click to enlarge
Usage
Above the removable 3.5"
drive bays we have the fixed 5.25" bays. On this case there
are four half-height bays which is fairly standard for a mid-tower.
In fact, I think the addition of a fourth 5.25 bay is one of the
things that distinguishes a mid-tower from a mini-tower. The only
true mini-tower I know of with four 5.25" bays is the SkyHawks 4388+C I reviewed a little while
ago - no doubt there are others. Anyway, the 5.25" bays on
this Macase case use drive rails - plastic guides that you screw
onto the sides of your 5.25" devices, which lets you slide
them into the bays.
Some people hate drive rails and some people like them and I'm not going to change your feelings either way. In my experience they mostly become annoying when you're swapping devices between different cases (that either have different drive rails or when one case doesn't have rails at all). Another way they can be annoying is if they mis-align and jam in the bay or are fiddly to install. I tried 2 different CD-ROM's and a Travan tape-drive in a 5.25" mounting kit with no problems. Once the 5.25" drive has slid fully into the bay, the little metal tabs hold it in place. No need to use mounting screws as per many drive-rail systems (including that in the Big Kahuna), simply squeeze them inwards and slide the drive out.
In general usage the case was fine - it felt sturdy, roomy and comfortable to work with. I built two systems into this case, one using the Gigabyte GA-7DXR SocketA motherboard and one using the MSI K7N420 Pro nForce-based board shown below. The motherboard space is plenty wide - the red nForce board is not quite wide enough to reach the full-width ATX mounting holes but the Gigabyte is and there was room to spare. There's enough depth that you're not likely to be hitting motherboard components on the lower drive bays. The only real issue would come from a fully-populated drive cage clashing with PCI cards in the motherboard when you tried to extract the cage. I guess that has the potential to be annoying, but the solution will be to remove cards which would be required in most other midtower cases anyway. As mentioned earlier the drive rails didn't present any problems and there's plenty of room for running cables from the top of the case to the bottom. When mounting cards into the PCI slots the case backplane did not flex much which is good - in many cheaper cases the motherboard is allowed to flex too much which can cause card seating problems or damage.
Conclusions
Overall, I was impressed by this case. I did mention a few negatives
about it, but they're all minor and will only crop up in fairly
specific situations. Overall the case feels like a real quality
unit, worthy of being rebadged by some of the bigger brand-name
PC makers (and indeed, I suspect it has been). In stock form it
provides a lot of features you'd expect more likely in a fulltower
- it provides ample expansion for cooling, plenty of space for
drives and has a really roomy feel around the motherboard area.
I felt it was a pleasure to work with and wouldn't have a problem
recommending it to people.
On the money side of things, the RRP is AUD$250. I couldn't find a price for it on the Pioneer Computers site, but the street price seems to be closer to $210 at the moment. This places it above the generic cases but well below the extremes like Lian-Li, which again seems about right. Australian resellers interested in carrying this case should contact Fortune Tec who were kind enough to loan us the review sample.
 DIY Parallel-Cable Remote LCD! |
 CPU Radiator Zen |
 TwinMOS PC2700 DDR |