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Macase K10 Sunrise Mid-Tower ATX Case - Page 2
Review by: James 'Agg' Rolfe

Internals

Removing the cover presented no great difficulty, although it is a single-piece sides-and-top unit which is less convenient than individually removable side panels. Removing the case revealed one of the major failings of this case - the terrible documentation. I know, it's a case, how hard can it be to use. Well, I say "It's a case, how hard can it be to document correctly??". The little sheet of paper included with the unit shows a semi-exploded diagram which is different from the actual case in a number of ways. For example, there is no mention of the fact that the motherboard/card tray is removable, and certainly no explanation of how to remove it. Now, you and I may be advanced users who can work stuff like this out and have no fear of ripping things apart - other end-users may not be so confident. Anyway, here's what it looks like with the cover off - it's not as warped as it looks in the photos - cheap digital cameras are not great at wide-angle stuff. :)


I drew some red circles on the upper picture to show which screws you need to undo. Slide the whole assembly forwards in the case so the tabs (beneath the power supply in the upper picture) disengage and then lower the tray down. This is a great feature which I've only seen in fulltowers before - if you're like me and often pulling your machine apart this feature is very useful and an excellent reason to choose this case over a cheapie. In the upper photo you can see the space on the middle-back for mounting another fan. This panel is drilled with holes for mounting either an 80mm or 60mm fan, another nice touch. It's also in exactly the right place to blast the CPU fan's exhaust straight out the back of the case.

The ATX backplate is unusual in that, instead of providing a few different plates for you to swap depending on which connectors are on your motherboard (USB, on-board audio etc) they give you a single plate with fold-out bits. You pop out the bits to make the holes you need.

Another neat little thing is that the motherboard connectors for RESET, HDD LED etc are all bundled together into a little ribbon cable. The power-on and speaker cable are separate, but this is a nice way to avoid the tangled airflow-blocking mass of cables behind the case fan. You can see the ribbon cable and the included case-front fan in the pic below:

You get plenty of screws and spare bits with the case - even a few of the paper motherboard spacers which seem to have vanished from most case bundles these days. You'll notice the case is not resting on any little rubber feet in any of the photos - that's because none are included. In a strange move for a non-fulltower case, Macase have supplied a rigid plastic base for the case, but no feet. This is annoying because it makes the unit take up more room (the base is slightly wider than the case) and isn't really necessary - it's not tall enough to have any danger of falling over, which is what I've always presumed is the reason full-tower cases have them. Get yerself down to Dick Smith and buy some rubber feet for a coupla bucks and you're fine.

There are some niggles - the bottom 5.25" drive bay can foul some motherboards, notably, it rests on the K7M's huge capacitors. It fits, but it's tight. I think this is more a function of the motherboard than the case, though. Jim is using this model of case for his K7M-based system, so it's obviously usable. It's fine on the Soyo SY-6VBA-133 I'm using. Also, one of the tabs that secures the front panel partially blocks one of the hard drive mounting screws. Small things, but irritating.

There is an optional cage available which hangs under the power supply and gives you another three 3.5" HDD bays. Eyo have them for $16.00.

Summary

All up, a recommended mid-tower case for overclocking. With a little work you can get some excellent cooling happening across the motherboard area. It's a mid-tower, so of course you sacrifice some drive bays and expansion room for portability, size convenience etc, but with the optional 3-drive cage there's room for a lot of drives. It's well made and very sturdy. Maybe the squarish looks are not to everyone's taste, but they work for me - and the air-filter door has an element of LAN-party "oo, what's that" appeal. The option of a 300W PSU makes it a great choice.

Pros

Included 80mm case fan with air filter
Removable motherboard/card tray
Room for another 60/80mm fan
300W power supply option
Ribbon-cable connectors
Sturdy construction
No sharp edges

Cons

Base only - no feet
Poor documentation
One-peice top-and-sides cover
Tight internally (normal for midtower)

Get it from www.eyo.com.au!

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