Triton

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The Gigabyte Triton is sent in a reasonably sized box, which is dominated by an artistic close-up of the front panel. The rear of the box outlines what this case has and how its better than its competition.

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This case is available in either black or silver and with no PSU, or a 350, 400, 450 or 500W power supply. Today I have the silver version with no power supply. Interestingly, Gigabyte don’t sell such a low wattage power supply range to the public, so its most likely that you’ll end up with a generic brand PSU if you decide to get one packaged with the case.

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With the case you get the exact number of screws necessary, a self-adhesive cable management clip, six drive rails, a cleaning cloth and a noise reduction ring. The ring is used to pass the front I/O cables through to stop them giving off magnetic interference which could affect signal quality. While this may not seem very necessary, this case uses HD audio connectors and that coupled with USB and FireWire could possibly result in lower signal quality. It probably won’t be much, but at least Gigabyte has given you the option to use it.

Once out of the box, you can feel that the case is made mostly of steel as its pretty heavy, especially when compared to a similar sized Lian Li case (PC-B20) which is made completely of aluminium. Gigabyte haven’t shied away from aluminium completely though, the front facia is made out of the brushed variety.

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The front of the case is dominated by the top five 5.25” drive bays which sit above the 3.5” bays. There are two of these, which are nearly obsolete. Surrounding the floppy disc slots, are the power and reset switches, which have the HDD activity and power LED’s next to them. The reset button is slightly sunken to make sure that you don’t accidentally press it while using your rig.

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Below these buttons is the audio I/O on the left-hand side, and a pair of USB ports with a FireWire below it. Underneath this is a small Triton logo which sits above a front grill which is shaped like a bridge with the centre having a Gigabyte logo. If you buy this case, people will know who have made it. This is further proven by the large embossed logo on the side panel. To remove the side panels, you simply have to undo the two thumb screws on either panel and slide it backwards.

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The side panel has a pair of grills, with the uppermost one having a CPU fan duct which is extendable to allow you CPU cooler to grab cool air from outside of your case. If your cooler is too big, then you can remove this duct is you so wish. For most people, this will get in the way, unless you use the stock cooling solution for either AMD or Intel.

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To provide additional airflow, there are two 120mm Gigabyte branded fans packaged with the case. One sits on the back, just underneath the power supply hole, by the side of the motherboard I/O plate. The other is behind the front grill which will pass a cool current of air over your hard discs making sure that your data stays at a reasonable temperature. These fans are mounted on rubber grommets but the rubber is rock hard meaning that the reduction of vibration passed from the fans to the case won’t be particularly great.

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If you take the front facia off – which you’ll need to in order to remove the bay blanking plates – then you’ll find that there is a small removable dust filter which stops the front fan sucking dusty air into your machine. However, the other incoming fan grills, like the two side grills, don’t have these filters which means that the front filter is almost pointless.

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If you look at the back of the case, you’ll find seven PCI slots which each have a removable blanking plate. But most interestingly they have an easy to use tool-less mounting system which makes installing add-in cards that much quicker and screw-driver free. Next to these slots are two rubber grommets which allow you to route your water cooling pipes out of the case without having to drill your own, or to thread them out of a space PCI bay.

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Other tool-less innovations are present on the 5.25”, 3.5”, and HDD bays. The first two use a fairly hefty piece of cream plastic which you slide forward then lock into place with the labelled catch. By moving the clip forward, two pieces of metal slide inwards and lock into your optical drive mounting holes. This system only operates on one side of the case, and the other side gives you access to the screw holes if you want to really secure your drive into place. Normally this is unnecessary but the cautious will be glad of the option to secure their drives better.

The HDD bays use a separate system, but is equally easy to use. Instead of using permanently mounted device, Gigabyte provide you with six drive rails. These all have two prongs which look a lot like screws, but don’t have a thread. This means that you can simply slot them into your hard disc mounting holes, and slide the whole thing into the case. This process takes seconds, rather than having to faff around with tiny drive screws. Another benefit of this design means that the hard disc bays can point out of the case allowing you to see where the connections are.

Thankfully, there is no case strengthening bar running along the top which means that you can freely remove or install a power supply with the motherboard installed. This is a major bonus as removing your motherboard, or CPU cooler is a pain if all you want to do is swap your power supply.

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On the bottom of the case are four circular feet which have a small amount of rubber to stop the case from sliding around the place. They are screwed on meaning that you could remove them if you so wish.