Production Lazer3D - LZ XTD - Alternative Designs

[wertigon]

Just a few comments:

* CPU cooler: "anything with a 120mm fan" won't work, since the LZ7 XTD has a maximum height restriction. I'd recommend the Noctua U9S.
* Case fan: the 92mm exhaust fan doesn't need to be 15mm thin, actually a standard one fits too.
* PSU: I think a 600W or even 450W unit should work well enough, considering the components you suggested.

Coolers, fans: fair enough ? though both slim guarantee a positive air pressure, a 25x92mm should shuffle about as much air as a 15x140mm. 140 intake, 92 outtake ofc.

PSU: a 450W works, but a 650W gives room to grow to more power hungry components in the future. Though it largely seems that era is over, you never know, and it will not impact power draw. But yes, 450W saves a few bucks.

 

[Yogi]

Thanks wertigon and venemo! Appreciate all the advice! I have the u9s with dual fans so that's great. I also have two never used Noctua NF-s12A's and two NF-P14r redux 1500pwm's. But I'm guessing that the 140mm fans are a no go?

As for the monitor, have a Dell Alienware AW2518H at the moment. I haven't really thought about how often I'll be swapping out components..just getting inte pc gaming but ill definitely wait and see what AMD counters with in terms of graphics.

I've been eying the ryzen 3700x..feels like the best value right now and for my needs it'll be enough. Up until now I've mostly been using gpu power for rendeting with madvr in jriver media center (big tv & movie junky here?).

What are your thoughts on the Corsair SF600 V2 600W & Aorus X570 I Pro WiFi?
And in terms of ram; is DDR4 4400MHz anything worth considering over 3600MHz
Again, thanks for taking the time to help a noob like myself out with these questions.

 

[wertigon]

What are your thoughts on the Corsair SF600 V2 600W & Aorus X570 I Pro WiFi?
And in terms of ram; is DDR4 4400MHz anything worth considering over 3600MHz
Again, thanks for taking the time to help a noob like myself out with these questions.

I think the Corsair is a decent PSU, and the Aorus X570 I Pro WiFi saves you a few bucks as well. Both are good options for sure.

4400 MHz is not really worth it at the moment, you need an awesome motherboard to handle it and even then you might see a 2-3% increase or something like that. Not enough to justify the price, though that might change with the Ryzen 4xxx and x670 series / motherboards. Regardless, since you need to upgrade now, no reason to wait for it.

 

[Venemo]

And in terms of ram; is DDR4 4400MHz anything worth considering over 3600MHz

I suggest to look at this video and draw your own conclusions:


The bottomline is that above ~3000 MHz investing in higher frequency RAM is not really worth it... if you want to spend that much more money, you're better off buying a better CPU or a better SSD, etc.

 

[Venemo]

So I originally bought the LZ7 XTD together with a Prolimatech Ultra Sleek Vortex from Overclockers. But since I was dissatisfied with the noise levels, I decided to mess around with it to figure out how to make it quieter. Here are my thoughts:

Prolimatech Ultra Sleek Vortex:

• It's mostly quiet, but has a high-pitched, whirry "whine" (even at low speeds) which is very annoying to me.
• Do not buy the Prolimatech Static Booster for this fan. It won't fit in the case!
• You can't mount the LZ7 fan grille inside the case, since the grills will touch the fan blades, unless you use a washer.
• The LZ7 fan grille actually makes this fan noticably louder than it should be. I'm not an acoustical expert, but my guess is that the circular "center piece" of this grille causes some turbulence, maybe.
• I tried replacing the LZ7 fan grille with a Noctua FG-12, which doesn't have the same noisy effect as the default grille.

Cryorig XT140:

• On the upside, it does look cooler than the Prolimatech.
• I was hoping that this one will sound better, but no. It has the same noise, but somewhat even more pronounced.
• Also has trouble mounting the grille inside the case.
• It also exhibits the same effect that I observed regarding the two grilles with the Prolimatech: the LZ7 grille made it more noisy, the FG-12 was OK.

Nocuta NF-A12x15:

• I really wanted to like this one, since I'm quite happy with the other Noctua fans (NF-A9) that I use inside the case.
• This fan does not show the same whirr as the other two, but it has a much more "airplane-like" sound. This might be somewhat less annoying for some people, but it makes the fan louder than the previous two, especially at higher speeds.
• This fan allows you to mount the grille inside the case without the fan blades touching it.
• The choice of grille doesn't affect the loudness of this one. It was loud either way.

