Yewen's months in thoughts on the S80b

[Yewen]

S80, well my long awaited conclusions on it. To save waffling on I am going to keep this extremely brief by my standards as I have mentioned it in several threads, I will be happy to answer any specific questions regarding it however if you just post or make a new thread.

Looks:

Love or hate them, its stunning in my opinion, very smooth looking and the sliver section on the door is completely flush to the black and also is a good solid strip of aluminum. Other than that, its basically a box on the exterior.

Cooling:

Cools well, very well actually if you don't mind a little noise. Has 120mm x2 at the front and a 120mm at the rear, with a 80mm fan at the top of the case which I do not use.

I had a real struggle trying to get it silent with good temperatures, I settled on Ambers and an Acoustifan Dustproof 80mm all at 7v to get it inaudible, the double thick paneling and seal on the door really do work very well at eliminating noise.

My temperatures are more than acceptable, I use a Reserator 1+ on the CPU and a VF900 on my 7800gt, and with 2x 7800gt's using stock coolers the case comprehensively beats with a large tuna fish the v1000+ on air for cooling SLI.

Hard drives have aluminum heat sinks on them, and air blowing over. The fins on the hard drives go the wrong way in my opinion but the temperatures on my Caviar are the best I have had from any case, Savrow SR71 (Eclipse) PC7+, G70, v1000+. Out of the lot it cools hard drives very well. I filled the other bays up with 4gb Fujitsu drives (not powered) and the temperatures were not affected in the case, so I can say if they were putting heat out into the case all the time that the S80 could handle it easily with the stock fans at 12v.

Build Quality:

Best case I have used, beats any ATCs I have used and certainly matches the low end Spirit of Japan I had in my possession for an evening. This quite literally is the best case money can buy at the moment for build quality, double casing and it just works very well. I can say no more as I have yet to fault it, but if I am being picky. The glue that holds the grills on for the side panels is not to good, I was pushing it (to see how good the glue is of course!) and I did it a bit to hard and it came of, stuck back down fine mind!

Watercooling:

Now, I have not mounted a rad in this case, but there is around 90mm of head room above the PSU to the top of the case, 120.3 rad should have no trouble fitting, also easy enough to fit a pump into one of the hard drive coolers mounted upside down. Very good for a silent or water only case as the hard drives have passive cooling.

The Bad bit:

Would I recommend the case to anyone, no quite simply. It is £180 or near enough, which is in anyones books a lot of money, it offers the best build quality, but for example, a G70 is a better case for watercooling, the Eclipse 62 is better for air cooling, the PC7+ for ¼ the price offers better value for money. It fits into nothing you would regularly recommend to people.
However, if you like the look of it and are thinking about getting one, just do it now and save yourself the pain of waiting another day to get your hands on such a fantastic case. It is not for everyone, removing 5 panels to fit a CD drive can get tedious but if you can live with the panels, its looks and its superb overall package for the price it is then buy it.

Love this case personally, everything I want in a case. Build quality, build quality and more build quality. It replaced the v1000 and v1000+ that I held in such high regard for two years as my personal favorite case made for overall system use.

If you get this case it will handle just about anything you throw at it system wise, but it certainly suits the quiet PC enthusiast over a overclocking nut case.

I have a few tricks, like putting a towel between the side panels to muffle a lot of the noise with 12v YS Tech fans but thats for MSN if anyone wants to go into it.

Hope that helps some of you on the edge of getting one, just get it. If you came into this thread not wanting one then I suggest you still don't want one, get the Eclipse or PC7+ instead as they do the same job, just with a bit less internal build quality orgasmic design.

For me the case is 95/100, v1000+ would be 85/100. For someone else it would be 20/100 just due to the price. It all comes down to what you want from the case. Feel free to add me to MSN if you are on the fence and want some more info on the case.

http://www.yewen.co.uk/overclockers/s80/ for some pictures.

Also check out my old thread for the case here:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17596975

 

[Helium_Junkie]

Great review, thanks Yewen.
£180? :/ Yowch.

 

[hotdog]

Yewen ,

I have just bought the sharkoon golfball fan as 'cough cough' recomended in pc-pro are these any good do you know? Or should i stick with ocuk and get some dustproofs?

 

[DCat]

Thanks man. That does it, I'm getting one.

 

[Yewen]

Never used them, got ambers in my S80 at the moment but the Dustproofs all around were awsome.

Best fans I have ever used, although I do not compulsively buy fans as I find some that suit me and stick with them.

Been using 80mm SilenX fans for two years now.

Went for ages without buying new ones then got some with a case I purchased from Mekrel and it sparked my interest in SilenX again.

 

[Hades]

Thanks.

