "tricked" out Honda civic.

Pffft... I don't care about aesthetics, as long as it's quiet.

Or, you know, you just run water cooling, which is only a bit more expensive than an aftermarket air cooler.

Whoa, whoa

WHOA

who told you that?

A big case with a 1.75 Ghz APU would be cooler than either of the consoles, possibly even with only the stock CPU and PSU fans. People need multiple case fans because their CPUs run at Desktop speeds (>3.0 Ghz up to 4.0 Ghz), have dedicated GPUs, and sometimes run 24/7.

It's just like ricers and the whole car scene.

Its about what you can DO with said machine / tool. Not how it looks.

its not something i put much thought into to be honest. im a function before form kind of guy. as long as it works, is pretty quiet and doesnt overheat then im happy out. i will be reusing my old case for my new PC. i was thinking of going for something that will fit under the telly but i then ran the numbers and thought "nah...better to put that money elsewhere".

its nice to have the option though. its the great thing about the PC: the option. you can get a PC in pretty much any size and form factor: from massive tower to a high powered mini PC for under the telly to laptops. hopefully next year, with the smach Z, we will also see a proper PC gaming handheld.

i think consoles are taking a bit too much flack though. there have been some great looking consoles. yes they use plastic but they can still look good. i mean the original vita is a great looking and well build handheld. very sturdy. the DS Lite back in the day looked brilliant (i know shiny plastic is not the done thing now....but i like it). the original PS3 has kinda grown on me. it looks like a fat grand piano. the PS3 slim looks very nice though. the wii was a great looking console when it launched too (lets not talk about the wii mini though) and that blue light on the front was a nice touch.

the cooling in consoles is usually good enough for the hardware it hosts. usually. er....lets not talk about last gen (my PS3 is a ticking time bomb and i know it and the 360 had a minor cooling related bug :P).

My last case was the definition of nerd, way overblown. I can appreciate a crazy case, I just prefer to keep things minimal.

This is my new case though. Slick af.

That's a seriously nice case, would look great on my desk. Yes my PC sits on top of my desk, the airflow is too restricted and it difficult to tinker with when I put at the side, between the desk and the wall. I do have a fairly large desk though.

Stylish AF. I'm about to build in this tiny showpiece: http://nfc-systems.com/s4-mini/

It's gonna be my living room, gaming-capable HTPC (i3-6100, GTX 1060, etc...). And all in a space smaller than a PS4 (4.3L volume). All metal construction with durable finish so I can take it with me wherever.

It's pretty basic physics. Air, itself, is a pretty poor conduit for heat. Add to that, corners that can cause the air to swirl or stagnate, and you can have heat build up. Even your example, you're tripling the number of fans the consoles have (almost all PSUs have a fan). You're also ignoring that the APUs also have a much more robust GPU portion than the typical PC counterparts. That's why atx and variants are designed to take add-in cards, which causes flow issues and requires all but the weakest GPUs to have their own dedicated fans. This is also the first gen that consoles have launched with apus, but even the ps3 made do with a single fan from better cooling design even with a discrete CPU and GPU.

I prefer understated cases, myself. My current case looks a bit like Darth Vader's corpse was invaded by a red fire demon, and it's fun enough - but I like the PC to be out sight and out of mind for the most part.

I love beige, and that utility grey color.

I tell ya, the computers from the 80s and early 90s have some of my favorite system designs out there. I wish I could have a whole gaming computer in an old system like an Amiga or a Commodore 64.

These types of designs just get me so ready to play PC games.

I use my case to keep sunlight from getting into my monitor, lol !

I have this piece of garbage.

Pretty much the least cool case out there. It even looks like it's yelling out in pain at the sad life it lives.

Don't know about you but over the 26 years I've been building PC's, I've never had one go red ring of death on me. I've had plenty of parts die but never due to overheating.

The real secret is keeping them clean and the dust levels down.

I've looked at many a PC case and none of them have the premium look and dimensions of something that would look right in an entertainment centre. And TBH, there's really no reason it can't be done, but most PC case makers seem to prefer to make even their mini-ITX cases longer rather than taller (surely taller is viable if you used various risers?) and the result are cases that are more oblong than boxy.

And TBH, there's really no reason it can't be done, but most PC case makers seem to prefer to make even their mini-ITX cases longer rather than taller (surely taller is viable if you used various risers?) and the result are cases that are more oblong than boxy.

Seriously, does no one want a case of similar style/proportions to an AVR?

Something like these?

Aesthetics are more important on a console that you put under the TV. My Pc sits inside a section of the desk dedicated to it, therefore it doesn't serve any aesthetics function for me.

Pretty basic science is to have actual numbers to back up your ideas. You're just making it up as you go. I've put systems into different size cases to see the temperature differences. Bigger cases run cooler because the system (case, motherboard) is designed to expel the hot air from the CPU/APU effectively . The CPU fan might be able to cool the system adequately on it's own, but yes, you might want an external fan at the back of the case to help move stuff off the apu if you have a floor mounted PSU.

Also, you said case fans, so talking about the CPU/GPU and PSU fans is irrelevant.

There's a reason the PS4 and XBOX ONE ran on low-power APUs clocked below 2 Ghz. They will overheat if they raise the clock speed (because of miniaturization, they have seen minor speed bumps). Sure, they definitely have a higher TDP than the other jaguar APUs - but those appear to max out at...25W.

That's nothing compared to the TDP of a desktop - which is why despite being essentially the same technology, no one has been stupid enough to market a PS4-sized computer system with "better cooling than a larger system"

Really? You're lucky. I happen to be dealing with that issue right now. Even though I have a case fan, a PSU fan and a CPU fan all functioning well, whatever XFX used for bearings on the GPU fan is failing (rattling and occasionally stopping) and the GPU temp gets high enough to trigger a shutdown to prevent damage.

