My first custom loop is a wash in terms of performance, but in terms of noise? Night and day.I was always proud that I achieved near liquid-cooled performance levels with my HAFs but it was at the expense of noise, a ton of fans, and a huge footprint. I put a considerable amount of thought into fan placement and airflow direction to achieve it. They served me well, for over a decade, but I'm glad to be moving onwards with smaller and quieter options.
CPU cooling is the Achille's heal here. Anything more than ~70W is going to struggle, and anything that likes to clock high is going to be limited. If you can't get at least a 240mm AIO when height constrained, I have to say personally that I'm not really interested; the case isn't actually designed with gaming or 'workstation' use in mind.I do like how the dual-chamber design separates things a bit though. Getting the GPU away from the CPU seems like a step in the right direction but I agree that venting in all directions can be a mixed bag. Careful thought in fan placement is crucial to making the best of it but I think they missed out on a great opportunity by not supporting at least 1x 240mm AIO in the front.
I agree. They were close to that goal but need a little bit more size to have achieved both. For those with med-light needs, it'll work but beyond that in either direction and it gets tricky.the case isn't actually designed with gaming or 'workstation' use in mind.