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Cooler Master HAF 922

Nathan Edwards — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:45:00 -0500

And now for something rather similar

Cooler Master wowed us last year with its full-tower HAF 932, which garnered Maximum PC’s coveted Kick Ass Award (November 2008). Now we’ve gotten our hands on the midtower version of the HAF, the 922, and it looks awfully familiar.

Superficially, the HAF 922 is like a cross between the full-tower HAF 932 and last month’s CM Storm Sniper. In fact, HAF 922’s interior is virtually identical to the Sniper’s—it has the same fixed motherboard tray with the CPU backplate cutout, cable tie-downs, and cable-routing holes. The five 5.25-inch drive bays use the same toolless retaining mechanism, and the five 3.5-inch hard drive bays use the same slide-out toolless trays. But where the Sniper had toolless PCI locking mechanisms, the HAF opts for more-traditional thumbscrews. And the interior of the HAF, unlike the Sniper’s, is unpainted metal (although the Sniper’s motherboard tray isn’t painted, either).

Inside, the case is roomy, with plenty of space for all your parts and plenty of tie-downs for cables, though the side panels don’t bow out as much as the Sniper’s, so there’s less room behind them. Building in the HAF was a dream—in addition to the standard seven card expansion slots, Cooler Master has added an extra backplate connector on the case for installing supplemantal USB, eSATA, or audio jacks.

It's not quite as pretty as the Storm Sniper, but the HAF 922 is nearly as good, and $50 cheaper.

Also like the Sniper, the HAF comes standard with three fans: A 20cm LED front intake fan, a 20cm top fan, and a 12cm back fan. There are mounting holes for another 20cm fan on the left-side panel, and you can add a 12cm or 14cm fan to the bottom of the case, or swap the 20cm top fan for two 12cm ones. Just like in the Sniper. The only difference is that the HAF’s top fan doesn’t have LEDs and the front fan’s are red like the full-tower HAF’s, not blue like the Sniper’s.

The side panels and frame of the 19.7x22x10-inch HAF are black-painted steel, with a chunky plastic front-panel and mesh bezels. Front-panel connectors include two USB ports, eSATA, and audio. A front switch lets you turn off the fan’s LEDs.

Although the guts of the HAF 922 are solid, we wish Cooler Master had painted the interior.

Like the Storm Sniper, the HAF 922 has a mesh side window; the HAF logo is printed in black-on-black on the left panel. The top panel seems a little sparse and unfinished, but there’s room there to mount an external radiator for a water-cooling setup.

Though it lacks some of the features we’ve grown used to, like removable dust filters, and seems at times like a budget version of the Sniper, the HAF 922 is still an excellent case with plenty of airflow and room to add more fans. And because it’s $50 cheaper than the Sniper, you can buy more fans with the money you save. We HAF to recommend it.

Exclusive: Thermaltake's Jaw-Dropping Level 10 Chassis Unboxed!

Nathan Edwards — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:00:00 -0500

Earlier this year, Thermaltake wowed us all with the announcement of the Level 10, a concept case designed in conjunction with BMW DesignWorks. Rather than a standard aluminum box, the Thermaltake Level 10 would incorporate a central pillar, with individual compartments hanging from it for the motherboard, PSU, optical drives, and hard drives. Here's a press shot of the Level 10.

The Level 10. It's high-concept! (click to embiggen)

We haven't heard much about the Level 10 since Computex in June; we were even a bit skeptical that such an outré case would ever come to market. But Friday morning we strolled into our secret lair to find an enormous box on our doorstep. After a hasty unboxing (documented on Page 2), we found a Level 10 of our very own, which we promptly shipped upstairs to our in-house photographers.

The Thermaltake Level 10 in all its glory.

As you can see, the production Level 10 is nearly identical to the concept shots we've seen earlier. Each compartment on the Level 10 has its own ventilation. The large panels on the lower left cover the motherboard mount, PCI-E cards, GPUs, and so forth. The six slots on the right are hot-swap SATA bays, connected to a large vertical heatsink. The bays have mounts for 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives. The top right box holds three optical drives, and the upper left box holds the power supply.

We didn't have time to hook up all the lights, but the Level 10 includes a red LED strip that runs from the case's front panel across the top and to the rear, as well as red LED intake and exhaust fans in the motherboard compartment. Each of the six SATA hard drive bays includes a red LED that lights when the bay is occupied (we stuck a hard drive in the top one to show how it works).

