Anyone have experience with this thing? How good is it?

Anyone have experience with this thing? How good is it?

Attached: Cooler Master HAF XB Evo.jpg (1500x1029, 224K)

Dust central, but faultless airflow. If you've got the room a horizontal motherboard mount is the best motherboard mount.
Not as nice to look at as a Carbide Air 540, but a bit more of an obscure unicorn.

It's a small computer case, it's as good as the components that you put inside.

As a computer case, it's a smaller, hard"er" to assemble one, but actually "hard" is something else. This is still easy.

I'm a bit worried about the bottom chamber that only has one fan mount for all the storage and power supply.

Is this case going to eat my hard drives?

Was alright, can be a pain in the ass to clean with all it's nooks and crannies.

Friend had one and it really did collect dust like crazy, but he also tended to keep it on the floor below his bead so it wasn't exactly in the cleanest locations. Probably a lot better if you have some desk space to set it on.

Great Airflow and a lot of Space in the top chamber. Attracts a lot of Dust. It can cause problems with tall CPU coolers, if you want to mount the 200mm fan on top.
The bottom chamber is a nightmare to build in though. Pretty much impossible if you don't remove the motherboard tray. Although that may be not a problem.
You can mount two 80mm fans if you have to cool your drives, but why should they get that hot?

How many fans do you think HDD need when they do not come with passive coolers or fans?

Meanwhile this case is full gaymen with its fans anyhow, never mind you're only gonna fit up to a measly two 3.5" drive so really you don't particularly have to worry.

He could fit four 3,5" drives into it, if he uses the Hot-Swap bays.

I wouldn't be too worried. The PSU vents it's own air and the single fan is enough to cool multiple HDDs.
Dust is a bit of a syndrome of all the early HAF cases. Filtration wasn't as prevalent in case fitment as it's become in the last 4 or so years. Although if you take the panel off and give it a blast of compressed air every 6-12 months it should be fine.
Both my brothers running early HAF towers (one a 932 and the other an "X") and they look like Egyptian tombs inside if neglected lol

I helped a friend with a build with one of these. IMO these box cases are utter fucking trash. Thin console like ITX cases are far superior.

Forgive my inexperience, I was wondering if having everything packed together in a tight chamber directly under the CPU mount would cause any cooling issues.

Would you recommend the bottom fan for intake or exhaust?

Back of the Motherboard doesn't radiate any heat, they'll be fine. Definitely set it up as intake though.

Intake, if you really need it. But beware, 80mm fans can be quite loud and the design would limit the usefulness. Try to avoid the Hot-Swap bays.

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Great airflow, great dustflow. Put some hotswap bays and a fan controller in the 5 inch bays and it's easily 8/10.

Also, look at the Corsair Carbide Air 540. Nicer construction, easier to build in and looks better IMO. They have a filter on the front panel but none on the top or bottom (if sat in vertical) however.
The Corsair also has 8 expansion slots for mad quad crossfire setups

The PSU will have to be an exit vent unless it's full passive, so set it up as intake.

Yea, or if it's more a media brick, the Node 304 or 804 'cause those can definitely fit more HDD

Of course these also only if it's enough HDD.

Looks old as fuck.

Good case, very easy to build in. It's not easily portable by any means (despite the handles it's still heavy as shit), if that's your goal I would look into an ITX case. Like others have said, complete dust magnet, especially the front intake fans (which are quite loud) but fantastic airflow and extremely easy to do cable management, even with non modular PSUs. Also I love how every screw on this thing is a thumbscrew, really easy to reassemble or swap/add parts.

That being said, I thought they stopped making the HAF?

This. Helped a buddy build as well and was very unimpressed. The interior layout is stupid, and I don't know wtf people are saying this thing is small for because it's way bigger than it needs to be. It's advertised as a "LAN box" but it takes up such a big footprint it basically needs its own separate table. A Phanteks Evolv Shift is way better if you're looking for small footprint, though admittedly its not perfect and it's not meant to accommodate the same builds as the XB Evo.

looks utilitarian af. I wish I can buy that here, It's very rare to find here.

I like it. bigger than it looks but easy to find a place for compared to my older traditional tower I had my shit in.

Seems like a comfy as fuck case.

I've had one for years. Works perfectly fine, easy to work with and easy to move when you need to clean it and shit.

Attached: muh shit.jpg (2048x1152, 178K)

I guess it's good if you want a stubby case that supports full atx. But it's still a pretty "big" case overall. I can't even see the portability value since it's actually so big comparatively. Personally if you want a small case that actually IS small(but still having support for a full sized PSU), then in my opinion it's better to just go with something m-itx only, like the thermaltake Core V series

Best case I've ever bought. Got it a few years ago.

Ultra easy drive swaps, card swaps, I've even replaced motherboards and psu in this case. NEVER BEEN EASIER.

If doing another build tomorrow I'd get the same case.