Not sure where I got the idea from but lately I've been thinking about turning my system into a Cube SFF build. I love the looks of cases such as Da Box, NZXT Rogue as well as the Lian Li PC-V351/V352 Basically I love the MicroATX cube cases that have a brushed aluminium front panel. The NZXT Rogue would have been my case of choice (although it is a little bigger than I'd like) but unfortunately it's no longer sold anywhere and I'm guessing it was really expensive when it was on sale.
I'd love the Da Box or perhaps the V352 but they are both £100+ and I cannot afford to spend that much on a case alone as I simply feel hardware is more important than the case.
Does anyone know of any other cases that have an aluminium panel that can fit a H50 along with a 5850?
I've also wondered about perhaps switching to an mini ITX system (go from my i7 920 to a 6 core thuban or i5) but is this a viable option?
The last option I have it to build my own case from scratch. Whilst I have no real experience with CAD or anything like that, I think I will be able to design a case that I can actually build. The problem is the cost and tools required; I have no materials or tools needed to build the case, only the time - however with the time I could be earning money to buy the case anyway. The question is what kind of tools will I need to build a case? I will most likely build the shell from aluminium and I would not be sure about the internals. I would only need space for 1 HDD and the SDD can be easily mounted onto that. Only one 3.5" bay would be needed for a DVD drive (however I hardly use it anyway so this could easily be taken out of the build). Fitting 120mm fans would be a necessity as I need to have a H50 in and at least 1 intake and 1 exhaust along with the H50. It would need to be able to fit a 5850 too as well as an ATX power supply.
Well sorry for this long winded mumble jumble of a thread, hope someone can take the time to read through it and give me some ideas!