Well I'm not planning on doing another mini-ITX this time, and I don't really need that many expansion slots.

I'm willing to spend the money on the Fractal case. I like the company, I like their build quality, I like how they handled the fan hub issue with the Torrent cases, they did their customers right on that one, they've earned my business. I've also built in a Meshify 2 Mini before, I like it, I'm familiar with it, if I go to another case it'll be another model of Fractal's. There is room for a 240mm rad in the top bay in this case, I might go that way.

totally fair, just thought I'd mention the alt option for better pricing and all of the points that you made are ones that I also fully agree on👍

I went with the Peerless Assassin because I was looking at a Noctua DH-15 or whatever the hell their nomenclature is but I saw the Thermalright cooler actually outperformed the Noctua for less cost. If the Noctua was the better cooler I'd spring for it. My current machine in a Node 202 has very little room for cooling, so I'm kinda looking forward to having proper case fans. I'm not opposed to an AIO but I have no experience with them at all. I remember an old LTT video where they demonstrated that AIOs didn't cool that much better but go ahead for aesthetics, nowhere near as effective as a custom loop. This may have changed in the meantime?

ah unfortunately Linus from LTT is known as more of an entertainer than trusted reviewer, they've had known issues to their testing suite so it's best to cross check with Gamers Nexus, KitGuruTech, Hardware Unboxed, der8auer, Paul's Hardware, Jayz2Cents

I remember an old LTT video where they demonstrated that AIOs didn't cool that much better but go ahead for aesthetics, nowhere near as effective as a custom loop.

Rereading this and what the fuck, if Linus said this he is an actual dumbass, he's gotta stop giving people false and incorrect information. If this was truely the case then the AIO market for PC consumers would not exist FFS

For the Thermalright Elite it absolutely crushes other AIOs due to their above average cooling(in comparison to other AIOs and insanely aggressive pricing

• btw AIOs tend to be leaps and bounds better in cooling performance in comparison to Air-based coolers, so Thermalright here is selling a killer deal
  • the one caveat/con is that the long term endurance is questionable however when searching online with [Google, Duckduckgo, and SearxNG] I've yet to see any complaints (as of Aug 21, 2024) which is pretty good👍

lmao

Thermalright: "cash is cash"