Now that my build is completed, I love this case. It looks good, the cooling is great for it's size, and it's relatively quiet with noctua fans running in it. The soft-touch material looks and feels good, with a bold blue color. The handles are nice for convenience, although they flex a little too much for comfort. They seem like they'll be durable even so. I would definitely recommend this case, and I'm really proud of my build in it.
All of that said, I ran into 3 major problems. They're easily fixed, and by no means do they make this a bad case. Just be aware.
1. Switch the side panels. The Power button, reset button, audio plugs, and USB ports on the right side of the case are a huge problem in my experience. The right side is what you will open to access parts if need be, but doing so makes it extremely easy to accidentally pull the power/reset/audio/usb headers and unplug them from the mobo. I did that twice, which was infuriating because it's nearly impossible to reach those headers to plug everything back in, because the parts are so cramped inside.
FIX: Switch the sides, placing the side with the power/reset/audio/usb on the left side of the case. Yea, it will be upside down, but it's much better. You can route the headers more easily, and you won't unplug them every time you open the case. Also, this fix means that you'll be able to mount your HDDs or SSDs on the right side, making it easy to swap them out.
NOTE: DO NOT buy full size hard drives for this case. Stick to laptop drives. In my experience, mounting a full size hard drive would be a nightmare and an airflow hazard. I have 2 SSDs mounted in here currently, and could probably mount 1 or 2 more laptop-sized HDDs or SSDs if need be.
2. Power supply cable problems. The case makes you mount the power supply vertically, from the bottom rear of the case. This is fine, but it means that you'll be plugging it in on the bottom of the case. To solve this, BitFenix routed a power cable from the bottom of the case, through the case, to the back like any other case. In my case, this didn't work. I bought a Seasonic powersupply, but found that the powersupply plug was too close to the edge of the powersupply mount to properly route the BitFenix cable. It was impossible.
FIX: Buy a powersupply whose plug is a good distance from the side of the power supply. At least an inch, maybe even 2 inches to be safe. If you can't do that, it's fine. You'll just have to plug the case in from the bottom, no biggy.
3. DIfficult build. This was a challenging build that required me to pull parts out and remount them a few times, because the case is so cramped.
FIX: Plan your build. In the end, I found that you most definitely need to mount the powersupply AND install all of the power cables that you will need BEFORE installing the GPU or diskdrive (or fan controller). Those cables will be nearly impossible to plug in after the GPU or a disk drive is installed. Personal experience there... Also, a semi-modular or full-modular power supply should be a requirement here. I honestly don't know if all of the cables on a non-modular power supply would fit in this case without constricting airflow. I bought a full-modular, and still found it difficult to run wires.
If you read this far, thank you. This is a great case overall, and I hope my experience will help you.
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 2 |
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