Around 2 months after releasing their highly successful Phantom 410, NZXT are back at it again. This time they’re going big! Since their entry into the market in 2004, we have seen many hits from the gamer serving manufacturer, but, chassis wise, certain extreme enthusiasts’ needs haven’t always been tended to, up until now that is. Today we will be looking at the first chassis in NZXT’s new ‘Switch’ line-up, the gargantuan Switch 810.

The Switch 810 isn’t your normal full tower chassis. It features innovative characteristics such as NZXT’s proven-successful right-mounted HDDs, a ‘hybrid’ cooling design and a rear IO LED for added convenience. Support for a wide range of motherboard form factors including the enthusiast-grade E-ATX and XL-ATX form factors ensures that this case won’t be a letdown in that department. The 9 PCI expansion slots and 35+cm of VGA card clearance make a quad-SLI/Crossfire system a reality with the Switch 810. A whopping 12 cable management cut-outs, 10 of which feature a rubber grommet ensures that even the most high-end of systems will remain neat and tidy without cable interference. Storage expansion comes in the form of 4 tool-less 5.25” drive bays, 1 hot-swap HDD/SSD bay which converts from a 5.25” bay and 6 internal 2.5/3.5” drive bays split between a pair of easily removable cages.

Space for internally mounted 420/360, 240 and 140mm radiators simultaneously, with push-pull fans, means that this behemoth has some extreme cooling potential in its arsenal. Out-of-the-box cooling consists of a 140mm intake fan, a 140mm fan mounted internally on the upper HDD cage and 2 140mm exhaust fans. Up to 10 140/120mm fans can be installed in the Switch 810 proving that it has some extreme air cooling capabilities to offer. Another unique feature is the addition of a front panel SD card reader along with the standard variety of connections.

The black and white versions both retail at just under £150/€170 and feature a large acrylic side panel window. The Switch 810’s bang for buck factor seems to be competitive, but will our more thorough inspection prove otherwise?

Perhaps Akasa are a brand better known for their aggressively priced CPU coolers and enthusiast level peripherals, but as some of you may know they have also diversified into the case market in recent years. It has been a while since Akasa last released a full tower chassis but they aim to mark their return with a bang in the form of the Venom Toxic.

The Venom Toxic is a full tower chassis which, thanks largely to its huge dimensions, supports a wide variety of components including the gargantuan E-ATX and XL-ATX motherboard form factors. Motherboard support isn’t the only weapon in the Venom Toxic’s arsenal though. 6 external, tool-less 5.25″ bays, 1 of which can be converted into an external 3.5″ bay, and 6 internal 3.5/2.5″ HDD/SSD bays ensure that even the most avid computing enthusiast’s storage requirements will be tended to. Enthusiast grade quality is again shown in the form of 10 tool-less PCI slots and an abundance of cable management grommets, ensuring a clean system even when all 10 expansion slots are populated.

Akasa supply the Venom Toxic with a pair of 230mm fans, one of which features a white LED design, and a single 140mm fan from their award-winning Viper series. If the out-of-the-box cooling configuration isn’t enough, the Venom Toxic’s mesh side panel can accommodate an extra quartet of 120mm fans or a single 230mm variant in addition to the possibility of a 120/140mm bottom mounted fan. Water cooling is a clear option with the masses of space available internally to install a 240mm and multiple 120/140mm radiator without any modifications. Not to see their extreme cooling potential undone, Akasa’s full tower chassis allows users the flexibility of installing the largest CPU coolers and most high end graphics cards on the market with a whopping 185mm and 330mm of clearance, respectively.

The inclusion of a 20W per channel (40W combined), dual-channel fan controller is yet another useful feature which can help save an end user money and expansion slots. USB 3.0, eSATA and the standard USB 2.0 front panel connections are a combination that will most certainly be viewed as acceptable by the majority of the enthusiast market.

