WYP
News Guru
CaseLabs has a new owner and its cases may soon return to market.
Read more about Caselabs' revival.
Read more about Caselabs' revival.
CaseLabs is reportedly coming back from the dead
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
We Canucks are lucky, our local water cooling guy did a big run of black bladed PMW Gentle Typhoons, for less than $20CDN per fan. Not sure if I'm too excited about this return though, it just sounds like one guy bought all the assets. I wouldn't get excited unless I heard the original manufacturing guys are coming back too.
I think Caselabs will have a tough time these days. Tariffs havent changed, the market has switched to smaller cases for airflow, material costs are up, etc.
It seems like the majority would opt for the Parvum era style cases as opposed to big heavy multi optional behemoths.
I of course still think bigger is better, so stuck with my 1000D for now. Always wanted a caselabs monster though.
If you look at the lian li case, that has the worlds markets designing distroplates for it. I guess that has more appeal now than spending 700 dollars on a case that you get 2months later.
Avet
Active member
Now when new owner has the IP and tooling they can release a standard size ATX case with dual 360 rad support. For $150-$200 it would sell like crazy. Also a mini case like NR200P with boxy CaseLabs design would be a cracker. They will pretty much sell every SMA8 they produce in the first 6 months. Even if they bake even with no profits for the first year it would be a win.
The only thing that surprizes me is why didn't someone bought them sooner?
I'm on the fence. I have an original Magnum M8, with pedestal, still using that bad boy. But I've tried to move away from it several times, because although it's every bit as good as they say, it's still a big ugly black box at the end of the day. Once you get into water cooling, you're getting into a largely aesthetic hobby. And while building pretty loops is nice, sometimes you want a nice looking case too, which Case Labs are not. I moved my main rig into a white Lian Li PC-O11 XL, didn't like it. Much prettier case, smaller footprint, but even with triple 360s, it's a hot box no matter how you configure it. Moved back to the Case Labs M8, temps dropped significantly, air flow is much better, etc. Plus having 5 radiators instead of 3 never hurt. 
I'm on the fence. I have an original Magnum M8, with pedestal, still using that bad boy. But I've tried to move away from it several times, because although it's every bit as good as they say, it's still a big ugly black box at the end of the day. Once you get into water cooling, you're getting into a largely aesthetic hobby. And while building pretty loops is nice, sometimes you want a nice looking case too, which Case Labs are not. I moved my main rig into a white Lian Li PC-O11 XL, didn't like it. Much prettier case, smaller footprint, but even with triple 360s, it's a hot box no matter how you configure it. Moved back to the Case Labs M8, temps dropped significantly, air flow is much better, etc. Plus having 5 radiators instead of 3 never hurt.
Thats my issue too. I actually LOVED the ThermalTake Tower 900. Best watercooling case I have had with the best temps too, but its pretty ugly so moved back to the corsair 1000d. That is also too big, but not that attractive compared to others. I cant seem to scale it down. I want to always keep my 2x 480 rads or more.
Caselabs was getting into smaller cases before they closed shop. The Mercury S3 I have is small for a caselabs case, but it's big when talking about an ITX/DTX build. A friend of mine bought their BH2 ITX case right before they closed shop and really likes it. I think that may be the smallest case they made. I've always preferred their simple industrial design.
AngryGoldfish
Old N Gold
I think Case Labs cases look beautiful.