The Level 10 with power supply, motherboard, optical drive, and three hard drive bays open.

The locks on the rear panel keep the component bays secure.
The upper right lock secures the PSU and motherboard compartments,
while the left locks the hard drive trays and optical drive bays.

Next: The gut shot, plus the initial unboxing of the Level 10!

The guts of the Level 10: individual compartments keep components thermally isolated. And it looks wicked.

The right side panel on the Level 10 comes off for access to the rear of the motherboard tray, just like on a standard case. Note the holes for cable routing as well as the backplane cutout for installing CPU coolers.

Now, step back with us in time as we show our initial unboxing of the Level 10, and give our first impressions of the case. Plus a bonus game: spot the cool stuff in our lab!

The Level 10 shipped in a 66lb box, fresh from the factory in Taipei.

In the top of the box was a nifty design book.

When unboxing heavy components, it's best to lay the box on the side.
The Level 10 came well-protected.

At this point we started humming Also Sprach Zarathustra (aka the 2001: Space Odyssey theme)

Dun DUNNNNN!

The panels seem a tad saggy but sturdy when secured.

Here's the Level 10 with the rear panel removed.

The front-panel connectors include your standard 4 USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA port, and standard audio jacks.The case fits standard ATX and micro-ATX boards. The motherboard tray is thankfully removable: we wouldn't want to install a board in a case you can't lay on its side. We dig the hard drive trays that light up when they contain a drive, and we especially dig that they can hold either 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives without additional hardware. We're not as keen on the back panel- specifically, how difficult it can be to put the panel back on; you sometimes have to fiddle with the hard drive locking mechanism before it will go back on.

One thing that might not come across in the pictures: the Level 10 is huge. It's 12.5 inches wide, two feet deep, and 26.2 inches high, and weighs over 47 pounds. The carrying handle on the top will definitely come in handy; we doubt any of the component bays can hold the whole weight of the case if you try to lift from them.

The Thermaltake Level 10 is stylish as hell, but how well will it work as a case? We'll find out! Look for our full review on MaximumPC.com in the next few weeks! The Level 10 will be available in mid-October for $700. For more information, check out the official product page and stay tuned to MaximumPC.com!

Cooler Master Storm Sniper

Nathan Edwards — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:15:00 -0500

The funky-fresh cases keep comin'

The Cooler Master Storm Sniper, with its matte-black, mesh-covered shell and blue-glowing fans, looks like a prop from a sci-fi movie, the kind where cyber-soldiers rush into a building and start furiously hacking its defenses. And that’s awesome. It’s large for a midtower case, and looks even larger than it is, thanks to bowed-out side panels and feet that raise the bottom of the case an inch above the ground.

The Storm line is all about sturdiness, style, and portability—Cooler Master is apparently targeting LAN gamers—which it delivers. At 22.7 inches tall, 22.3 inches deep, 10 inches wide, and weighing in at more than 23 pounds, the Sniper is big-boned, but with sturdy handles on top, surprisingly luggable.

The Mesh bezels run from the bottom of the front panel all the way to the top, and the top panel has black mesh between its sturdy steel handles. The side panels are steel and bulge outward. The left side-panel has a large window covered by black mesh, to allow for air flow, and contains mounts for one 20cm or two 12cm fans.

The Sniper has a steel frame with a black ABS plastic shell, which Cooler Master says is inspired by military weapons.

The Sniper comes with front and top Force 200 blue LED fans and a rear 12cm non-LED fan. The two 20cm fans (and any additional Force 200 fans you install) are variable-speed and controlled by a knob on the front panel, which also includes a switch for the LEDs. Strangely, the 20cm fans and their controller use two-pin connectors with Molex for power, so the standard three-pin rear fan doesn’t work with the controller.

The rest of the case’s interior is reassuringly familiar. The Sniper contains five 5.25-inch drive bays and five 3.5-inch hard drive bays using Cooler Master’s by-now-familiar and efficient toolless mounting systems.

The motherboard tray extends just a bit past the confines of a standard ATX motherboard, and has cable tie-downs every few inches, perfect if you like neat routing jobs—and who doesn’t? Thanks to the side-panel bulges, there’s plenty of room behind the motherboard to route cables.

In addition to the aforementioned fan and light controller, the Sniper’s front-panel connectors include four USB 2.0 ports, mic and headphone jacks, and FireWire and eSATA.

