Raijintek Metis Mini ITX Chassis Review


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Raijintek Metis Chassis Exterior

Upon first unpacking the Metis case, we noticed a lovely and yet subtle gold colouring of the product. Rather than choosing a ‘CHAV’ bling-type gold they have rather elected for a more muted form of the same. One could describe this as an ‘Antique Gold’ and as such is good indicator of what can be expected.

Metis angle1 Side Panel
metis angle three Metis angle four

As one can see this is mini ITX chassis that does not accommodate any form of optical bay, which is just as well as any optical drives are slowly becoming defunct.

The overall graceful and subtle curves of the case are a nice touch and how everything just fits together with virtually no seems.

Let us work around the case and render our opinion on this chassis.

Before we go any further we would love to further compliment the colouring of the Metis chassis as we have noticed the gold reacts under differently under a myriad of conditions. For example during the photography of this case we played around with the lighting and noticed the wonderful effects reflected on to the case. For example; we noticed the almost sun-set gold in some conditions and a more harsher hue of the same in others.

We appreciate the minimalist and graceful design of the overall feel of the case and this is reflected most in the front panel. Lacking an absence of gimmicks or LED foolishness the front panel has a clean look. The power on also feels simple and yet solid and seems comfortable to touch when depressed.

DSCF8480 (1024x768) front panel lower
Power Button top poanel io ports

The Input and Output panel is based along a similar vein with the USB PORTS being of USB 3.0 only and to keep these to a minimum only two external USB ports are available. As usual we have connections for head and microphone use.

Moving on to the side panel we encounter large (for a chassis this size) acrylic window, covered in the brown anti-scratch sticky paper.

side panel 1 Side Panel One Shot Two
Side Panel one angle three Side Panel One Acrylic Closeup

What is noticeable about the above and unlike other chassis the acrylic window itself has been fastened onto the exterior of the chassis panel and not the interior. One can only deduce that this is to maximise space for the interior. Though we do understand this solution it does however spoil the graceful looks of the side panel a little.

The rear of the metis is pretty much standard faire with the 120mm exhaust fan and the two PCIE slots, which allow any consumer to turn this into a serious gaming machine by the way of the gtx970 M-ITX edition offered by Asus and Gigabyte.

Rear panel angle one PCIE Slots
PCI slot cover Rear 120mm exhaust fan

We would have preferred if the rear panel was the same colour of the case, but one cannot have everything.

The other side panel and given this one lacks an acrylic window follows the graceful curves of the chassis and sports small grill to allow ventilation.

Side Panel Two M2 screws

Again we are amazed on how the anodised and brushed aluminium reacts to differing light conditions.

We note that both of the side panels are held in place by the use of ‘M2′ flat head screws and the holes themselves are countersunk to help lend to the swan-like gracefulness of the Metis chassis.

Lastly we move to the bottom panel of the case and notice many rubber grommets place there. The latter mentioned are the mounting holes needed to place a hard or solid state drive.

lower panel angle one Lower panel PSU section
hdd/ssd mounting grommets case rubber feet.

Also we can see on how the power supply unit is mounted within this product. Rather than the usual solution of mounting the power supply unit at the rear panel, Raijintek has used the lower panel solution in order to reduce the length of the case.  Whilst this is an effective solution, it could have its drawbacks by the high of the PSU and its trailing wires.  However we must have an internal look to view this.

With baited breath we hope that the quality of the exterior is brought about on the interior.

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