So, after the experiment, I went back to using the Prolimatech fan with the Noctua FG-12 grille. I added a few washers between it and the grille which allowed me to mount both of them on the inside. It barely fits, but fits. I will probably return the other fans to the shop, unless I find some sort of other use for them.

Some final notes:

If you listen to any kind of music, it will drown out the noise coming from either of the 3 fans. The same thing is true if you are in a noisy environment, so if you live in a city and you leave the windows open, the noise of the street will likely make the fan noise unnoticable. So, all in all, this is probably not worth obsessing about as much as I have. However if you're sitting in a quiet room and you don't listen to music the whole day, these fans do contribute to the overall noise of the computer.

Finally, I ended up setting the motherboard to just turn OFF the Prolimatech on lower temperatures. It will of course spin up under serious loads which does help cool the system under these circumstances. But it has barely any impact when the system is idle.

I hope someone will find this helpful. Have a nice day everyone!

 

[Weredawg]

Thanks a ton @Venemo This was very helpful actually. The fan situation is something I've been wanting a good analysis on fan options for the LZ7 cases.

 

[Venemo]

Thanks a ton @Venemo This was very helpful actually. The fan situation is something I've been wanting a good analysis on fan options for the LZ7 cases.

You're very welcome. It looks like this intake fan is what matters the most. Inside the case I've got two Noctua NF-A9 fans (one on the CPU cooler, and another for exhaust), and the sound those ones make is barely, if at all, noticable. A good resource is the analysis by @K888D where he compares the different vent patterns. (I went with the completely open vent.)

Right now the most noisy component in my build is the RX 5700XT reference card because of its blower fan. However it doesn't feel like a good investment to replace that just because of its noise... so I will probably stick to it for a while.

 

[wertigon]

Right now the most noisy component in my build is the RX 5700XT reference card because of its blower fan. However it doesn't feel like a good investment to replace that just because of its noise... so I will probably stick to it for a while.

Any reference card usually has an aftermarket waterblock, but a 140mm radiator probably won't be enough to handle both CPU and GPU.

Hey, that gives me a stupid idea, @K888D is a distro plate option for the front or the GPU side worth some consideration, like the Dice Flow case? Might be hard to fit a pump inside though...

 

[Venemo]

Any reference card usually has an aftermarket waterblock, but a 140mm radiator probably won't be enough to handle both CPU and GPU.

There are some options for a custom water block yes, and the are also things like the NZXT G12, but...

• There is no space for this in the LZ7 XTD for this, unless one is willing to sacrifice in CPU cooling, which I don't want
• I currently don't own any watercooling equipment, so it'd need an investment

 

[K888D]

Any reference card usually has an aftermarket waterblock, but a 140mm radiator probably won't be enough to handle both CPU and GPU.

Hey, that gives me a stupid idea, @K888D is a distro plate option for the front or the GPU side worth some consideration, like the Dice Flow case? Might be hard to fit a pump inside though...

I'm sure anything is possible if I had enough time to dedicate towards developing it ?

 

[masteraleph]

Anyone tried a Red Dragon 5700(xt) in this case yet? I know there are a few with the generic Powercolor dual fan model.

 

[TunaAlien]

Just built mine last night and I am in love with it. I'll share my thoughts as a first time builder later on, in case that that sort of feedback would be useful.

 

[K888D]

I'm not sure what he says in the review (hopefully it's positive!), but here's a German review of the LZ7 XTD, fitted with an AMD 5700 XT:

​

The CPU cooler they selected was a few mm too tall for the case, but they dremmelled the underside of the top panel to get it to fit.

 

[Venemo]

Here are a couple of pictures about my build:

 

[masteraleph]

So I’ve settled on my build, and will be waiting on the case. Scaled down from where I’d been hoping for, but on reflection there was no reason to go as high end as I’d been thinking. Build is going to be with white and clear fusion panels, black corners, and black base:

2700x (bought at Microcenter for $130), planning on using the Wraith Prism for now but will switch to a U9s if it’s too annoying
Asus B450i
2x8gb Geil Tridentz ram
Radeon RX 5700 (stock model by PowerColor)
Inland Premium 1tb nvme drive
Noctua chromax a9x14 for the back panel
Prolimatec ultra sleek vortex for the front panel fan
Corsair SF600 platinum (overkill, but I wanted the better fan curve and Rakuten had it for a price comparable to the gold one)
I have 2 500gb ssds around, not sure if I’ll be using them or not

Hopefully I can zip tie the Corsair cables in the fusion side of the case- if not, will go for custom cables. Between the board, ram and wraith prism, should have plenty of rgb.

