External Looks

Remember where we just mentioned that everything was standard faire (packaging section) ? Well now Overclockers Tech are forced to eat humble and crow pie for lunch, dinner and breakfast! When looking at the overall design of the case, it simply oozes evil! With its dark black looks overall and its shaped top panel (more on this later) it exudes more than just the presence of a wimpy ‘Dark-Side’ lord from Star Wars! Instead it goes much further to an almost Alien Xenomorph/Necromonger feel.

Now that we have a basic feel for the external looks of the chassis, let us turn our attention to the first stop on our tour, the I/O section and the upper panel.

The I/O panel sports many features that are certainly based around the centre, of which is the power button and the fan controller device. The latter mentioned is an attention getting hexagon shape with the fan controller buttons placed beneath it. In the centre of these and just below the power switch is the FAN LED’s on/off with the ‘less than and greater than’ voltage controls for the fans placed at either side. However, as you can see by the photographs these buttons are finger print ‘magnets as well as attracting a huge amount of dust motes to the IO panel as a whole.

Underneath and to the left of the power switch we have the headphone/microphone jacks and the USB 3 ports. The right hand side almost mirrors the left except for the additional reset and external SATA button. Finally, when the chassis is powered on it emits a suspiciously evil glow, rather like the scary ‘eye’ shaped windows in the first Amityville film.

Next we move onto the top panel proper. In all fairness we love the design as this part, more than any other, reminds us of the Alien Xenomorph look.

The upper panel is removable by a gentle tug (more on this during the Internal case tour) and feels very solid. Half way between the ‘Trooper’ logo and the I/O panel is the carry handle. Coolermaster has assured us that that this can support up to 45Kilograms in weight and as such can be used to carry the product to a LAN Party. The previously mentioned feature sports a ‘rubberised’ grip in order to give the end user a much more comfortable experience. The best way we can describe this is to imagine yourself lifting heavy plastic shopping bags that twist and dig into the fingers, not to mention cutting off blood flow. Now, to us most carry handles for cases are like that, however this is not the case (pardon the pun) here.

Next, we found a nice surprise! Underneath the top panel and placed just before the fans is a rather large dust filter. This prevents dust from clogging up the consumer’s precious fans.

We move on to the front panel and the incorporation of Coolermaster’s X-dock feature. This feature allows the consumer to insert a Solid State Drive whilst the power is switched on (providing ACHI is enabled).

The front of the chassis matches exactly with the back of the case, Id-Est. nine PCIE plates and nine 5.25 inch drive bays. Each of the bay covers are easily removable by the use of two tabs; which are simply pressed towards each other in order for them to be removed. Each cover has a dust filter attached and feels very durable.

At the lower part of these drive bays there resides the massive CM Storm badge. This itself can be removed (similar to the tabs) and behind this resides a small box (more on this later)

The aforementioned panel is contoured to an extreme amount. No gentle sloping curves here, rather a more ‘in your face’ style panel. This has a grill that serves as an air intake, but this has no facility to add a fan. However, since this case is designed for water cooling it would have been nice to have a window here in order to fully show off all that lovely water cooling goodness! A good idea would be for CoolerMaster to make this as an extra option. This could however spoil the overall ‘malignant’ look of the case.

Moving on to the lower panel presents even more surprises around the power supply unit area. This also sports a filter to prevent dust motes entering the consumers crucial and very expensive power supply.

Just when we cannot get enough of the amount of filters present within this case, we find yet another. This one resides underneath where two fans or the lower radiator (more on this later) might be installed.

The final photos above show the back panel with its nine PCIE bays, its 140mm fan (which can also accommodate a 120mm Fan) and routing holes for external radiators.

Well, that is about it for the external tour. So far we are very much impressed with the quality of the case. There are one or two things we would have done differently Id-Est. a side window,  however these are minor gripes only. The overall impression of this chassis is one of a malignant nature. This case does not even pretend to hide its true side, instead it seems to revel in its evil nature and looks.

Unlike the recent foul crop of ‘emo-like-angst ridden’ vampire films  this chassis delights on its killer looks and it simply oozes pure evil!