As with the H.A.F. and ATCS 840 cases, the CM Storm Sniper includes a cutout in the motherboard tray for easy CPU cooler installs.

Though all the intake areas include dust filters, we wish Cooler Master had thought to make them easily removable. Any dust filters are better than none, but the lack of slide-out filters means you’ll have to take a vacuum to them every once in a while.

Installing a system in the Sniper is easy, thanks to its roomy interior and the large CPU cooler cutout on the motherboard tray, though you’ll definitely want to spring for a side fan, especially if you have two graphics cards.

The Storm Sniper definitely lives up to Cooler Master’s hype as a sturdy, roomy, and stylish midtower case. But given its $170 price, the lack of easily removable dust filters and the strange fan-connector choices, as well as the lack of side fans, the case is a bit disappointing. But we gotta give props where they’re due—in most respects, the Sniper is a sure shot, and it beats out a lot of similarly priced midtowers.

New Alienware Line Features Active Venting

Jason Barry — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:27:40 -0500

Alienware updated its Area-51 case for the new ALX line of desktop systems. The new ALX line itself features beefy specs for a micro-ATX system, but the craziness doesn’t end at a blazing fast GPU or speedy i7 processor. This machine features…fins. Not just any fins, motorized fins.

The new cooling technology in use in the ALX works in tandem with the Command Center to open and close the vents according to “thermal values.” Unfortunately, those are the only details listed on the site regarding Active Venting. As a part of the Command Center software, you can change the lighting styles on various parts of the case as well as tweak thermal controls.

Starting price is $2,299. You can check out the full specs on the Alienware ALX site

Ridiculous, or ridiculously awesome? What do you think?

Thermaltake Element S

Nathan Edwards — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:45:43 -0500

An array of thoughtful features in an understated design

Say you’re a content creator—video, graphic design, whatever. You want a computer that’s quiet, functional, and hopefully doesn’t look like it was designed by a candy raver, or worse, Apple. That’s what Thermaltake is betting on with its Element S, an understated black midtower case with restrained red accents and plenty of drive space that’s marketed toward content creators.

The Element S is built from steel, painted black inside and out, and decked with black plastic trim on the top and a red-rimmed, black-plastic front-panel door. It weighs close to 18 pounds, and measures 21.3x9.1x20 inches. The model we tested included three fans: a 12cm, 1,300rpm front intake fan, a 14cm 1,000rpm rear output fan, and a 23cm 800rpm red LED fan on top. The case also includes rear mounts for two 6cm VGA exhaust fans, which is rare, but makes sense if you’re encoding video using a high-end graphics card. The Element S also has two holes for water-cooling tubes, but doesn’t include rubber grommets in them—they’re just bare metal punchouts in the case that could puncture the tubing over time.

The Element S has three 5.25-inch bays and a seven-slot hard drive cage, the latter of which can be oriented so that the drives either sit parallel to the front of the case or perpendicular to it. Swapping the cage’s orientation involves removing a few thumbscrews, popping off the whole front panel, and temporarily removing the two front fan clips. Fortunately, the whole process takes just a few minutes. Mounting the drives with SATA ports facing the rear of the case improves airflow and makes connecting drives easy, but it makes the task of adding and removing drives slightly more difficult. The drives slide in and out on special thumbscrews, and lock in with a plastic clasp. Thankfully, Thermaltake includes enough of the screws to fill all seven drive bays.

Great news for fans of solid-state drives: The Element S includes mounts for two 2.5-inch drives, which is the kind of forward thinking we salute, and we wonder why it’s still so rare in case design. Even cases that ship with 3.5-inch-to-2.5-inch drive bay adapters are rare, much less designs that let you keep all your 3.5-inch drive bays free. And while the motherboard tray on the Element S isn’t removable, it at least features a backplate cutout for the CPU cooler.

Beyond its modest exterior lies a wealth of hard drive bays and bonus features.

The PSU mounts are slightly elevated to improve airflow for units with bottom-mounted fans; the front fan mounts feature clips so they can be swapped easily (or removed to switch the hard drive cage orientation), and the case’s front bezels act as dust filters. The Element S’s front panel connectors include audio in and out, two USB ports, and an eSATA port.

We wish the optical drive bays were toolless (as it is, they require the use of a couple screws), but no part of installation was actually difficult.

