NOTE: All hardware will be included for mounting HDD/SSD/Fans/Feet and will be black unlike the silver versions seen here.
Answers to comments:
At first I thought that might be worthy of stopping my current progress to investigate. The only problem I saw (and the reason I didn't play with the idea) is that locating the PCIe extender would be difficult. The only reasonable thing to do would be to hide it underneath the motherboard but then you close access to the back panel on the motherboard for the cooling and m.2 adapter. I guess it might be possible to fold the extender in such a way that it avoids both going over the CPU and underneath the motherboard, but I realized I'm too close with this design to start re-designing it now. Great thought though and one I hadn't come up with. Maybe I'll be able to come up with something to make it work in the future.
The Noctua is an intake and the Gelid fans are exhaust. That can of course be flipped depending on which way you decide to orient the case. If the GPU is on top I assume the Noctua would be the exhaust and the Gelid fans intake. As for the C7, there are a few millimeters of clearance (probably around 2-3) but with the C7 92mm adapter in place, the standard 92mm x 25mm fan will not fit in this case (see below pictures).
As for the laser cutter/engraver, I have done all the work to create eps files for Ponoko.com and had them quote me on their prices. Basically, a single S401 side panel with the same hex patter on 0.177" thick clear acrylic is going to be around $80 a panel. For the larger S700 case (which requires 2 window panels), each one is around $70 each. The price difference is due to the fewer holes cut on the S700 panels for less machine time due to fewer holes being cut. I figure if I ordered 10 of each, I'm halfway to purchasing my own laser cutter and then I can do some really custom work on the side panels if I want. No decision has been made yet, but I'm heavily leaning towards it.
Update on next revision:
I requested the fab shop to turn around the next revision ASAP with "money not being an object". It will be pricey but I only needed to relocate a few holes for the GPU and I also added 6 PEM tie down fasteners. I don't have their timeframe on when to expect this one to be done but I got the impression it would be punched this week.
I wanted to add that I dropped support for the HDPLex PSUs. The volume was nearly the same when you consider I added internal mounts for the brick AC/DC adapter and the price compared to existing SFX PSUs was nearly double for less wattage. It has it's place but I'm convinced it is better suited for smaller cases than the S401.