3 ms·

Slightly off-topic but what do you think of the case at this point?

by kencausey 8y ago

jayalpha 8y ago
Looks ugly, and why not buy a rack?
- mrweasel 8y ago
  Racks are terrible as desktops
  - jayalpha 8y ago
    Why?
    - sliken 8y ago
      Generally rack based equipment is designed with less vertical height and strict front to back airflow. They are also often designed for relatively high input temperatures, so they are designed for high airflow rates. These combine to be very loud and often crazy inefficient. Read that as consuming significant power to cool the equipment. Mini/Mid/Full tower cases generally are designed to take advantage of heat wanting to raise. So the intakes are often large and low (140mm is not unusual), and the top rear for the exhaust. Even 200mm isn't unusual for the exhaust. Air moving efficient increases quickly with fan size. 1U fans often move at 15k rpm and make more noise and vibration than anything else. Desktop fans are often 1200 rpm or lower and just take a few watts to dump substantial heat. As an example the Fractal Design Mini C (a small, quiet, under $100 case) has room for 2 x 140mm in the lower front, and 2 x 140mm on top. It's a smaller case, so there's only 120mm in the rear. With $80 ish for the case and a few extra fans (Fractal design isn't bad, but not quite class leading) you can easily dump a few 100 watts quietly. Find a rack mount case that can move as much air as quietly is challenging and when possible often prohibitively expensive and/or crazy loud. Last time I build one to house a single socket motherboard and a GPU (much like a desktop) it included 4 delta fans that I needed ear protection on to be in the same room.
      - jayalpha 8y ago
        I don't see your point. Maybe it is true for off the shelf stuff. I may assume that a lot of YC readers build their own system. I just build a rack for my desk. I have not really put it under load, but I have to see the GPU, Power supply or Case fan spinning yet. For now I only have only once fan for the case. The only fan that moves, but silent is the CPU fan. The only thing that you can hear: The 10 TB HDD.
topspin 8y ago
It's well engineered and the tooling and finish are very high quality. Everything snicks together with great precision. I would not build a high end gaming machine with it. Motherboard tray cable routing cutouts are not well positioned if you have a large, high feature motherboard. I knew this but as I used an mATX board I didn't care. Also, airflow is limited by the solid front panel as is always the case with 'quite' designs. The supplied fans are excellent but only one front case fan is supplied; I knew this and obtained a second "be quiet!" 140mm fan for my build. I have mixed feelings about the gauge of steel. Typically quiet focused cases of the sort I've been using for many years now rely in part on heavy steel. The steel in this case is comparatively thin; similar to what you get with OEM machines from Dell or HP. On one hand I miss the rigidity of prior cases, on the other I've been surprised at how happy I am with the reduction in weight. The size is perfect. It's a little larger in every dimension than a traditional mid tower making assembly and changes easier. This is a bit of a boutique product; Amazon doesn't have this exact model and it took a while for shipment through newegg; it shipped from the manufacturers US warehouse and took extra time. I would buy it again. I did a double take when I saw the Arm workstation but I suppose it's not really surprising. The market is full of windowed, LED riddled gaming cases on one hand and low end 'value' stuff on the other. There are few quality 'grown up' looking cases available. I had 'workstation' in mind when I went hunting for a case and I imagine that's what Ampere was thinking as well; we made thoughtful choices and ended up in the same place.

Slightly off-topic but what do you think of the case at this point?

jayalpha 8y ago

Looks ugly, and why not buy a rack?

mrweasel 8y ago
Racks are terrible as desktops
- jayalpha 8y ago
  Why?
  - sliken 8y ago
    Generally rack based equipment is designed with less vertical height and strict front to back airflow. They are also often designed for relatively high input temperatures, so they are designed for high airflow rates. These combine to be very loud and often crazy inefficient. Read that as consuming significant power to cool the equipment. Mini/Mid/Full tower cases generally are designed to take advantage of heat wanting to raise. So the intakes are often large and low (140mm is not unusual), and the top rear for the exhaust. Even 200mm isn't unusual for the exhaust. Air moving efficient increases quickly with fan size. 1U fans often move at 15k rpm and make more noise and vibration than anything else. Desktop fans are often 1200 rpm or lower and just take a few watts to dump substantial heat. As an example the Fractal Design Mini C (a small, quiet, under $100 case) has room for 2 x 140mm in the lower front, and 2 x 140mm on top. It's a smaller case, so there's only 120mm in the rear. With $80 ish for the case and a few extra fans (Fractal design isn't bad, but not quite class leading) you can easily dump a few 100 watts quietly. Find a rack mount case that can move as much air as quietly is challenging and when possible often prohibitively expensive and/or crazy loud. Last time I build one to house a single socket motherboard and a GPU (much like a desktop) it included 4 delta fans that I needed ear protection on to be in the same room.
    - jayalpha 8y ago
      I don't see your point. Maybe it is true for off the shelf stuff. I may assume that a lot of YC readers build their own system. I just build a rack for my desk. I have not really put it under load, but I have to see the GPU, Power supply or Case fan spinning yet. For now I only have only once fan for the case. The only fan that moves, but silent is the CPU fan. The only thing that you can hear: The 10 TB HDD.

topspin 8y ago

It's well engineered and the tooling and finish are very high quality. Everything snicks together with great precision. I would not build a high end gaming machine with it. Motherboard tray cable routing cutouts are not well positioned if you have a large, high feature motherboard. I knew this but as I used an mATX board I didn't care. Also, airflow is limited by the solid front panel as is always the case with 'quite' designs. The supplied fans are excellent but only one front case fan is supplied; I knew this and obtained a second "be quiet!" 140mm fan for my build. I have mixed feelings about the gauge of steel. Typically quiet focused cases of the sort I've been using for many years now rely in part on heavy steel. The steel in this case is comparatively thin; similar to what you get with OEM machines from Dell or HP. On one hand I miss the rigidity of prior cases, on the other I've been surprised at how happy I am with the reduction in weight. The size is perfect. It's a little larger in every dimension than a traditional mid tower making assembly and changes easier. This is a bit of a boutique product; Amazon doesn't have this exact model and it took a while for shipment through newegg; it shipped from the manufacturers US warehouse and took extra time. I would buy it again. I did a double take when I saw the Arm workstation but I suppose it's not really surprising. The market is full of windowed, LED riddled gaming cases on one hand and low end 'value' stuff on the other. There are few quality 'grown up' looking cases available. I had 'workstation' in mind when I went hunting for a case and I imagine that's what Ampere was thinking as well; we made thoughtful choices and ended up in the same place.