Hey,
I just wanted to share my experience building in this case. I just recently gathered all parts for a new setup and completed my first build in the Phanteks Evolv Shift, which looked pretty damn nice, but the cooling was just unacceptable and extremly loud. After that I migrated to a Fractal Design Define Nano S, which got pretty good cooling capability when you work with SFX power supply and did not look too bad, but the missing tempered glass just bothered me too much, so I moved into the InWin 301C. When you look at the size the 301C is actually only a little taller than the Nano S and the footprint basically the same, which was essential for me.
So after two ITX cases I think I have a little bit to talk about.
Lets start with my specs:
Delidded i7 7700k
@stock
Asus Strix 270i Mobo
Asus GTX 1080 Advanced Edition
2x 8GB GEIL Super Luce
Corsair H100i GTX
Corsair SF450
-> Corsair Premium Sleeved Cables
-> Phanteks Cable Extension Set Black/Grey
4x Noctua NF-F12 PWM
256GB Crucial SSD
2TB Seagate
Phanteks RGB strip
some random RGB Splitter
Other gear
Acer XG270HU
Corsair M65 Pro RGB
Corsair Strafe RGB (with some random keycaps)
Corsair Void USB RGB
Titanwolf XXL Mousepad
Pulesen Fast Wireless Charge (for my DBranded S8 ^^)
Teufel Puck (for my Teufel Boomster XL)
For the building experience:
(I recorded the first half then I stopped, because I lost the motivation to reposition the camera again and again)
For the building processes I want to mention a few things. Firtst I had some problems with putting in the radiator, because the tubes are quite thick and stiff. You definitly want to install your bottom fans after the rad. Also do not put the fans behind the bracket because then they will directly blow at the front panel with basically no room to exhaust to the sides. Which is pretty noisy and bad for airflow.
Secondly I would recommend building with an ITX motherboard. This way you have the advantage to route your flat cables through the motherboard cutout without them beeing exposed to much. Only the 24 pin I could not fit behind there, but that was no problem because I wanted to show these nice extensions anyway. Also these tansparent cable combs are nice, because they catch the light of the RGB strips and then shine. Whats also nice with my SFX Power supply which I did not want to swap is that you can additonally route cables through the top power supply hole.
The third thing I want to mention: By keeping the ITX board and adding the H100i GTX when I moved into the 301C I realized that the Asus Z270i was missing a USB 2.0 header, so I quickly bought an external to internal USB 2.0 cable and routed it through one hole of the rear exhaust fan, above the motherboard into the power supply chamber to connect the H100i GTX.
For my GPU. The ASUS GTX 1080 Advaced is around 30 cm long and with this just barely fits into this case with a fan or a radiator without fans installed in front. Make sure you have enough vertical clearance befor putting it in because you need to put it in at an angle.
Cable routing and management was pretty easy for me. As I said make sure cables routed through the motherboard cutout a nice and flush, because there is not much clearance. I had no problem with fitting all my calbes with extensions into the power supply chamber, but probably with a standart ATX PS you should use custom cables and not extensions. Also keep in mind that on the left where you can route all you cables there are these honey combs on the side panel that take up a little bit of depth, so try to keep these cables as flat as possible.
One thing to note is that I first used some EK Vardar F3 for cooling which looked pretty nice with the black and grey but then quickly migrated to the NF-F12 for more silent performance. But this is why you see them in the pictures.
For the thermals:
I used the case as intended and put two fans on the bottom as an intake, one in the rear as exhaust and one fan on my radiator in front also as exhaust. As you can tell by the images (which I hopefully attach) the GPU is too long to put the 2nd fan on the rad. But here comes something interesting at least in my opinion: I mentioned previously that for some time I missed an USB 2.0 connection to control the fan speed of pump and rad fan. So because the fan went up to 100% all the time I quickly disconnected it and left it running without a fan at all.
