Thinking about getting a chieftech tower, good or bad?

[dxkj]

These seem like rather cheap cases for a tower, anyone have opinions on them? modding them? etc etc

 

[Politik]

Which one?

 

[dxkj]

something like this

 

[mrman3k]

They are very good cases, as I can attest to since I have one. The build quality is excellent, and it is nice and roomy. The window is gigantic, just replace the rear fans with LED fans and it looks really great!

 

[Politik]

I think the aluminum ones are good. 2 HD cages and solid construction for the price. If you want a black case, do not get the black Dragon case, it is "charcoal black", which is more like grey. For true black you'll want the black X-Pider case, sold by case-mod.com or you can get them from XtremeGear (which has had a mixed history for service) with or without the Channel Well power supply. If you dont like XtremeGear.com and you dont want the questionable power supply, you can save $10 (I think, haven't checked the shipped price) at xoxide.com.

 

[Politik]

I should also mention that these Chieftec/Chenming cases are the basis for the Thermaltake Xaser cases. That is why the X-Pider may look familiar to you.

Here is a fourth option, which has a different front panel. I'm not sure if its aluminum or not.

I should also say that I dont own any of these cases, and I'm not sure that the X-Pider is truly black. Salespeople at these sites have told me the cases are black, though.

 

[Ketchup]

I love mine. Nice and roomy, and lower temps than my old case. Has room for lots of fans, removable hard drive cages, and drive rails for my optical drives. No complaints here!

 

[Jhhnn]

Very good boxes, stout and well featured in steel, never tried the aluminum. Newegg has nice prices on some good psu's to go with it- the 350w sparkle and Compucase(Heroichi) models are solid, tough to beat...

 

[Davegod]

Very good cases.

Coolermaster, Antec, ThermalTake, ALienware... Many top brands mod the Chieftec case because its very well designed and the huge bulk savings make it very cheap too. When i say mod the cheiftec, i dont mean mod the deisgn, they actually use CHeiftec cases, its printed on the drive rails and everything. The only difference between a Coolermaster ATC-710, Antec 1030AMG (excl. PSU), Thermaltake Xasier, Alienware case and the original Chieftec is the front panel and paintjob.

You can find loads of reviews on the web for the aforementioned cases, and theyre all good. The one downside most reviewers mention is the weight of the case, the steel version is one heavy case - although that does show the quality construction. I can say mine is very heavy, definately nothing to take to LANS (i read up a lot before settling on looks and getting the Coolermaster myself). The same chasis is available in aluminium though, i think cheiftec sell an alu version and so is one of the TT models. It seems to be a very popular chasis for modders, wether its because the case is particularily good for it, or simply because its such a hugely popular chasis, im not sure.

There's quite alot of good towers out, imo the chieftec chasis is the best option for a low cost, very high quality, very well cooled case if you dont mind the weight.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: dxkj
something like this

Go for it, just make sure to get a respected power supply Do consider the impact of having a door over your drives, it may be an annoyance if you want to swap CD's a lot or if your CD-burner software insists on ejecting your disc after burning it. And with the door off, it doesn't look nearly as polished. But the case ventilates well and will keep your hard drives especially cool if you add a fan to the HDD cage. SVC.com has nice quiet high-quality NMB fans, 5 for $11, and if you got some of those then make sure to get some 3-pin-to-4-pin converters too, so you can power them all

 

[eklass]

i absolutely love my black aluminum chenming with full window... got it from coolerguys with fans and everything for $90 i think

 

[Cerb]

They didn't innovate.
However, their cases are massive! You might have to use screwdrivers for it all, but you will never, ever mind, because there is no chance that you will have to go in at some odd angle or bend down into it, etc.

 

[deerslayer]

Great case, I love mine!

They are solid as a rock. I sat mine down on the couch once, because I needed to grab something else, and it wasn't on there good and it fell off and landed on a concrete floor and nothing was damaged at all. Just a small dent in the top panel where it hit the edge of the floor tile. Good thing I didn't have my slk800 on there when it happened :Q