The Thermaltake Element S is a good midtower case at a competitive price—at $150, it’s $80 cheaper than the Silverstone Fortress, and $30 cheaper than Hiper’s Osiris. Both those cases, however, are made of pricier aluminum. Still, with plenty of drive bays and fans and not as much flash as most gaming chassis, the Element S strikes a more professional tone than more ornate cases, and offers a lot of substance in a grown-up case.

Hiper Osiris

Nathan Edwards — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:45:56 -0500

A well-constructed workman-like case, with fewer frills than we expected

Hiper may not be well-known in the States, but in Europe it’s big in the power supply and chassis markets. Now, Hiper is branching into the American market and has brought at least one solid contender to the great case race.

The Hiper Osiris is a midtower ATX case constructed of 6063-T5 aluminum alloy, which makes it very sturdy. The top, clip-on front panel, and side panels are all finished in black brushed aluminum, which looks quite fine. Frankly, we’d expect a little less heft from an all-aluminum chassis, but the beast clocks in at more than 18 pounds. On the other hand, it’s certainly not going to break on you.

Inside, the Osiris is finished in black, except for the unpainted motherboard backplate, which takes up only the space required for an ATX motherboard, leaving plenty of room for cable routing and tie-downs (with the included Velcro straps). The Osiris includes three 12cm fans—front, top, and rear. PCI slot covers are of the flimsy snap-off variety, but Hiper includes several ventilated replacement covers—a nice touch.

A classy cartouche, nice optical besels, and an all-around attractive midtower...

The five optical drive bays are made from solid black-painted aluminum. Drives slide in on little shelves and are screwed into the side of the bay—no toolless slots here. The front panel includes fancy bezels for the top two optical drives, and Hiper includes a mounting bracket for a floppy drive or media card reader.

A four-slot hard drive rack works the same way as the optical bays, but lies on its side. The front panel faceplate must be removed, along with two thumbscrews, to slide the whole rack out, front fan and all, before drives can be added. Once secured by four black-painted thumbscrews, the drives are held solidly in place, with little foam-rubber strips on the inside of the bay to dampen vibrations.

The side panels are worth a special mention—thanks to a set of nifty latches at the top, they are easily removed but hold firmly when in place. The left-side panel even has a mesh-covered plastic window.

The Osiris’s front-panel connectors (increasingly a misnomer as many modern cases, including the Osiris, have theirs on top) include two USB 2.0 ports, audio in/out, eSATA, and a line-in jack for home recording or auxiliary inputs like MP3 players, as well as power and reset buttons.

...but a little friendlier install would be welcome.

Provided you’re up for a little screwdriver action, the Osiris install process is relatively painless. It’s surprisingly roomy for a midtower case, and we had no problems fitting big graphics cards in it. The aforementioned hard drive installation is the only marginally annoying part of the process, but you’ll be secure in the knowledge that your drives aren’t going anywhere.

The Osiris is a solid, roomy case with a workman-like feel to it. You’re not going to find too many fancy features here, like a slide-out motherboard tray, removable fan filters, or even toolless drive bays. Which is a shame, considering the price: about $180 MSRP. It’s a good case, but we can’t help but wish for more.

Silverstone Fortress FT01

Nathan Edwards — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:00:00 -0500

Solid, competent, and classy, but not flashy

Silverstone is well-known for releasing a few solid chassis every year, usually rehashes of its Temjin full-tower line. But this year has already brought two excellent cases that mark departures from the tried-and-true: the full-tower Raven RV01 (reviewed in our March full-tower roundup) and the mid-tower Fortress FT01.

The Fortress FT01 is a solidly constructed aluminum unibody case that just screams attention-to-detail. Mid-tower cases often lack the amenities of their full-size cousins (compare Silverstone’s own Kublai line with its mighty full-tower Temjin series), but the Fortress handily escapes that trap.

After the chunky, plastic, stealth-bomber-like trappings of the RV01—which we dug, don’t get us wrong—it’s nice to see Silverstone back to the classy brushed-metal look it’s known for. The Fortress’s side panels and front bezels are black brushed aluminum, while the rest of the machine has a dusty matte-black finish, with a bit of wicked-looking mesh covering the intake fans.

A fine interior finish and plenty of drive bays ensure a warm welcome for the FT01.