The PS3 released in 2006 with an 8 core CPU and a little better than 7800GT GPU and it cooled the whole system with a single fan. In your 26 years of building PCs, how long has it been since you built one with a single fan? That is the benefit of a custom design that allows you to control airflow.

Exactly what numbers do you want? Bigger cases only help with passive cooling. If you need active cooling (which we have for quite some time in gaming PCs), more air means you have to move more air. Here's a start on PC cooling. Each obstruction hinders air flow and corners create dead air pockets (like the video card or other add-in cards attached perpendicular to the mainboard) which can build up heat. There are many things a large case is good for; expandability and ease of access for two; cooling isn't one. This isn't rocket science.

If you want to do an experiment, go to a table and spread salt over a good area. Sitting in one place you can blow and affect all the salt. Now if you place your hand in the middle, perpendicular to the table and palm facing you and try blowing again, the salt on the other side of your hand will remain undisturbed and you will have to blow much harder to disturb the salt in the corner on the near side of your hand.. The salt is heat.

Did you completely miss the Steam machines? Small form factor and some actually pretty decent performance. Or you could look at gaming laptops. Both of these avoid the ATX form factor and cool fine with less space.

The fact that you can't figure out what numbers to show is part of why you believe something that is obviously and comically untrue.

Eh, that 'benefit' is superficial.

Most PC cases look terrible and the culture around case aesthetics with neon lights on them is laughable, but there's a case and style that suits whatever you're into at least and I've found myself ones I like. I like them minimalistic and sleek. It's a big box and I'm not one to look at a PC case just as is and would consider something that blends in with modern furniture in the room.

Not that I dont think PC cases look better in general. I've generally liked the 'thin' flat look of certain console designs over tall bulky towers anyway.

People still think PC gaming is a hassle? Jesus.. how about living in 2016 dude? Consoles > PCs in amounts of shit to put up with.

@demi0227_basic said:

If looking for a sleek, business like look, I'd go with Lian Li (or even Case labs, if budget allows) over Fractal. No doubt though, Fractal has some of the best bang for the buck cases out! I still have a Silverstone FT-02 with a window sitting in storage...very clean, nice, subtle design.

@Litchie said:

Best looking PCs are just black matte boxes, in my opinion. I don't like when chassis look like ferrari cars or transformers or when there's lots of lights and fans and shit all visible. It should be sleek. And there are lots of those good looking chassis out there. Like this one for example, which is both good looking and silent as ****:

I am with you brother....

@Litchie said:

@BassMan said:

@demi0227_basic said:

If looking for a sleek, business like look, I'd go with Lian Li (or even Case labs, if budget allows) over Fractal. No doubt though, Fractal has some of the best bang for the buck cases out! I still have a Silverstone FT-02 with a window sitting in storage...very clean, nice, subtle design.

@Litchie said:

Best looking PCs are just black matte boxes, in my opinion. I don't like when chassis look like ferrari cars or transformers or when there's lots of lights and fans and shit all visible. It should be sleek. And there are lots of those good looking chassis out there. Like this one for example, which is both good looking and silent as ****:

I am with you brother....

Fractal here too, but arctic white, fits the snow on my lawn

I got a silencio 652s. Didn't buy it for the looks. The cool thing about it is that you (almost) can't hear that the PC is turned on. Consoles are very loud in comparison. I have super ears so I like it when my electronics are quiet; it was more important to me. Using only SSD's I don't hear the clicking of the HDD's anymore, either.

In hindsight I would have gone with a different case, because there is a little too little air flow in its fully closed state. With BF1 the system hangs itself cause it overheats after playing an hour or so, unless I open the door. There are cases pretty much as silent as this, with slightly better air flow. I don't recall the names... H440 and R5... or so. Or the Silent Base 600 because that one looks kinda cool imo and is apparently still very quiet.

So, in other words, you're just going to ignore anything I say. Numbers aren't magic. We're talking generalities and numbers cover specifics. But if you want some, the launch PS 3 needed 1 fan to cool everything and most gaming PCs need at least 4. The fact that you needed to delete the bulk of my post in order to respond shows that you have no idea what you're talking about and have no interest in learning.

@asylumni: the 2006 model of the PS3 is not a great example. it also has cooling issues. the failure rate of the first gen PS3s is quite high mainly due to the RSX overheating and dislodging itself from the mobo (as i understand it).

the PS3 slim, PS4 and PS4 pro all use one fan as does the xbox 1 though. the first xbox also used one fan and that had a spiffy GPU at the time.

From what I remember, the failure rate was well within the industry standard. Yes, you'll have more as time goes on as dust and debris accumulate, but you'll have that with any linear fan style cooling; blower type fans are much more resilient in that respect (but louder). Regardless, it was an example of better cooling design that cooled a system with two substantial chips (not just a middling, for gaming performance, APU) and just a single fan, something you could never do with a tower and ATX format. It was the Xbox 360 that had a notorious heat related failure issue.

@asylumni: for the original model it was much higher than 10%. it suffered from the same problem as the 360. the cooling system let the console get too hot and, combined with poor quality solder, caused the chips to break off (in the case of the PS3 i think it was mostly the RSX that let the side down). there arent many left now so a new one can go for a pretty penny as a result. mine is..er...not so unboxed. im playing russian roulette with it :P. but it will YLOD. its not a question of if but when. the cooling system did a better job than the 360 but it still wasnt a good enough.