With an eye-catching design and street price of around £96/€125, Akasa’s Venom Toxic looks as though it offers a large amount of bang for your hard earned buck, but is this actually the case (pun intended)?

The Anidées AI-6B has been launched with three variations; a base model that we have here, a ‘silent’ version that comes with sound proofing on the insides of the chassis, and a windowed version with a perspex cutout. Apart from this minor difference, the AI-6B comes with 3 optical drive bays, 7 hard drive bays of which come can be removed to allow for larger graphics cards to be installed, two fans, cable management, reversable front door and a Velcro strap for holding the PSU in place.

With the hundreds of PC cases that are on the market today, the spectrum of styles and designs is very wide. On the bottom end of the scale there is the case that is there to do its job and not much else, whereas on the top end of the market, there are the highly customisable cases that have stacks to offer. The design of these cases follows pretty much the same pattern, but there are some people out there that would like to have a case that on the outside is a little understated & aesthetically clean and on the inside has a little more to shout about.

When we think of a value case, in general most people would visualise a case that has its 6 sides, a space to mount everything and some basic I/O. With the T9 however this is not the case. The chassis is made up of a very light aluminium frame with an open plan layout on the inside. With this open plan layout, the case still comes with three 120mm LED lit fans, tool-less drive bay fitting, two grommets on the rear to allow for water cooling pipes to pass through, 7 expansion slots, a point on the floor of the case to bolt an SSD to and space to fit a combination of upto 9 5.25″ and 3.5″ drives.

Other items that come with the case include three front USB2.0 and one USB3.0 port, front audio headers, the acrylic side panel window and most significantly the option of having the motherboard tray, expansion ports and drive bay locks in four different colours.

The Sharkoon T9 Value Series case seems to, on paper, fit into the latter of these groups with its understated looks, simple design and bright internal colour options. We do have to remember though that this is a value case with the bare essentials, so have Sharkoon been able to make a product that still offers a level of flexibility, simplicity and a fell of quality in a back to basics design?

In recent years there has been a steady increase in the number of case forms that are available on the market andthis is driven by the end user trends. Throughout the years, HTPC and SFF (Small Form Factor) chassis have had a strong appearance on the market and Silverstone have always been a strong leader in the HTPC sector and a number of successful models have continued this success. As time has gone on and we come forward to where we are today, the market has become more diluted with the different shapes, sizes and styles of cases – ranging from the m-ATX options which pack as much as they can into as little space as possible right upto the E-ATX cases that have enough room to fit hypothetically more than one system into.

In the more recent years and with the digital age now more mainstream than ever, personal computers are used more and more for home entertainment centres. This has in itself opened up a whole new new sector to the HTPC market, in the past a HTPC was typically a low power machine that played video content with out any real demand placed on the system. The modern HTPC however demands more with the streamlining of high definition content. No longer will a budget all in one board with onboard graphics cut the mustard. Discrete graphics are being called for and this poses a problem with a majority of HTPC designs that can only occupy low profile expansion cards.

Today we get the chance to look at Silverstone’s new Alpha male in their Grandia HTPC line up, the GD06. As with the majority of the Grandia range the design has been fine tuned and refined to give the best performance and design, improving what the consumer needs & likes and taking out what they don’t – such as the small LCD panel on the front.

Over the years we have seen many new products come onto the market from Antec and every now and again they release a fresh updated version of an existing product. The Solo II bears no surprises that its predecessor is the original Solo case that was built around a concept of a very quiet yet high performing chassis. The Solo II continues this trend whilst also taking trends from the Sonata series of cases that offer convenience, ease of access and most of all – simple yet elegant aesthetics.

With quiet computing in mind, there are naturally no real lean towards performance as Antec wanted to reach out to completely separate user group in the market. This is to include the corporate work setting where its uniform looks would fit in with it surrounds and also the general home PC user that wants a system that looks good yet sits quietly in the corner no making itself heard due to its built in sound deadening and noise reduction mountings.

