Meant to port this over from [H] but lost track of it. There was active discussion on the Challenger going on there when I did this a few weeks ago so I posted it there first
a few pics:
IMG_3983 by dougie81, on Flickr
IMG_3986 by dougie81, on Flickr
IMG_3990 by dougie81, on Flickr
There is not quite as much room as this pic implies. This MSI Z68 board is annoyingly thinner than it should be, its not full ATX. You can see to the right where the ATX Standoffs go. Its my current only gripe about the board. They still managed 4 usb headers, 6 sata ports, and 4 sysfan headers, but made it too small
IMG_4006 by dougie81, on Flickr
It gives ample room for swapping out heatsinks, which is more than I can say for the RV02 I built
IMG_4007 by dougie81, on Flickr
PROS:
sleek clean design
front panel pulls off pretty easy
foam behind mesh 5.25 bay covers
black screws included
rubber gasket for PSU mounting built into the case
fits resoanbly sized tower heatsinks, spec'd size of the Gaia is 158mm and it just barely fits(see next post)
decent amount of cable management slots in mobo tray(no rubber grommets on them though)
CONS:
no vibration reducer on the fans(but this is expected based on the price)
no way to wire front panel to the side of the case easily, you cant put an optical in the slot(even though it has the tool-less bay on top) due to the front panel being there, so there is room for a decent cable route
front and top fans(140mm)have 4pin molex. not 3 pin fan headers and no adapters were included.
no cable routing hole in the upper left corner behind top 140 fan. This is a common place for 4 and 8 pin motherboard connectors. it not being there can make clean cabling a real PITA
The bay covers are a royal PITA to remove, I lightly bent the one I did remove, but it bent back without leaving a noticable mark atleast
Not much room on the backside, have to be careful/precise when running cables
Oddities:
no power led?
Side Notes:
For $10 more there is a USB3.0 version
The rail mounts for the 3.5" bays do have small rubber washers, but they aren't very substantial
Max GPU length 11 3/8"
Fans, not bad. more than a whoosh, they do make some noise, but not as bad as I feared they might. it idles louder than my RV02 with the tri 180's on low and 2 800 rpm slipstreams, but its a little quieter than the 180's on high
cpu idle is about 40C
Build specs:
MSI Z68A-GD43B3
i5 2500K paired with a Xigmatek Gaia SD1283
2x4gb GSkill Sniper DDR3 1333
XFX 6870 twin fan design(HD-687A-ZD)
Antec Neo Eco 620w
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
He can add the ssd for caching later. And hopefully when southern islands hits he can add another 6870 on the cheap
a few pics:
IMG_3983 by dougie81, on Flickr
IMG_3986 by dougie81, on Flickr
IMG_3990 by dougie81, on Flickr
There is not quite as much room as this pic implies. This MSI Z68 board is annoyingly thinner than it should be, its not full ATX. You can see to the right where the ATX Standoffs go. Its my current only gripe about the board. They still managed 4 usb headers, 6 sata ports, and 4 sysfan headers, but made it too small
IMG_4006 by dougie81, on Flickr
It gives ample room for swapping out heatsinks, which is more than I can say for the RV02 I built
IMG_4007 by dougie81, on Flickr
PROS:
sleek clean design
front panel pulls off pretty easy
foam behind mesh 5.25 bay covers
black screws included
rubber gasket for PSU mounting built into the case
fits resoanbly sized tower heatsinks, spec'd size of the Gaia is 158mm and it just barely fits(see next post)
decent amount of cable management slots in mobo tray(no rubber grommets on them though)
CONS:
no vibration reducer on the fans(but this is expected based on the price)
no way to wire front panel to the side of the case easily, you cant put an optical in the slot(even though it has the tool-less bay on top) due to the front panel being there, so there is room for a decent cable route
front and top fans(140mm)have 4pin molex. not 3 pin fan headers and no adapters were included.
no cable routing hole in the upper left corner behind top 140 fan. This is a common place for 4 and 8 pin motherboard connectors. it not being there can make clean cabling a real PITA
The bay covers are a royal PITA to remove, I lightly bent the one I did remove, but it bent back without leaving a noticable mark atleast
Not much room on the backside, have to be careful/precise when running cables
Oddities:
no power led?
Side Notes:
For $10 more there is a USB3.0 version
The rail mounts for the 3.5" bays do have small rubber washers, but they aren't very substantial
Max GPU length 11 3/8"
Fans, not bad. more than a whoosh, they do make some noise, but not as bad as I feared they might. it idles louder than my RV02 with the tri 180's on low and 2 800 rpm slipstreams, but its a little quieter than the 180's on high
cpu idle is about 40C
Build specs:
MSI Z68A-GD43B3
i5 2500K paired with a Xigmatek Gaia SD1283
2x4gb GSkill Sniper DDR3 1333
XFX 6870 twin fan design(HD-687A-ZD)
Antec Neo Eco 620w
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
He can add the ssd for caching later. And hopefully when southern islands hits he can add another 6870 on the cheap
Last edited:
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