Testing

The standing test was simple and the case scored 2 out of 3 as the top began to flex with my weight. The case should be perfect for a LANer, not only because of the strength, but because of the show-off front of the case. For extra security, you can add a provided tab which will allow you to padlock the side of the case to prevent opportunistic thieves from taking your one of a kind add-in cards (such as a passively cooled Physx card).

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The side LED fan isn’t particularly bright, but it doesn’t need to be. As it’s mounted on a see-through panel, any light that it does shed is visible and it makes a good job of lighting your components inside. If like me, you combine it with another 120mm blue LED fan then the effect is complete.

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To compliment this side blue fan, the front vents of the case light up a similar blue which is a nice touch. If the LED’s were red instead, it would look pretty evil. Cue the modders.

Temperatures wise, the case performed well. With my old Pentium 4 rig (3.2Ghz Northwood, Sapphire X1950Pro and 1GB of RAM) it kept it at 39C idle, HDD at 29C and the ambient at 33C. Considering as the P4 range was pretty much happy in a lava flow, this ain’t a bad effort. Fully loading the CPU with Orthos, running full screen RTHRIBL and performing a low-level HDD scan, the temperatures rose to 48C, HDD 42C and the ambient a mere increase of 2C (35C).

The tinted front panel isn't as bad as the one on the temperature display on the Lexa Blackline, and here is a photo of my phone behind the tinted section.

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