This.....
arrives at my place Monday.
It's the new Thermaltake Chaser Mk 1... see external link for more info.
The main reason I'm upgrading my case is to have access to 2 front USB3 ports and an eSata port up front as well. More importantly, however, is the HDD dock on top, allowing me to plug in any SATA drive [HDD, SSD] without power or USB cables... and I do have several drives without cases, so it saves me having to swap drives in and out, etc.
To enable these new features, though, I have to get this....
It gives me the header to connect the external USB3's my current board doesn't, plus it gives me x 8 internal Sata's and x2 eSATA's on the back panel... meaning I could have a total of 11 SATA devices.. not to mention 10 rear USB's and 4 front USB's, so there's plenty of room for expansion should I need it. Besides, the black mobo will look rather grand in that case, eh?
And to juice this up I'm getting the 8 core AMD FX8170 CPU. Total cost [case, mobo, CPU]... AUD$540.00
Will post some pics once I've got it all together. 