Potential Lumos Buyer - Case Questions

Hello,

For the entire past week, I've been exploring options and catching up on the latest tech in advance of ordering a new PC to replace the one I purchased from Digital Storm 5 years ago.

It's taken a lot of wishy-washy decision making to get to this point, and I've settled on some of the best money can buy from DS. Ryzen 3950X, 32gb Ram, RTX 2080 Ti...

But the reason for my posting here is that, of the two cases I was choosing from, the Lumos and the Velox, I've been back and forth on them. The Velox isn't for me, due to the inverted innards and the panel being on the right door, therefore I decided on the Lumos, and so I looked into it as best I could. It is a Corsair 570X Crystal-series case, as I understand it, and it's surrounded in tempered glass.

That glass... doesn't that cause bad temperature build-up? Can any Lumos buyers comment on this? I'm highly concerned about the design decisions, and I have been completely unable to find anyone commenting on this.

I am not a liquid cooling person. As part of my AMD system and 2080 Ti, the cooling will be the simple H20 Stage 2 Vortex option. I know this will be more than adequate to cover the CPU cooling, but I certainly worry for a GPU in a case like this. As well, I'm currently considering standard Corsair LL Series RGB Fans. If Airflow is going to be a problem, I'm happy to drop another $50 on the ML Pro series.

Please give me your advice.

Originally posted by Cretae I would also not sleep well if I didn't point out that $1400 GPU is about to be obsolete in about 4 months. Know what's appropriate for the monitor you're driving, is all.

I suppose; I require power for 3440x1440p. I'm going to be paying high for the GPU no matter what, and it's a difference of $500 between this and the 2080. The need to get a new PC comes at an awkward time for me, so waiting too long isn't an option.

Plus I imagine even if the new ones are worth their prices, it would take quite a while for DS to stock them... and for them to be available. One thing you can be sure of is scalping and availability issues.

Edited by william_m - 24 May 2020 at 5:38am

Originally posted by william_m I suppose; I require power for 3440x1440p. I'm going to be paying high for the GPU no matter what, and it's a difference of $500 between this and the 2080. The need to get a new PC comes at an awkward time for me, so waiting too long isn't an option. Plus I imagine even if the new ones are worth their prices, it would take quite a while for DS to stock them... and for them to be available. One thing you can be sure of is scalping and availability issues.

I'm not trying to argue, but there are more than just the two of us that are going to read this and have a takeaway. We have a recent buyer that is delighted with his performance of a 2070 SUPER on an Alienware 31.5 inch monitor of the same resolution. You still have 1440p. That extra ~900 pixels is not much to overcome, especially if you went with a 2080 SUPER. That's just a fact for those who don't have the extra $500.

We expect the new line to be very competitive with today's prices. In fact, there is rumor going around they may be a bit cheaper. With one eye on AMD, and the other on forcing wider acceptance of ray tracing by developers, they want very much to get these cards out the door, maybe. The release was going to be June, but the conference they were going to announce it was cancelled, and the pandemic sucked all the air out of the room. The new release will be in the Fall. You think the extra 3-4 months of production won't happen? Delayed release having nothing to do with production hardly means short supply. DS in my experience does not have a problem with newly released products. The 10th gen Intel desktop CPUs were announced April 30th for May release and guess who had 'em last week?

Again, please, I'm not arguing. You were speculating without all the facts, and I feel a duty to put the right info out here.

The 2080 Ti, although overkill IMHO, will do a great job for you.

I have a Lumos case from from 2 years ago and never had an an issue. Rather easy to clean too!

Originally posted by John18 Originally posted by Muz I have a Lumos case from from 2 years ago and never had an an issue. Rather easy to clean too! I have not yet received my Lumos, so this is a question. How, or what, makes it easy to clean? Thanks.

both side panels, the top and front panel all are attached with large headed thumb screws. Makes it a breeze to open it up and clean out the dust.

I love my Lumos cased PC. Easy to keep clean and very beautiful and the light show is fantastic.

Originally posted by Cretae I do want to suggest you be sure you have an NVMe SSD selected for your primary drive. The standard DS one is SATA and nowhere near the performance of any NVMe That's commonly overlooked. I would also not sleep well if I didn't point out that $1400 GPU is about to be obsolete in about 4 months. Know what's appropriate for the monitor you're driving, is all.

Unfortunately I already ordered my Lumos with the standard DS SSD drive. Hopefully it won't be much of a pain to replace it with a NVMe one at some point. How much degradation in performance do you think there is with the standard SSD?

And if you're saying that the GPU is about to be obsolete would that warrant me needing to look into replacing that quickly as well?

Originally posted by Stellar The Lumos is easily one of the best case designs out on the market. The airflow on this case is insane. If you want to increase static pressure and airflow, get the ML Pros.

My computer is in Stage 6, so I am not changing the fans at this point. I did get mine with the LL fans.

Originally posted by GrandesBollas None of the components you selected will give you any cause for performance concerns. Cretae is pointing out good preferences that reflect what all of us in the semi-DIY category have learned. None of the DS systems are like the throw-away computers you find from some vendors where everything is soldered and unreplaceable. In time, you will want to upgrade the SSD when its capacity is less than what you require. I have learned that I want separate drives for my OS and storage since Windows resets are a norm for me, and I don't want to keep downloading big game files. The OS drive should be as fast as you can get. Fast for me is miles ahead in improvement from the days when the OS was installed on 3.5" HDD. Buy the GPU card you need for now and into the near future. There is always going to be something new and shinier down the line. Draw a line in the sand and go from there. For me, I only game at 1440P. It didn't make sense to go any higher. Looking into the future, I would consider another 2070 Super or equivalent if the price for performance in the future is similar to today. My biggest problem with my RTX 2070 is not the technology itself. Rather, the decision to not get custom GPU cooling along with my CPU. Again, that was based on cost. I can and plan to make that change in the next couple of years after I need to drain and flush my current system configuration.

Fair point. But by saying "obsolete" I thought he could be implying that the Lumos line is about to get a big GPU card upgrade or something that would make buying one today an unwise decision (similar to purchasing a new car right before a big re-design). There is no way to future-proof any purchase here except to upgrade components over time.

That being said my five-year-old potato laptop that I'm using now that I will be replacing with my Lumos still runs like new and boots up much quicker than my office computer that still runs on HDD. Of course it won't do VR, or any new games coming out.

Edited by Scambush - 25 May 2020 at 1:47pm

Sorry i was a little late on responding but they pretty much summed it up. Plus, there is a nice mesh filter on the front panel that will stop most dust/debris/cat hairs(yes i have 2 cats) and its a breeze to clean by unscrewing the front plate, lifting the mesh off to vacuum and put it back on. I have never had to clean the "guts" of my pc yet. Just the mesh and a light dusting of the glass from time to time. The Lumos is my 2nd DS computer as the first one lasted me 8 solid overclocked years and I only upgraded the RAM, SSD and video card once about 4 years into it. Then the mobo went caputs and its was time. Im currently waiting on my 3rd DS which is for my wife as it is a custom Lynx.