The first thing any user of the myriad generic cases out there today should recognize is the layout, and styling of the forward drive cages. In a cluster of lovely riveted together bits, all of the case’s bays are held to the front panel, and together in some way. Yet, unlike the cases of the past, the specialized mounting holes for external drives are up front, while the forward fan is somewhere closer to the middle. The other thing to take note of is just how close the hard drive cages are to the included fan – leaving roughly 30MM between the case and the cages, which will make it damn near impossible to swap out the fan, that is, unless you’re willing to do a little modification. For me, this modification was a necessity, as having a steel framed Nidec Beta V fan in the rear demanded the same in the front, as so to ensure that this case was damn silent under a load. Unfortunately, with these beefy fans being 38MM, there just wasn’t enough room to work. So, drilling out the 4 rivets which held the cage to the floor, than the 2 which held it to the front, all I had to do was move the whole cage back about 10MM, then rivet it into the newly drilled holes, in order to perfectly fit the new front fan in. While I would have loved to use screws rather than rivets to hold this cage in – something ICute should consider doing – the holes were just too large to facilitate this kind of idea – damn. On the plus side, though, the modified drive cage still sits far enough back to facilitate the usage of a 6800GT, though the power and data cables of the nearby SATA drives DO hang precariously closely to the Big Typhoon

Sweeping across the lovely wide, primer grey expanse of the inside of this case, we come to the screwed in, albeit replaceable I/O covers, as well as the bolted down I/O shield. Be wise with your screws here, though, as there are barely enough screws inside this case – after all, when mounting the motherboard with all 10 screws, I found that I had a grand two M3 threaded screws left with which to mount my optical drive. Once again, the voice grumbled “It’s only $52”. Panning up this rear panel slightly, we come to a lovely blank spot where a 120MM fan can go, a place to which I bolted a Nidec Beta V, as mentioned before. Users of DFI and ECS’ motherboards can rejoice about this fan placement – as unlike Cooler Master’s Ammo, the Karajan Audio module, as well as the PWM exhaust hood will fit underneath your rear mounted 120mm fan without issue. Users should take note, though, that some wiggling must be done with the included motherboard tray to make this possible, though once everything is in, the fit is safer than it is snug. One note about the motherboard tray, though – it is not possible to modify the case to invert it due to the notches that the tray uses, and similarly, if you try to use a motherboard longer than a standard ATX one, it will fit in the case (with hard disk cage removed if need be), but it will have no support beyond the standard mounting holes. Mounting holes on this tray are also present for Micro ATX, but users of all other sizes are fresh out of luck. Apart from this area, there’s really nothing special to bring up about the interior of the case, except the fact that the power supply will be completely un supported, so if you’re going to use a heavy unit, ensure that it’s secured well, as it may bend the rear panel when it’s let free. On the positive side, though, with all your drives installed, there should be scads of room available to hide the wiring, though that may be hard if 12 drives are rammed into the case.