Chimera Industries Cerberus: The 18L, mATX, USA-made enclosure

jsco

Average Stuffer
Feb 2, 2016
60
55
Ok, time for my "will it fit" question: 2x140mm fans on the bottom, plus 1x120mm fan on the bottom front, with SFX-L PSU?

I'm planning an all air cooled build with as much fresh air on a single GPU as possible, but I also want a front intake to handle the times when the case will be on carpet.

The Noctua C14S *exactly* meets the clearance specs with the side bracket in place. This looks ideal to me if the fan can be anchored to the bracket instead of the heatsink, both for less stress during travel and for holding filter material in place.

I'm excited. What a great case. Although... it is really tempting to choose the way of pain and go dual-GPU-dual-240...
 

hiepphotog

Caliper Novice
Feb 2, 2016
26
15
I don't have anything else to add since this case is perfect for my needs as is. I don't see any problem that a Corsair H100i GTX would not fit in this case. My wallet is ready for the crowd-funding. A well-designed product should deserve huge support. I bought, IMO, the best camera messenger bag last year and that one was funded to $5 millions (most successful bag on Kickstarter). So I wish you guys the best of luck with the campaign.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,780
Oh and rather than a pedantic rant about units of volumetric measurement, I have these questions:
1) How's the vibration on the new drive brackets?
2) How's air flow and noise with the Infinite Vents compared with the previously more open design?
3) Why not the interchangeable plates for different PSU types? Two frames seems disadvantageous if you change your mind later.

I had tested 3.5" drives, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I haven't tested 2.5" mechanical drives but there is no dampening on the 2.5" brackets because there wasn't space for it. The steel is decently thick so I've never had problems with vibrations for the case in general.

Airflow and fan noise is basically comparable to Nova. I don't have the equipment to test it scientifically but I have not had any problems.

For the rear plates, the production design is certainly not ideal for those who want to easily switch between setups, but that's also a niche use case. Most people will get one or the other and leave it (I could be wrong though and we'll ask in the poll to check).

The issue I had with the plate is it had no benefit to SFX/SFX-L users other than weakening the frame and upping the part count (which increases the price). From previous polls the majority were interested in SFX/SFX-L hence the decision to drop the plate.

I should have been more clear but I was actually wondering if a combined 240mm+120mm is possible with 2xGPUs since 1x120mm/component is recommended.

240mm + 120mm is doable. With an SFX/SFX-L unit you'll have the 240mm on bottom and 120mm on the side. With an ATX PSU it'll be 240mm on the bottom and 120mm on the front. Or you could do 240mm on the front and 120mm on the bottom if the cards aren't too long.

Finally!! Haven't posted in a while but I've been lurking like a bunch of ppl here lol. Count me in for one as soon as crowdfunding starts. And as PNP stated I have to agree with him on the interchangeable plates. Would have been a great idea.

Welcome back! All sorts of people coming out of the woodwork, it's nice :)

Ok, time for my "will it fit" question: 2x140mm fans on the bottom, plus 1x120mm fan on the bottom front, with SFX-L PSU?

I'm planning an all air cooled build with as much fresh air on a single GPU as possible, but I also want a front intake to handle the times when the case will be on carpet.

The Noctua C14S *exactly* meets the clearance specs with the side bracket in place. This looks ideal to me if the fan can be anchored to the bracket instead of the heatsink, both for less stress during travel and for holding filter material in place.

I'm excited. What a great case. Although... it is really tempting to choose the way of pain and go dual-GPU-dual-240...

You may not be able to use all the screws on the 140mm because the feet will be in the way of some of them. For the 120mm, it'll fit there depending on the PSU. It works with the SX500-LG because the connectors are offset such that the fan just fits between them and the frame but that may not be the case on future models. Luckily all the SFX-L units currently out are based on the same Sirfa platform so they should all work too.

Yes, with a top-down heatsink it's better to attach it to the bracket if possible because that's less weight on the cooler if you transport the system.

I don't have anything else to add since this case is perfect for my needs as is. I don't see any problem that a Corsair H100i GTX would not fit in this case. My wallet is ready for the crowd-funding. A well-designed product should deserve huge support. I bought, IMO, the best camera messenger bag last year and that one was funded to $5 millions (most successful bag on Kickstarter). So I wish you guys the best of luck with the campaign.

Thanks! Crowdfunding gets its fair share of criticism for scams and stuff but there's lots of great projects out there. Last year I had gotten the Grip6 belt and I love it, best belt I've ever owned.
 
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PlayfulPhoenix

Founder of SFF.N
Original poster
SFFLAB
Chimera Industries
Gold Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
1,052
1,990
Huh... so looking at the renders, is there no way to mount more than 2x120mm or 1x240mm radiators with two GPUs?