Have Antec fallen back on old times with an older style of chassis design and aesthetics or has the Solo II come back to bring back a life from the past?

If you haven’t already heard of the insanely popular NZXT Phantom, then we have to query where you have been for the past year! Just in case you have been away from the computing scene for over a year, we will give you a short breakdown of the success of the legendary NZXT Phantom. Released 12 months ago, the Phantom was one of the first full tower cases to inspire a new design trend. Gone are the days of a full tower case being big, ugly and a cumbersome chunk of metal. The unique design and bold colour scheme were what made the Phantom different from anything we had previously encountered. As we all know though, a striking appearance and aesthetically pleasing design are nothing if the performance isn’t up to scratch. Thankfully, NZXT’s Phantom excelled in terms of expandability, cooling performance, internal clearance, cable management and ease of use. It is available for around £110 and offers almost everything an enthusiast could ask for, so it is no surprise that it has won a plethora of awards and accolades including our own eTeknix gold award.

The Phantom 410 isn’t a direct replacement to its full tower sibling. Instead, NZXT decided that releasing a mid tower variant would be a better choice as it could coincide on the market with its full tower brother while appealing to a slightly different target audience. Enough about the original Phantom though. Times change quickly and even the best of products require an upgrade once in a while to allow them to appeal to an even broader target audience.

A mid tower form factor gives NZXT less room to play with when designing their case. You would be wrong if you assumed that this space constraint would force the Phantom 410 to cut down on features. It possesses 3 tool-less internal 5.25” bays, 6 internal 3.5/2.5” bays, 4 of which are located in a removable cage and 7 PCI expansion slots. Cooling comes in the form of a single 120mm intake fan and a pair of exhaust fans, one of which is 120mm, the other a 140mm LED version, located in the rear and top mounting locations. A whopping 8 fans can be installed in the Phantom 410, 5 of which can be 140mm versions, which is extremely impressive given its mid tower size. Each fan can be controlled by the integrated 30W 3-step fan controller, eliminating the need for an additional accessory. Clearance shouldn’t be an issue as the Phantom 410 supports up to 305mm/12.2” long VGA cards, 170mm/6.8” tall CPU coolers and 25mm/1” of rear routed cables.

Moving to the general usage features, we see NZXT include a pair of USB 3.0 ports on the front panel which connect to an internal USB 3.0 header. The HDD cage is accessible from the case’s right side, not the left. NZXT claim that this design change will allow for “easy hard drive replacement” but we will see if this is the case. Rubber grommets are used to cover each cable management hole, a technique which was implemented in the original Phantom with great success. One of the biggest and possibly most ‘hate it or love it’ design changes is the implementation of an acrylic side panel window. Some users will love the possibility of being able to see inside their active computer while others will hate it. The NZXT Phantom 410 should be available for around £84.99/€99.90/$99.99. A 2 year warranty is available as standard and the colours available are black, red and white.

Can NZXT’s new Phantom 410 continue on the success path its bigger brother has paved?

Cooler Master over the last few years have been a brand that virtually everyone has come into contact with in one way or another, whether it be from a simple fan right up to their gaming cases. More recently it has been their gaming based cases that have taken the limelight and this has included the HAF and Cosmos series.

The lastest case to take the centre stage is from the Storm range and is known as the Storm Trooper. Aimed at the top end of the gamer market, nothing has been spared in terms of thermal performance, expansion and space.

Coming in at the top end of the series, the Storm Trooper naturally has a huge list of features that would certainly wet the appetites of avid builders that have a load of hardware and cooling to pack in. The full XL-ATX chassis packs enough space to house upto 9 fans on all sides of the chassis and there is more than enough room in the top to house a full triple rad for water cooling and the nine 5.25″ drive bays at the front can be converted into many configurations for holding optical drives, 3.5″ hard drives and 2.5″ SSDs.

