Joined on 04/24/08
Sweet case
Pros: *Space: Tons of it-long enough for any video card... or 2. Tons more space than my Antec 900 *Windy: Low CFM fans, but air moves through very nicely. Components are cool and happy. *Quiet: 6 fans and all ya get is the sound of air moving. *Cable management: Adequate, but not impressive. Took a while to tuck away the spaghetti, but it got done. *Looks: My 15 y/o son thinks it looks awesome. It's his, so good enough for me!
Cons: *Air intake/outlet for the PSU on the bottom of the case is way too small and not much space under the case to let air in/out. *Filters are nearly impossible to remove and would be difficult to access the front filters for regular cleaning. I removed them all. *Front grilles and foam inserts are rather cheap and razor sharp. Foam is useless, just inhibits airflow, removed it. Plastic clips for grilles scare me..but none broke. *Power switch: Held in with plastic clips...bump it too hard and it pushes into the case.
Overall Review: Overall a solid case with some minor flaws. Would be a great beginning for a modder that doesn't want to paint but still good enough as-is. I'd buy one again without a regret (I might buy myself a black one to replace my 900).
Poor...
Pros: Controls fan speed if you like to babysit.
Cons: Resets to the first time you set the fan speeds...all the time. Resets LED color randomly on boot. Fit and finish is...Meh, at best. Perpetually fight this thing. Slows fans to minimum at boot, have to reset to high when gaming. Can't get it to remember I want fans set to high after initial setup.
Overall Review: Poor controller. It works, admittedly...but not well. After a year+, gonna buy something that works.
Scrambled
Pros: -ergonomic engineering -Grade AAA -built-in liquid cooling -large quantity
Cons: -no front (or rear) I/O -non-standard size makes it difficult to find components -any attempt at case modification results in permanent damage and severe leaks -case rolls off my desk -reservoir is fine, no pump, rad, fans, or blocks
Overall Review: Was going to call CS and give them a piece of my mind before I insisted on an RMA, gave up and made breakfast. Matched well with the Newegg Bacon (see review)
SFF Gold
Pros: Tiny, fast, reliable, cool, no power consumption (HTPC only has a 90w PSU, this counted big-time). OS almost insta-boots.
Cons: Other than the price of SSD in general? Nothing so far.
Overall Review: Used this in a small form factor HTPC scratch built case. Needed something to put my OS on so I could run a single hot-swap for HDD and not have to install OS and players/codec on 4+ drives. This little guy fit the bill wonderfully. Mounted it with an aftermarket mount inside the case so I didn't even need a bay! HTPC dimensions: 12.5"x13.75"x5.0" Asus ION-T Deluxe mITX motherboard/Atom CPU@2.1Ghz 4Gb G.Skill DDR3 1Tb HDDs in a Kingwin hot-swap bay LG BD ROM-DVD R/W AverMedia Dual TV Tuner W7 Home 64bit
A+
Pros: Stable, drivers were no issue for Gigabyte motherboard, 64bit drivers are MUCH better than Xp drivers for my HD 4890. I am floored at the performance boost. Had issues getting my EP45-UD3P to go 4-up on Xp 32bit, W7 64bit eats up 2x 2Gb and 2x 1Gb Doms. Only Blender seems to have issues with the OS, I worked around by installing 32bit .exe to my jump drive. Works like a charm. I have never been happier with an OS, and I greatly dislike Microsoft for any number of reasons. My machine SMOKES through tabbed games and multiple apps where it used to crawl and occasionally BSoD. Better than Xp (never thought I'd say it).
Cons: Price is still too high considering the volume Microsoft will sell. Still takes too much system resources, but much better than Vista. And 64bit platform mitigates it nicely.
Overall Review: OEM best bang for the buck if you home-brew your machines. Don't listen to those that say "No need for 64bit", if you run 4Gb of RAM or better, use 64bit. Your machine will thank you.