Joined on 09/24/05
Amazing!
Pros: -The extra space in the case doors make for plenty of room to manage cables. -White LED's look great against the dark grey of the case. -Plenty of room for drives and components. -Front panel cables are plenty long. The HD Audio cable for instance, Can easily reach the far side of ATX sized motherboards. -Fans are quiet, even when turned up to full speed. -Front panel and fan wires were pressed together, very nice design feature, cuts down on messiness factor. *Favorite Feature* The top fan cover. (see Other Thoughts)
Cons: Minor issues.. The thumb screws seemed to be improperly threaded. Were very difficult to tighten or untighten. -The rubber grommets for cable management were so soft that they easily pulled off when routing cables through them. -The rubber feet seemed to fall off rather easily as well. -The PCI slots were not tool less, although the rest of the case is, HDD cages, Optical drive slots. Would've been nice to see everything tool less.
Overall Review: The fan bay on the top of the case is specifically designed for water cooling products. namely, any of the standard 27mm* thickness Radiators. They fit almost perfectly inside, and still allow for the top cover to be attached without taking away from the overall sleek design of the case itself. Some cases, my previous one for example, did not have the correct hole spacing to accommodate the Corsair H100 I recently purchased. (Read my review on the H100) I was concerned about having enough space to mount both the radiator and the fans together. But this case takes care of that by offering an amazing solution. I expect it would fit other radiators of standard thickness as well with little to no issues whatsoever.
Mediocre Case
Pros: Small size. Compact part placement.
Cons: Wiring was a chore. Instructions did not include layout for HD audio. Nor did it include working front audio pinouts.
Overall Review: Could have been put together much simpler than it was. Wiring was overly complicated.
Good Budget buy
Pros: It has plenty of space for any air cooling or water cooling setup. Tinted side panel window Plenty of room behind the motherboard tray for cable routing PSU shroud is adequate Simple and sleek design, very Minimalist
Cons: Biggest Con I noticed was that the included PWM fan hub, mounted behind the motherboard tray, did not control PWM function. Regardless of the fan layout or motherboard pin used, it ran all fans at max speed.
Overall Review: When this case is in stock and on sale, it is definitely worth it. On the larger side for mid towers, but very versatile. Can accomodate most any fan or radiator layout, with plenty of space for mounting reservoirs as well.
Some draw backs
Pros: Looks nice. Color scheme is mostly black Plenty of fan pinouts UEFI BIOS is fairly intuitive. Gives you access to everything you would need to manage
Cons: The fan profile page within BIOS works well for the CPU fan pinout. However, it does not work for the Sysfan pinouts. They do not respond to any profile you set it to and run at full speed regardless. This has been tested with multiple PWM fans and I saw no change in fan speeds. It also will not support 2133Mhz RAM, even from a supposed compatible RAM. I had to lower it to 1866Mhz in order to maintain stability. I have verified that I have the latest BIOS update, and still the issue occurs.
Overall Review: Overall, I would still recommend this board as a decent AM3+ board. It has many features and lots of options within BIOS. If MSI would fix the issues with RAM compatibility and the Fan profile settings within BIOS. It would be a great choice for most users.
Great buy
Pros: Installed fine. Card ran at proper speed. Fan was quiet under load.
Cons: If anything could be a con, I guess it would be that the voltage is locked.
Decent
Pros: Work well for their purpose.
Cons: Can be seen as cheaply made compared to others.
Overall Review: These work just fine if used properly. The only way you'll be breaking these is if you're not using it how it was intended, or getting too rough. You cannot man-handle these, it takes finesse. Remember that when purchasing this product. Use with care.