Rosewill R218-P-BK Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Great value.

Good supply of screws.

Front panel and chassis fan wires are of excellent length and can reach just about anywhere logical in the case your plugs are. (Big plus!)

I personally liked the raised metal bumps on the motherboard mounting panel (my first time encountering these), which reduced the number of bolts I needed to install the motherboard.

Airflow seems good. This computer is running about 8-10C cooler than when I had it in my old case (whose airflow consisted of removing the side panel, <cough>).

Chassis fan is reasonably quiet.

Cons: Somewhat soft shell material, but typical of this price range. My main gripes (which I might stress are actually gentle ones) are of design layout:

I had to remove the chassis fan in order to install the I/O shield.

Also buyer be aware, the PCI-slot shields are not screw-in plates, but are metal brackets with a couple of welded joints holding them in place. They are cheap, but so is the cost of this case.

The expansion cards themselves are held in by a screw-in plate, which you must unscrew in order to install your PCI boards and then screw back in to secure them. Rosewill provided me with one extra PCI-slot shield of the common type.

Overall Review: All-in-all, for the amount I paid for it, this is a sweet little case. I don't have kids or anything so I'm not worried about the case taking a severe beating. Get something thicker if that is a concern.

And as long as you don't mind the lack of snap-in features and are willing to take a few extra minutes to install components into this box (I didn't mind really), it's a good buy.

Oh and in case you wondered, the Power LED is blue and the HDD LED is amber. Both are soft lights and shouldn't prove distracting.

Tell you the truth, despite my little criticisms, I was impressed with the quality of this case for the price. I work as a tech and believe me, I have seen much worse. It may be too early to say yet, but I think I would buy Rosewill again someday.

Pros: Inexpensive. Great for an office build or basic machine, not something that creates heat.

Cons: Serious air flow problems and overheating. My asus board was showing 65C. The rear fan doesn't move adequate air and uses a bracket. The hole for the bracket are proprietary and don't line up to the standard design of a 120mm fan. If your fan is oversized you can't get it to fit in the bracket or secure directly to the case. I tried blocking the side vents to force air flow from front to rear but the MB still ran hot. I cut the mesh guards to reduce backpressure but it still ran high. I had to buy a better case with more airflow for ~$50. Lesson learned.

Overall Review: Ordered the case and other components Thursday at lunch, UPS arrived Friday at lunch, love newegg!.

Other system specs
Asus ASUS M2A-VM AM2 AMD 690G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
Rosewill Stallion Series RD450-2-DB ATX V2.2 450W PS
EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit PCIx 16
Put my 110CFM fan in the rear.
4GB DDR2 800
AM2 4100+ 2.1 OC'd to 2.6 (after new case)