Idle temps were not too bad with the delidded i7 7700k sitting at around 40 degrees celsius and under continous load of GPU (Kombustor Core Burner V2 1080p x8 MSAA) and CPU (Prime95 Torture Test Some of everything) the CPU was sitting at 90 degrees celcius. In additon to this the fan profiles where pretty set to manual and pretty silent so the fans never went above 70% of their speed. After installing the USB 2.0 cable I put one fan back onto the rad and saw an improvement (also with a fairly silent fan curve not over 7ß% too and the rad pump on silent) to about 80 degrees celcius. So I think what happens is that the bottom fans push air against the GPU which is basically blocking most of the airflow for the upper part of the case and redirecting it into the rad.
I did not overclock the 7700k because still the case is definitly a limiting factor in terms of airflow and I would not want my temperature any higher, but the Stock 4.4 GHz Boost is enough for my needs. While gaming I fix the gpu to 45% fan speed (because the Asus is pretty loud above this which I dislike
I think about swapping it for an MSi or one 1080 with a 120 mm rad to but it in the back... which would give me the advantage the hot air would directly get out of the case and I could put the 2nd fan on.. I would like to hear your thoughts) With this fixed fan speed the card reaches around 75 degrees celcius while gaming and the CPU sits around 60 sometimes 70 degrees celcius. The system while gaming is silent enough to play without headset.. I mean you will notice it sure but I can endure it. Maybe it would be an idea put something under the feets to increase airflow and reduce noise a little, because there is barely any room, but for now it is fine.
One more thing: at idle the loudest thing I hear is my hard drive ^^
I also considerd the H200i or Phanteks Evolv ITX but both of these had to little GPU clearance for my taste (especially with my 1080 basically maxed out while gaming to push 120+ frames), and the Nano S was missing the glass side (no I did not want a piece of acrylic for 50 euros as mod) so this one was after a long time of research the best option for the size I was looking for.
For the looks (and feels)
The case with its full metal body feels pretty good constructed. The closed front and top make a clean look which I really like and why I have no problem to accept higher temps than in my Nano S. The glass side panel with the One Button to remove it got some black dots on the top and on the right side which hide the "ugly" part of the frame. When your motherboard has a 4pin RGB header you can also connect the front panel of the 301C because it has RGB lightning. I also got one Phanteks RGB strip (leftover from the Evolv Shift) installed in the bottom which is connected to a splitter that comes from the motherboard and also conncets to the front. With this setup I can Sync all the lighting of my ram, my mainboard, my gpu and case+rgb strip. (Beware the front panel has no 3pin adressable RGB conncetion)
I have everything in Asus Aura set to rainbow but only between orange and some red-pinkish tone to compliment my monitor+background. The Corsair preripherals also cycle between red and orange. But the important thing is that the illuminated front just looks so nice in my opinion.
I really like the very blocky design with sharp edges and clean corners and all this in a form factor that is small enough to fit on basically all tables. It goes really well with black and grey of the 270i/H100I/1080/F12 so you can basically choose whatever color theme you like simply by changing the RGB color and the case will just fit this color on the exteriour too.
After 3 different cases in not even two months this is the case I will stick with even though I have to make some compromises on cooling. But still for the price of not even 100 euros I got one of the most beautiful cases I have ever owned and seen in such a nice little form factor. I would definitly recommend this case to everyone who can do the same with compromising some cooling for this clean look.
Probably with a shorter gpu and a tower cooler you could achive better temps but I think I am done changing things on my pc for now
I hope I could help some of you. This is my first ever post on a forum and I also excuse my english. I just finished school and the auto correction does not work in here ;D
If you have any question with which I could help you feel free to ask or if something is missing in this post to.
I wanted to attach pictures of the pc with the Vadar fans still installed but also of the two cases befor and how I routed the USB 2.0 cable, but it will not let me upload it so I will put in a link to a google drive folder.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GFpTyMRSmjtXgiaNdrvfLa98Ywuo_9Cd?usp=sharing
The last thing I wanted to mention is that except for the case, fans and cable extension everything in this PC was bought used, after I traded my old PC (980 and R5 1600x) for a laptop (7700 and 1060) which I sold for 950,-. This money I put towards this build and especially this case.
