RAIDMAX SMILODON Extreme Black ATX-612WEB 1.0mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Foldout MB Computer Case

Pros: The sleek green LEDs look absolutely amazing with the sheek black finish. The pictures do not do it justice. The transparent side-panel adds a nice glassy 'mod' finish.

The case is quite spacious (houses the Zalman CNPS9700 LED CPU Cooler quite comfortably) and provides 4 fans (3 x 80mm, 1x120mm) for thorough cooling. If you're running in an AC environment, this works especially well as two fans pull cool air into the case, while 2 others blow warm air out.

The GPU stabilizer bracket features sliding notches to hold your GPU into place. There's tool-less implementation for everything except expansion cards and also a handy slide out tool kit for screws and brackets.

The fold out motherboard tray is an obvious joy, and comes in really handy during assembly. You can even remove the side panel from the fold out tray. The hard drive cage slides out allowing for unintrusive installation. Plastic locking mechanisms secure your optical drives. Assembly is pure joy with this case.

Cons: No case is perfect, but this one came pretty darn close. While you are at a much lower risk of injuring yourself during assembly because of the many plastic or curved edges, there are some metal edges (like those on the hard drive brackets) which CAN cut you. After you've done with assembly, you may notice a few blisters and bruises (more like paper cuts) around your hands and fingers.

It would also have been nice if the USB and AUDIO ports were outside (or unmasked by) the flip cover at front. Connecting devices at the front panel has proven to be rather inconvenient as the front cover closing on the wires can cause a short - especially in headphone wires.

My front panel audio doesn't appear to work. One of the fan LEDs appear to be flickering and it would appear that they will all die sooner or later.

The fold out motherboard tray is useless after installing a large CPU cooler. You'll have to remove the cooler each time you wanted to fold out the tray for any reason.

Overall Review: The case has space for a 5th 80mm fan (not included!) mounted on the side with the fold out motherboard tray. Get a GREEN LED Fan for this empty slot. I recommend the APEVIA CF4SL-UGN Green LED fan, also sold here. I also recommend the Muskin 550250 580 watt PSU which also has a green LED fan. ;)

If you're using a large CPU cooler, install it LAST. Even though it fits inside the case, it's a snug fit. Once you install it, you won't have space to do anything else. In fact, assemble everything in this order:

1. 5th Green LED FAN
2. Motherboard->CPU->Memory
3. Power Supply
4. Hard/Optical/Floppy Drives
5. GPU and other expansion cards
6. Connect all devices from PSU
7. Install large CPU cooler
8. Lock it up, and enjoy!

You have to install the 5th fan FIRST because you have to remove the panel on the fold out motherboard tray to get to that slot. The fan 'clips' into place, so you don't need screws.

Use a modular power supply with this case. You'll be glad you did! ;)

Pros: - The fold down sides make motherboard and component installation easy

- The included 'toolbox' is a very nice way of storing and keeping the accessories used for attaching components

- Metal except for the front panel, the handles on the door, and the see through window

Cons: - Lots on fans on this case, but all of them are extremely obstructed

- The design of the filter in front of the front 120mm fan is very poor; it blocks almost all airflow. If the faceplate is shut there will be very nearly no airflow from that fan.

- The bottom side fan (the "dirktooth cooling system") is positioned so that about 3/4 of an inch of the fan is blocked by solid case. The mixture of plastic on the side plate and metal mesh on the actual dirktooth bar holding the fan, effectively block all remaining airflow from this fan.

- The top side fan has slits across it, causing air to reverberate within the fan. This makes it very noisy and reduces airflow considerably.

- The top side fan is an intake fan. This will cool your CPU a little bit, however, it will also bottleneck hot air that is trying to escape from your video card. This top side intake hurts in the long run, because it traps hot air inside, heating up every component inside the case.

Overall Review: If left in standard configuration, the inside of the case gets hot, more than 25 C (77 F) above the ambient room temperature under moderate loads (playing video games).

I was able to get the internal case temperature to stay within 6-8 C of ambient temperature while under moderate load by:

- removing the metal mesh grid that obstructs the front fan while the door is open.

- removing the slits blocking the top side fan (this also made said fan much quieter than it was previously)

- remounting the top side fan to blow air out of the case (heat rises, yeah?)

- sliding the bottom side fan to the right about 3/4 of an inch, and cutting away the plastic that blocked airflow.

This also dropped my GPU temperature by 10 C under moderate load, and helped alleviate overheating problems with my PSU.


If you are planning on buying this case because it looks like it has good cooling, think again.

A case with good cooling will probably have a fan on the top to remo