 

[DCat]

Hi Yewen (and other s80 users), I'm gradually putting my build together. So far the only things I don't like about the s80 are that

- it is a bit difficult to get access at times; and
- I've plugged my HIS 1900XT into PCIE slot #1, but the end of the card that gets screwed to the case expansion slots doesn't seem to fit too well ... I've managed to get one thumbscrew in and it seems to be tight, but the other screw hole is a slightly obscured. I don't want to drill anything coz I'd probably shower the mobo with metal!

I have a question though (and I know this is going to sound stupid to you pros) ... how do I wire the case fans up? I have the stock ones in at the mo and I also bought the dustproofs to go in there (3 x 120mm and 1 x 80mm). Do I wire them to the mobo or the power supply?

I have the Seasonic S12 600w and DS4 board. I think I only have 2 x 3 pin slots on the mobo, so I guess some might need to be wired to the PS?

Like I say, this is a big noob question but hope you can help me on the way to pwering this beast up.

 

[Steve09]

Have you raised the Motherboard on its platform thing?
You should have some brass screws that screw into the Motherboard tray, rest your M/board on them, then screw the M/board screws into the brass screws.
That should make the card fit better.

As for your fans, they will have a molex and/or 3 pin connector on them, you just plug the molex ones into the Power Supplys free molex connectors

Not sure about the 3 pin ones, they are for things like fan controllers if you decide to get one of them

 

[DCat]

Have you raised the Motherboard on its platform thing?
You should have some brass screws that screw into the Motherboard tray, rest your M/board on them, then screw the M/board screws into the brass screws.
That should make the card fit better.

As for your fans, they will have a molex and/or 3 pin connector on them, you just plug the molex ones into the Power Supplys free molex connectors

Not sure about the 3 pin ones, they are for things like fan controllers if you decide to get one of them

Thanks for the help Steve. Yes, the mobo is nicely installed on all 9 risers, was tricky but I assume it gets easier the more experience one gets! But the card is still not allowing the other retaining screw free access.

Regarding the fans - yes they have the molex and 3 pin connectors (as far as I recall, I'm at work at the mo). So if I plug into the power supply via the molex will they automatically get the correct voltage?

A wierd looking adapter came with the power supply - it has a molex on one end and splits into 3 seperate 3-pin (or maybe its 4-pin?) connectors. Will i need to use this?

I plugged the CPU fan directly into the mobo 4-pin CPU fan connector. I assume this is correct?

Sorry for so many questions

 

[JCBeastie]

If you're gonna poke holes in it at least try unscrewing the door for me...

 

[Steve09]

DCat

Yep my CPU fan is also connected to the M/board by 4 pin connector

Yes, the fans will be fine, just plug the fan molex into a spare molex on your PSU and it will be good

What do you mean retaining screw? Are you on about the screw which fastens your Graphics Card to the PCI/PCI Express slot at the back of the PC?
So the DVI/VGA ports can stick out?

 

[DCat]

Steve, yes thats exactly what I mean. Because the card is so big it has two places for screws, I struggled to get one fixed in OK, the other = no chance without a mod.

And thanks for the reply on the fans.

JC "If you're gonna poke holes in it at least try unscrewing the door for me..." - you've lost me

 

[Steve09]

Steve, yes thats exactly what I mean. Because the card is so big it has two places for screws, I struggled to get one fixed in OK, the other = no chance without a mod.

Possible to get a couple of pics of the card in its place mate?

 

[DCat]

Yep, will get some up soon but will be a few hours. Cheers.

 

[Steve09]

Yep, will get some up soon but will be a few hours. Cheers.

Look forward to seeing them

Where are you from?

 

[JCBeastie]

JC "If you're gonna poke holes in it at least try unscrewing the door for me..." - you've lost me

You're not Yewen...

 

[Yewen]

If its a double slot card just put in the one screw to hold it in place.

Who is not me...

 

[beh]

The door looks like it would unscrew very easily, just 3 screws at the top and 3 at the bottom. Not that I intend to try it

Not had any problems with an x1800xt in mine, cept that its a bit of an awkward fit to get the pci-e power cable in.

 

[DCat]

Steve, I'm from Lincolnshire, should update my profile I guess.

Got to call it a day for now and not going to be able to finish this off till Thursday. Will definately post a pic or two and will include a pic of the graphics card/screw situation, which as Yewen indicates, feels pretty solid even with one screw. Just a minor annoyance really. Cheers fella.

I was warned that this was not a beginners case but went ahead anyway. Still, good way to learn I guess

 

[DCat]

Yewen - did you screw your optical drive(s) in from both sides to fix to the bays? Is that what the small cover on the "other" side of the case is for - to get access to fix the optical drives?