 

[TunaAlien]

Just thought I'd follow up on my previous post about sharing my thoughts on the case and my build experience with it. If you want a TL;DR, I love it and I've been recommending it to pretty much everyone who's asked. But anyway, in no particular order:

• Build quality. This thing just looks and feels fantastic. The panels slot together like a dream and it all feels very sturdy when built. The smoked gloss panels are the perfect amount of tint and I'm so glad I opted for three of them.
• Design. I feel like it's pretty well designed, with the GPU pretty much doing its own thing and the CPU being given an intake and exhaust all of its own. I will monitor temps tonight when gaming but it seems fine so far.
• Instructions. The instructions were okay, until it came to about the point where the GPU needed to be installed in the original LZ7 instruction manual. After that, I was flicking back and forth between the old LZ7 manual and the new LZ7 XTD supplementary guide trying to figure out what order to do things. It was a bit aimless at times and resulted in panels being installed and uninstalled after I found that I'd done something too early. I understand that the LZ7 XTD shares many components with its predecessor, but it is its own case and deserves its own manual I think.
• Build experience. Some of my troubles when building could be attributed to my own inexperience. Overall, the build experience was great despite what I said up there and I had a blast putting it all together. I appreciate the lack of a riser cable - makes things very simple.
• Stand. I don't have anything bad to say about the stand really, but I wish I didn't buy it for my own rig. I prefer not having the case stand so tall and using the stand either covers the GPU panel or front I/O, or has the motherboard shield pointing directly up or down from the case. The standard set up looks the best and is the most convenient, but this is more opinion than criticism. Maybe down the line I will appreciate the options more.
• Screws. Having the screws in that little plastic tray was so useful. Thanks!
• Cable management. I'm not sure if my cable management was any good, but I thought that it wasn't so bad for a 10 L case. Most issues I had were due to plugging things in too late. Custom cables would probably help, but not by much.
• Customisability. This black and orange colour scheme I've picked is something I will never tire of.

Overall, I just love love love this box. I've been praising it all day on Reddit; people might start wondering if I work for Lazer3D. (Reddit post)
Kevin, you've done a wonderful job with this case. Bravo!

 

[wertigon]

• Stand. I don't have anything bad to say about the stand really, but I wish I didn't buy it for my own rig. I prefer not having the case stand so tall and using the stand either covers the GPU panel or front I/O, or has the motherboard shield pointing directly up or down from the case. The standard set up looks the best and is the most convenient, but this is more opinion than criticism. Maybe down the line I will appreciate the options more.

Yeah, I was thinking that putting the GPU on top shouldn't be that bad, but then I remembered the stand would cover the front I/O. Of course, if you have the vandal switch configuration this is much less of a problem. Putting the case to the left of the screen in this configuration would be a really neat option, but yeah.

For me, this case is at the top of my wish list. I've decided to go with a cheap-ass $25 case for now (Black friday sales are nice to my wallet ^^), but I'll be keeping my eyes on this and probably upgrade once my financials look a bit better. I *really* love the aesthetics of this case, and the fact that it can house a mid-length GPU without too many tradeoffs! It is the closest thing I've seen yet to meet all my boxes.

 

[Venemo]

Regarding the stand, I noticed that the anti-slip rubber thingies can fall off quite easily. In fact, they fall off even if I don't touch it, just the case is sitting there. I fixed this by cleaning off the self adhesive that came with it, and borrowed some transparent nail polish from my girlfriend. The nail polish has so far managed to keep these pesky things in their place.

 

[TunaAlien]

Regarding the stand, I noticed that the anti-slip rubber thingies can fall off quite easily. In fact, they fall off even if I don't touch it, just the case is sitting there. I fixed this by cleaning off the self adhesive that came with it, and borrowed some transparent nail polish from my girlfriend. The nail polish has so far managed to keep these pesky things in their place.

I found the same thing. The adhesive doesn't quite cut it.

 

[hmnzr]

Can anybody advise about the custom cables length for corsair SF600 PSU and Gigabyte x570 mobo?