The El Diablo landed at my house with a large, imposing thud.
Literally... I think FedEx tried to play soccer with my case, but El
Diablo won! ;) There was a jagged hole punched in the side of the box,
but due to good padding and bagging, the computer was unblemished.As an aside to A+ and Tagan, if you are going to put handles on the
side of the box (and mind you... this *is* a big and heavy box), please
cut the foam inside the box so that the handles can be pushed through
and the box properly lifted and carried. It frustrates me when I am
trying to push the hand holes that are scored into the side of the box,
"in to the box"... and I can't because the padding is blocking the
cardboard. This forces a deep squat to get my fingers under it to
securely pick it up. This is not a small, light, dainty case folks. And
my 6'8" frame doing a deep squat to properly lift this box was not
natural.
On the point of the foam, it wasn't the chincy Styrofoam that leaves
little, white "styro-balls" all over your house and your cats (that is
funny by the way), but instead the foam was the professional crush
resistant polyfoam cut into a secure framework around the case. With
the heft of this case, and the amount of metal grill work built on this
beast, the foam had better be good to keep all that good stuff from
getting creased. As noted previously, it worked flawlessly.
My first viewing of the case, I let out a whistle. It's a looker folks. It is unashamedly powerful. The fans, a 240mm up front and a (*gulp*) 360mm fan on the side, effectively tell the user, "Give us your heat, and we will whisk it away. You don't have to worry about airflow anymore." The case is so confident that they have a space in the rear for a 120mm fan, but they don't give you a rear 120 fan because I guess they think you will not need it! :)
If you want to add one, "that's fine! Here's the spot! We'll even give you a bracket and some quick connect plugs...but don't think it will do much good though". Hehehehe.
The build quality around the outside of the case is good. Molded plastics, acrylic and embedded LED's make the outside of this machine look futuristic, burly... muscular. Kinda like a 60's era muscle car. It's not subtle. It means business, and this case makes a statement to anyone walking toward it. Build wise, here is what you are looking at :
Special Features
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Huge Front 250mm Blue LED fan with on/off switch fan speed control.
Enormous Side 360mm Blue LED fan with on/off switch fan speed control.
Case open Alert.
Tooless HDD, DVD, Floppy kit.
Tooless removable rear 120mm fan mount bracket.
External Water cooling kit holes. (Rear of Case)
Cool dual side VR blue LED light.
Top audio, firewire, USB ports.
Easy PCI card install flip switch.
Ultra high heat dissipation.
4 X Bottom Leg Stands.
Expansion slots (with tooless kit):
External 5.25" bays: 5
External 3.5" bays: 1
Internal 3.5" bays: 7
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The back of the case shows punch out holes for water cooling (should an external rad need to be attached) and the 120mm exhaust hole. The 120mm hole is about as generic as you can get with the hole punched through the steel. However, in it's defense, this hole actually bodes well for modding, as there are only 4 support legs to remove and the entire center grill is removed. The hole would then be nearly perfectly shaped with a little filing on the cut points. Compared to other manufacturers that leave a grill/hex mesh stamped through, this design (as generic and boring as it looks) is actually preferred for making rear exhaust mods that look smoother and more professional. There will be less time needed for edge cleanup
The feet on the bottom of the case fold in and out with several adjustments angles in between. They are firm, not flimsy, black plastic, and the detents that the adjustments fit in to are not weak. You can either have the feet tucked in under the case, or you can roll them all out 90 degrees, perpendicular to the sides of the case, or any number of positions in between..
The top of the case is a basic top, with a plastic swing door that exposes the USB/Firewire/audio/mic panel that some see on the front panel of their computer. It's fully flat surface (except for the swing door cover) also bodes well as a modding canvas. nothing in the way!
Opening the case, the sheer number of wires needed to be plugged in to make this thing come to life looks a bit daunting! To a novice computer builder, this arrangement could lead to a lot of frustration. I will get into this later in the review, but also included by Tagan to help counter this mess was a length of preinstalled clear spiral wrap looming used around the front panel connector wires as well as all of the lines leading to and from the VR (variable resistance) dials on the outside of the case.
These VR dials allow you to tune the cooling noise and performance to you liking. Also, in the case, are slide in drive bay adapters for the hard drives that are used, as well as a box that has the 5.25 slide rail adapters as well as the standoffs for the motherboard and the corresponding screws. The motherboard tray is not removable, but has a very good amount of space around it, as well as a sticker explaining where the standoffs will go depending on what type of motherboard you are trying to install. All of the standoff holes have a number stamped next to them, and if you read the sticker, and put the standoffs in the holes that the sticker tell you to, you will be golden! There is also a sticker explaining the PCI bracket operation, as well as the 5.25" bay area. Kudos there, Tagan.
The power supply section has a lot of space, so any size PSU will be compatible. There appears to be some sort of adapter back plate to ease the installation of a PSU in this case.
These are my initial impressions of the case... let's get a bit more detailed, shall we? |
