Silence vs Cooling

I'm looking at the Velox and Slade, both with the same configuration (config 1739972).   I will mainly use it for office tasks, listening to music, and some heavy Photoshopping. I don’t do a lot of gaming but want to be prepared in case I do more.  I have two concerns: noise and cooling. It will be located in the large closed in but open-front footwell of my desk where the height is restricted to 24”. The Slade is shorter and possibly quieter, the Velox is taller (with still about 1.75" clearance) but appears to have more airflow. No idea if the Velox is as quiet as the Slade. I want it quiet as possible, but not at the expense of overheating. Thoughts on which case to go with in this environment?  Thanks!

the benefits of the Velox case are the extra space and open air design for heat dissipation.  however, it has no dust filters and the acoustics are going to be the worst of all due to all of the perforations in the steel mesh case design. 

however, this case does allow you to use vendor specific graphic cards that have their own custom coolers (open air design usually).  open air designed coolers aren't recommended in closed cases like the DS "Slade" (Corsair 600Q) because they dump heat into the case rather than blow it out the back, via the I/O area of the case, with a blower style cooler found on "reference" card designs from the OEM.  i checked your config and the 1070 you chose is a reference design, so it's good in either case. 

the 600Q's inverted design claims better thermals with the 2x140mm (it comes unmounted from the manufacturer for some reason)  front intake fans sucking in air to blow directly over the cpu/memory and then in a downward direction to the rear of the case where a 140mm rear fan (located in the bottom rear) expels the warm air out of the back of the case.  the 600Q comes with its own fan controller with 3 settings, which is a nice included feature. even on max setting the case is still relatively quiet.  

the psu is in the upper rear corner of the case.  imo, this causes some concern as it has nowhere to pull in cooler air from the outside of the case, and instead will pull inside the case air from below (all the more reason to limit yourself to reference graphics cards). 

the case has enough clearance for massive tower air cpu coolers, up to 240mm iirc. 

you can put up to a 280mm rad for watercooling in the front with intake oriented fans (make sure they're static pressure fans rather than case/air flow fans) or up to a 360mm (although you can't get a 60mm thick rad to clear the ATX mobo, so you'll be limited to "thin" 360 rads) in the bottom of the case.  the 600Q also comes with removable dust filters (bottom of case and front of case).

since it appears noise is your primary consideration, i'd go with the Slade.


Edited by db188 - 04 Sep 2017 at 2:12pm

some additional thoughts on your proposed confines:  as long as the front of the enclosure is open and the case's front intakes will be unobstructed you shouldn't have problems from the front intake sucking in ambient (room temp) air.  the exhausts are at the rear and bottom (if you put additional fans or a rad there) of the case.  so, as long as you have a few inches of clearance from the rear of the enclosure and the elevated feet of the case you should be alright with thermals.  the air around the outside of the case will be a little warmer from the tight confines and the exhaust, but i'm not really sure how that will effect (if at all) heat penetrating the insulated panels of the case.  i kind of doubt it will have a noticeable deleterious effect as the internals are dependent on the intakes.   

Edited by db188 - 04 Sep 2017 at 2:38pm