Mid-Tower Group Test

www.bit-tech.net/review/379

 

Good balanced reviews, nice one.

Any of the other cases going to be compo'd?

 

Might be an opinion thing but i think the Samurai looks awful.

Good review though

 

I completly agree. Having seen most these cases in person. The Samurai case isnt realy a "mid-tower" case. Its big, bulky and full of plastic. But then again this is coming from a Aluminum case kinda person. And i would have easily named the Lian Li 6070 king of the comp. Also the real expensive Silverstone is a nice case with tons of neat stuff. However that is just a crazy price to ask for a mid tower case. I think its 270$ USD

 

I think the design is very much down to taste, but it could easily be classed as the best in terms of features I spose...btw, that table on the last page doesn't look nice

<A88>

 

Unless chieftec have changed their cases since i bought my one (a BX-01-B-SL-BL!) then your review has some errors. Firstly the case has two 80mm intake fans, one is inside the hard drive cage and is screwless, one just below it and a 92mm fan hole is on the side (which can be seen on one of the pictures in the review!). It is an odd place to put a fan intake but it does mean that the case has four 80mm fans holes and a 92mm fan hole. Secondly, under the panel that says "chieftec", there are a firewire port, two USB ports, a mic socket and a headphone socket which all use headers to connect to the motherboad.
I felt the need to vindicate the extreme series as you seem to have miss represented it on the final graph and failed to mentioned things in its review. I have always liked your site and your various reviews have always been informative and well wrote. For this review it seemed like you didn't really spend alot of time on some of the cases. I'm sorry if i sound like an a**hole.

 

Thanks for a cool review, but you missed a modability score! That Samurai's curvy plastic would surely make it hard to mod? And the Lian-Li would presumably be easier as it's falt aluminium? But what are they like in real life?

ch424

 

I have enjoyed reading this review and I happen to have the SilverStone SST-TJ03 case.
Of course I am proud of my case and for this reason I think the case was not really given the rating it deserves.
First of all, I do not know what kind of version is reviewed here, but I can take away my sidepanel without having to remove the top... I think the two SilverStone cases are switched here.
Secondly, if there is concern about the dust and noize of the EZCool, why is there no notification that the front 120mm intake fan of the TJ03 has a dustfilter and that the fans are very quiet?
Also, the air blocking of the top grill is not such a problem here, because the 80mm fan doesn't have so much cfm anyway. This low cfm isn't a problem, because there are 3 80mm outblow fans (of which 2 have nice silver fangrills), against a single 120mm intake fan.
By the way, the table on the last page isn't right, the SST-TJ03 has 3 80mm fans, not 2.

 

How come that ATCS 600 is completely different to this one? and not mentioning the fact that it only takes matx motherboards is a slight oversight, unless i've missed something

 

Good review, I like reading the reviews on this site because it's the only site I found for modding where the stuff in the articles are spelled correctly!

I also agree with the winner - that is a very nice case indeed.

 

That would be '...spelt correctly'

 

Hmmm, about the least useful review I've read in a while. Nowhere near enough cases were reviewed and to name the winner, on a modding enthusiasts website, as a premodded, highly subjectively styled (and blatently copied), plastic behemoth, was just ridiculous.

I think a better approach would've been to write the review with a theme in mind - LANing, HTPC, gamin rigs, modding bases, etc. - because there was simply nothing to be gleaned from comparing the random selection just reviewed.

However, I do like the succinct style of the review.

So there you go.

 

Samurai

I could not agree more with all of your comments about the samurai

 

That SST-TJ01 is reasonably sexy but the rest are all fairly lacklustre... Nice to see that Silverstone are at least trying to remain classy and sleek whilst all around them plastic coated monstrosities are springing up.

 

OK...I know you can't test, or even be aware, of all the cases out there.
Please check out the Silverstone TJ06. It would seem to have many of the features you would like to see in a case. Two front fans, 1 120mm, 1 80mm.
1 120mm rear fan. Upside down MB mounting, putting (usually?) the processor at the bottom, between the 120mm fans. 6 hard drive cage just below the power supply-I have an Antec NeoPower; that puts the PSU 120mm fan right over the hard drives, pulling the air through and between the drives right outta the case. Both side panels ease to remove; no tools required, not even to install drives. It has a duct that connects the front and rear 120mm fans. If you want to use an air cooled CPU, and chose a heatsink of the proper size and orientation, this "Windtunnel" design should really work! If you are liquid cooling, or whatever, just ditch the duct-it's still a wonderful case. And, no, I am not affiliated with them in any way.
Check it out, you may like it!