darkowl72 said:Kimberly Gomez34, NHF, seriously? How? Where?? Paper claims whatever you want, but the disk cage is non-removable since it's all one solid piece, and the case itself is only about 17 inches. How on earth are they supposed to cram a 410 mm GPU in there??? Unless they're using some different units of measurement... There are no vents on the top or bottom, just the side. If you want to swap the cooler, you have to pull the whole motherboard out because there's no clearance under the board. Cable management is zero—absolute nothing, zilch, zero.
On top of that, it only has one fan, the front panel is inaccessible, the PSU is mounted at the top, and there isn't even USB 3.0...
It doesn't cost that much for no reason $57, it's not like they're superheroes who can engineer a high-quality, cheap case out of thin air... A decent 120mm fan alone costs this much 😬
And some are even more expensive...
It's not about $67, it's about the difference, Libra = $83, Z1 = $100...
You hit the nail on the head:
I’ve messed around with the MS dragon, which they call a "gaming" case, roughly $83.
Man, what a joke: the metal is thinner than a Coca-Cola can. The internal frame basically has to be bolted down tight, because if it wasn't, the whole thing would just "collapse" under its own weight—it's the frame alone keeping it upright. On top of that, you get these plastic trays for your HDDs and SSDs. The problem? The cage looks like it fits 8 drives, but you only get two of those plastic trays. So, you get one SSD, one HDD, and boom—you're out of luck. If you want to add a second HDD later, you'll have to perform some kind of miracle since the cage setup is meant for 5.25-inch drives..
To be fair, it is pretty "loaded." The plastic front panel has that tacky, kid-friendly "gamer" look, but it’s actually a chunky, solid piece of plastic. There’s even this cutout on top that I realized later is a handle, and honestly, it feels sturdy enough that it won't snap. The power button feels a little wobbly, but it seems okay and has a nice click. It’s got USB 3.0 and even a built-in card reader on top. Even the feet aren't just rubber caps; they're plastic pieces covered in rubber and screwed in. A lot of the case uses mesh, but it's part of the fixed "shell" and the metal mesh is pretty coarse. It even has a "mesh" over the bottom PSU intake, though I wish it didn't. That mesh is just a perforated metal sheet held on by a few tiny tabs (if you grab it from the bottom, your finger might just poke right through unless it falls off first).
Both sides have those trendy "kidney" cutouts, which are great for cable management, but you really need a power supply with long cables to make it work.
When you have louder components (are all "gaming" parts like that?), the case acts like a cheap speaker box: hollow and full of holes everywhere, just missing a bass-reflex port.
Don't worry about dust in the house: within two months, every speck of dust in the house will be living inside it.
Bottom line: "low-cost gaming case" is an oxymoron. Aside from the looks, it's made for kids.
BTW, Fractal makes really smart cases, but their metalwork is super thin... even the Define R4 feels pretty flimsy given how big it is...