240mm + 120mm is doable. With an SFX/SFX-L unit you'll have the 240mm on bottom and 120mm on the side. With an ATX PSU it'll be 240mm on the bottom and 120mm on the front. Or you could do 240mm on the front and 120mm on the bottom if the cards aren't too long.

When using SFX, you can also do 240mm on the bottom and a relatively thick 140mm on the side. The should provide nearly the same cooling performance as the 2x240mm configuration, while remaining much more practical to install and live with ;)

(It's what I'm planning to do myself, in all likelihood)
 

Necere

Shrink Ray Wielder
NCASE
Feb 22, 2015
1,719
3,281
Really great work you guys have done on this. Very impressed. Here's hoping for a successful crowdfunding campaign, and many more successes going into the future.
 

evoandroidevo

Efficiency Noob
Feb 11, 2016
5
0
Is there any room on the back side of the MB for cord management? And nice work guys cant wait to use my tax returns to build a computer in this bad boy :D
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,780
Really great work you guys have done on this. Very impressed. Here's hoping for a successful crowdfunding campaign, and many more successes going into the future.

Thanks! That's great to hear from you. I hope to see more NCASE designs in the future too. And I promise my next design won't resemble the M1 so much :p

Is there any room on the back side of the MB for cord management? And nice work guys cant wait to use my tax returns to build a computer in this bad boy :D

No, the first prototype had a bit of space but I didn't find it that useful in practice and adding enough space to really make it useful would make the case larger than I'd like.
 

Hoyas

Efficiency Noob
Dec 12, 2015
5
0
finally its here, great work guys.
the case really looks nice, no wasted space on the case. Looking forward to the campaign
 

PNP

Airflow Optimizer
Oct 10, 2015
285
257
I had tested 3.5" drives, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I haven't tested 2.5" mechanical drives but there is no dampening on the 2.5" brackets because there wasn't space for it. The steel is decently thick so I've never had problems with vibrations for the case in general.

Does that mean the 3.5" brackets have native dampening? And speaking of 2.5" drives, do those behind-MB mounts still go drive first with an ITX board?

I feel kind of bad for Fractal Design. I'm about to migrate out of a Define R4, the Node 804 my main rig was going to and the Node 304 for my future server have both been replaced by Cerberus.
 

evoandroidevo

Efficiency Noob
Feb 11, 2016
5
0
No, the first prototype had a bit of space but I didn't find it that useful in practice and adding enough space to really make it useful would make the case larger than I'd like.

well guess that makes up my mind on the window haha thanks for the reply. SO excited!
 

Gnrl Kitty

Chassis Packer
Oct 22, 2015
17
2
When using SFX, you can also do 240mm on the bottom and a relatively thick 140mm on the side. The should provide nearly the same cooling performance as the 2x240mm configuration, while remaining much more practical to install and live with ;)

(It's what I'm planning to do myself, in all likelihood)
Interesting! I had no idea the thickness of the radiator had such a drastic affect on cooling performance. That sounds like a good plan then.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,780
Does that mean the 3.5" brackets have native dampening? And speaking of 2.5" drives, do those behind-MB mounts still go drive first with an ITX board?

Yes, little rubber grommets. Nothing fancy.

Do you mean the motherboard tray mounts?

 

revival

Cable Smoosher
Feb 11, 2016
9
5
Forgot that the X41 won't fit on the bottom so I mounted it to the bottom front instead:





Once again I'm thankful to whoever designed this case such that all the panels come off because it makes it so much easier to work in.



Problem with the X41 in that position though is that it can't fit 10.5" cards with a standard thickness fan. A slim fan would work but I don't have a slim 140mm on hand so I have moved the rad up and put the card in a lower slot and that works :)

I really hope AMD and Intel are generous with the PCIe lanes on the next-gen boards because I love the flexibility of being able to move the card around to whatever slot I want but having to get a $200+ board and $600 CPU to do that sucks.

Thanks for the pictures. So it looks like a h100i will not work in this case due to the fact the tubes come out of the top and not the side, too close to the atx

So with a sfx power supply the only place to mount a 240 would be the bottom
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,780
Yes, the CPU block really needs to have swivel barbs on the sides of the block for it to fit with an ATX PSU. Even then it's tight.

I guess you could get the ATX frame and use the new SilverStone PP08 adapter to use to mount an SFX PSU there instead to get the necessary clearance.
 

Blackout

Cable Smoosher
Feb 11, 2016
11
0
Realistically, best case scenario, when would this case be at my front door?

EDIT: I live in America.
 
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