New heatpipe and fanless HTPC case designs

Well, it's not the most attractive case, but it's a great idea. Certainly this would be ample cooling for low-mid range HTPC builds.

I believe an avs member was the one behind this case, I'll see if I can't dig up the thread.

Not many choices out there so everybody welcome.

Would never buy the side-mounted BR drive, MUST be center mounted and am unanimous on that, and no external PSU variety either.

Not bad.
Would be great if someone came up with a good way to mount the heatpipes though.
Got a HFX chassi myself and you really really really don't want to remount stuff or change gfx card etc.

There are few heatsink cases in the market already in last couple of years. The first thing I personally want for HTPC nowadays are nothing but bitstream feature. But with today technology, we need a Xonar HDAV or Azuentech HD full height PCI-E or PCI card. With that said, this particular case won't do it for an obvious reason. About a year ago, I look at a full height heatsickcase, I think it is in UK or Germany but it costs about $1,400 with all the CPU and HD heatsink attachments, a bit too much IMO.

The look is reminiscent of a Harmon Kardon HK770 amplifier I picked up on Ebay a few years ago...

They don't list the detailed specifications. What is the maximum ambient room temperature allowed? I wouldn't pay any attention to it until they provide some more information.

You're probably thinking of HFX, http://www.hfx.at/

H10.ODD/H5.VFD/H5.S could accommodate full height PCI-E card with riser. As for the price, it should be no where near 1/4 of that number with PSU included.

My own test showing E8500 at around 60C with 30C room temp. Of course, I am biased. Please wait for the SPCR review.

Right on. That's the one.

Oh I missed the riser part. Yes, with riser card, it looks like it will clear and some full PCI-E card(s). How many of the PCI-E it will allow in H10.ODD/H5.VFD/H5.S with riser card(s)?

One.
Thanks.

Are they all mATX/mini-ATX only? no ATX?

H10 series could accomdate ATX but I really don't see a reason for going ATX for this low profile H series since they allow only one extra card with riser.

Here is my hardware. It is by far the quietest HTPC i have built inculding a water cooled (zalman Res Tower).

Hardware

Case: NmediaPC HTPC 2000B
CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 940 Deneb 3GHZ Quad Core
Motherboard: Gigabyte MA790GP-UD4H 790GX chipset
Memory: OCZ Reaper 4GB DDR2 1066 mhz
Hard Drive: Western Digital 1TB Green HDD
Drive: LG HD-DVD/Blue ray
PSU: Corsair 520HX 520 watt

Cooling Fans:
CPU- Artctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro (93mm fan, MB controlled)
Case- Antec 120mm 3 speed fan (set on low, side vent)
PSU- 120mm Thermally Controlled


From one step away you can not hear the HTPC at all in a dead quiet room.
The WD Geen HDD are the low rpm type and are very quiet and i'm using onboard video/Audio output Via the ATI 790G chipset HDMI. Streams my BR ISO's flawlessly.

System runs very cool in that NmediaPC case and the CPU and PSU fans seem to stay on lowest rpm settings all the time.

I have tried dynomatt and other things but after not hearing this HTPC I think most people can create an almost silent HTPC. Case and components are key.

I hope they can beat A-Tech Fabrication's prices! I might jump on these, they look great!

sexy hardware, comes down to price.

Isn't there a Asus Xonar half height card now too?

They've 2 versions, regular and Slim, but both of them are full height.

um, the slim is slim (half-height).
Although the slim is also PCI (not the express varient).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowIm...s%20-%20Retail

I must be crazy tonight especially I've on inside the case sorry Slim is 1/2 height.

Promising looking cases, thanks for the link.

The price should be in line with mainstream HTPC chassis.

They are not.

Am surprised the Chinese are not jumping into this. I mean they are just hunk of aluminum, and yet charge 2x - 4x as much!

Why? Just two slaps of heatsink (comercially available, ready-made). flat top/bottom covers, drilled/stamped rear, and maybe a fancier (another $20?) front cover. Heatpipes, if provided, are commercial, ready-made correct?

I mean there is any hardly anything custom about them, as in hand-made.

I have a really nice setupo using a HFX classic case. It almost noizeless for typical operation having just one fan in my power supply running at less than 500 rpm.

The main issues with tehse setup is the noise generated by the bloody blu-ray drive (lg Blu-ray writer). The HFX classic doesn't provide any mechanism to reduce that noize. For listening music on a server (using foobar) this is great. for blu-ray back I have to suffer drive noise.

I look at the HDPLEX FAnless and it will suffer the same lack of isolation drive noise insolation.

The drive noise is sad considering that the second noisiest component is the HDD which will be resolved in a year or 2 with the advent of totally silent SDD drives.


Only the HFX Mini provide such some sort of isolation but it limit the drive choice to slot drive instead of tray.