Yes, intake fans, plural. Silverstone’s big idea here is filtered positive air pressure that keeps the warm air moving out and keeps dust from getting in (mostly). Two filtered 18cm fans pull cool air into the case—a fan in front pulls air over the hard drives and along the videocards, and a fan on top brings cool air over the RAM and north bridge. Warmed air leaves via the 12cm rear exhaust fan as well as through vents in the back panel and PCI slot covers.

Inside, the FT01 boasts five tool-free optical slots, with the push-button locking mechanism familiar from the Raven, as well as seven slide-in hard drive trays mounted perpendicular to the optical drives. The FT01, like the Raven and TJ10, includes just one CP05 hot-swap SATA cable; more will run you about six bucks each. The FT01’s front connectors, found in a pop-up compartment on top, are Silverstone’s usual: two USB ports, one FireWire, and audio jacks. The only LED to be found is the one that lights up the power button. Like we said, classy.

The Fortress FT01 brings back the brushed-metal, no-nonsense exterior that Silverstone is renowned for.

Although the FT01 is a mid-tower, we had no problem installing our test setup—and we verified that both the GeForce 8800 GTX and GeForce GTX 280 will fit. We do have a few gripes, however. First, there’s not a whole lot of room between the motherboard and the hard drive bays, and folks with side-mounted SATA ports will find plugging them in awkward, though not impossible. The black interior paint, though high-quality, was applied a little liberally; we had trouble screwing in the motherboard standoffs at first.

Although the FT01 has cutouts in the motherboard tray for cable routing, the foam padding on the inside of the side panels leaves little room for cable management without squashing some foam. For the money, Silverstone should include at least two CP05s, too. Finally, the filter for the top intake fan is hard to remove due to a clip holding the front-panel wires to the top of the case.

The Fortress FT01 is a great-looking, well-constructed case with plenty of features for the computer enthusiast. And barring a few modest complaints, there’s a lot to love about it.

Antec Nine Hundred Two

Nathan Edwards — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:00:11 -0500

Antec improves its flagship gamer's midtower but takes few risks

One change we appreciate: The Nine Hundred Two has a classy black-painted interior.

To quote Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again!” The Antec Nine Hundred Two is a refresh of Antec’s well-loved and much-imitated Nine Hundred midtower gaming chassis. And although the Nine Hundred Two does boast several refinements over its predecessor, it’s not exactly revolutionary.

First we’ll talk about what the Nine Hundred Two has in common with its predecessor. Both cases are matte black steel with plastic side windows, mesh-style front bezels, and are nearly the same size: At 19.4 x 8.6 x 18.6 inches, the Nine Hundred Two is barely a half-inch wider than the Nine Hundred and a fifth of an inch deeper.

Like the Nine Hundred, the Nine Hundred Two comes with four fans: a 20cm low-rpm Big Boy on top, and three 12cm blue LED fans—one in the rear and one on the front of each three-slot hard drive bay. Here we see some improvements on the Nine Hundred: All the fans now include blue LEDs (and the front ones have intake filters). Fan speed controllers are now mounted directly into the case, with the two front fans controlled by variable speed knobs in the front bezels and the top and rear fans controlled by switches on the case’s back plate. On the Nine Hundred, the fan controllers were ugly white and dangled loose inside the case.

The Antec Nine Hundred Two is aptly named; it's only slightly better than the fan favorite Nine Hundred.

The interior of the case is painted matte black, unlike the unfinished steel of the Nine Hundred, and the motherboard tray now features a few cable-routing cutouts and ties on the rear. Gone is the front-panel FireWire port, replaced with eSATA, which we find much more useful.

System installation is virtually identical to the Nine Hundred. As in the Nine Hundred, large videocards like the Nvidia GTX 280 stick out into the hard drive bays by about half an inch, blocking one 3.5-inch slot (out of six) per videocard. There’s simply no room.

Where the Nine Hundred Two differs from its predecessor in terms of installation, it veers towards usability. Cutouts and tie-downs on the motherboard tray, both new in the Nine Hundred Two, make cable routing easier. Drive installation, though, could be better—it’s 2009; can’t we have screwless drive bays yet? Especially egregious is hard drive installation, which requires unscrewing the eight thumbscrews that hold the hard drive case, using four long screws to install the hard drive into a vibration-damping bay, and reinstalling. That’s the opposite of screwless.

Insofar as we liked the Nine Hundred, the Nine Hundred Two is a conservative success—it mostly replicates the Nine Hundred, with a few modest improvements. But the Nine Hundred is a two-and-a-half-year-old design, and we were hoping for a little more oomph.