5U+: What's out there for a good "Silent" air-cooled rack mountable case?

[IT4Gov]

I'm looking for advice on rack mountable chassis to build a new build in. I currently have a massive over complicated full water-cooled system that cools 2 systems in a single Corsair 1000D case. As much as I thought it was the best idea at the time when I splurged on it all, not 4 years later I'm kind of regretting the decision. I've dealt with my share of random water-based issues over those years and hated moving the system, because it always developed a leak in the hardest to get to areas.

Anyways I'm looking to ditch having a gaming pc and just upgrade my unRaid server to make it more practical for me and switch to high quality air-cooled setup, making it as quiet as I possibly can. I'm looking at 5U+ cases, because my friend from work tried to build a gaming pc in a 4U case but couldn't make it work due to the height of his GPU (RTX4080). I don't plan to put a dedicated GPU in this build from the start, because I just don't game like I did in the past, but i want to leave the option if i change my mind... Also i feel i could get more volume of air for cooling in a larger case... to get quieter cooling performance.

The case my friend went with ultimately in his build was the SilverStone Technology RM51 5U case, i just wanted to see if there are possibly better options out there.

 

[i386]

5U is pretty large for a rackmount chassis, the "usual" suspects are 4u max... If 5u is a hard requirement I think you will be out of luck.

I think the problem with newer gpus will not necessarily be the height (that we could specify in 4u/5u etc.) but their length (from where the display connectors are to the front).
At home I have a 7900 xtx (together with a 280w tdp cpu) in a supermicro 745 and there is like 2cm max between the gpu and the midwall fan section.

(Subscribing to this thread )

 

[IT4Gov]

5U is pretty large for a rackmount chassis, the "usual" suspects are 4u max... If 5u is a hard requirement I think you will be out of luck.

I think the problem with newer gpus will not necessarily be the height (that we could specify in 4u/5u etc.) but their length (from where the display connectors are to the front).
At home I have a 7900 xtx (together with a 280w tdp cpu) in a supermicro 745 and there is like 2cm max between the gpu and the midwall fan section.

(Subscribing to this thread )

hmm interesting, ya i was talking to the friend who built his with the above 5U case and he said the clearance was fine in the 4U case, just he had no room to plug the stupid new 12pin power plug that angles out at an angle.. said it was the only reason it wouldn't work in the 4U case.

 

[tinfoil3d]

hmm interesting, ya i was talking to the friend who built his with the above 5U case and he said the clearance was fine in the 4U case, just he had no room to plug the stupid new 12pin power plug that angles out at an angle.. said it was the only reason it wouldn't work in the 4U case.

There are angled 12vhpwr connectors on the market for a long time now.

 

[CyklonDX]

Most of the server cases, don't allow for non-standard pcie slot height.
NV and AMD are making their pcb larger, non-standard just to block server users from their consumer grade cards.

Supermicro CSE-846 4U storage has enough space to accommodate larger cards.