Being a full ATX case, also means that there is plenty of room for fitting in even the biggest of graphics cards at more than 12″ long. With a very attractive price tag for a case of this type, will the Storm Trooper be out there fighting on the front line, or will it be left back in no-mans-land?

BitFenix are a relatively new company as far as case manufacturers go. They exploded onto the market back in 2010 with their revolutionary Colossus which helped catalyse a significant design change for many future cases. The enthusiast and gamer market saw full-tower cases become more appealing by offering the external eye-candy they had previously lacked. Innovation is universally welcomed. With this fact in mind, BitFenix have designed the unique case we will be reviewing today, the Outlaw.

The BitFenix Outlaw is unique due to its inverted ATX layout. This layout design sees the graphics card and other PCI expansion equipment located towards the top of the case with the CPU positioned towards the bottom of the case, near the power supply. BitFenix claim that this unique layout will enhance cooling and allow you to install “incredibly long” graphics cards. BitFenix SofTouch is another unique feature used on the Outlaw. BitFenix claim that this proprietary surface treatment looks fantastic and produces a soft feel to the chassis while also helping to resist fingerprints and scratches. Hopefully, SofTouch will deliver on BitFenix’s claims.

4 3.5” hard drive bays, 4 5.25” bays and 1 2.5” SSD mount are among the more common features for this £40/€40/$50 mid-tower case. The Outlaw has cooling options in abundance. There are 8 fan locations allowing up to 8 120mm fans or 6 120mm and 2 140mm fans to be installed.

With its attractive price tag and abundance of features, do BitFenix have a winner in their Outlaw?

Lian Li have long been known for their extremely elegant and very expensive aluminium cases. Quality has always oozed from almost every case they have produced, but with that quality and aluminium material, an unaffordable price tag looms nearby. As we enthusiasts believe, if a brand is offering high quality and desirable products, they shouldn’t change their production and design aims due to the possibility of the changes resulting in a lack of quality to hit a certain price point. Thankfully, Lian Li have managed to maintain their elegant aluminium design while also producing a case which meets a far more appealing price point; the Lian Li PC-6B.

The PC-6B’s side panel, front bezel and main body are constructed of high quality aluminium with a brushed finish. The elegant black exterior is certain to be alluring for users who demand a well-dressed computer case. An interior comprised of silver aluminium will, due to its easy and hassle free cutting in comparison to a steel chassis, certainly appeal to the avid modders who love nothing more than chopping up a case.

Functionality wise, the PC-6B supports graphics cards up to a goliath 440mm in length, CPU coolers which are around 160mm tall and the biggest power supply units that the market has to offer. 3 3.5” HDDs and 2 2.5” SSDs can be installed simultaneously on the removable HDD cage. There is the possibility of installing 3 devices in the 5.25” bays. A variety of motherboard form factors are supported and 8 PCI slots ensure excellent expansion options.

It seems as if the Lian Li PC-6B could be a huge hit with its attractive £90/€95/$100 price tag. Will the high expectations be met?

There is vast selection of cases which tend to the needs of the average user, gamer and enthusiast. Looking at the sub £150 market, we can see well over 25 cases that are worthy of recommendation at a specific price point for a specific user’s needs. While these cases are excellent in their own respect, what happens when an extreme enthusiast wants the very best that money can buy? Maybe Thermaltake can answer that question.

The Level 10 series have always been at the pinnacle of Thermaltake’s case line-up with the original Level 10 holding the $799.99 top spot. Thermaltake realised the somewhat restrained interest in such an expensive case though and decided to offer a more ‘affordable’ version which managed to keep the up-market feel and premier design; the Level 10 GT. Coming hot off the back of numerous awards including our own eTeknix gold, the Level 10 GT sees a new sibling, the Level 10 GT Snow Edition.

As you may have anticipated, the snow edition is mainly white on the exterior and shares the same aesthetic appeal and design as its brother. The changes aren’t entirely cosmetic though. An internal USB 3.0 header makes a hugely welcomed arrival on the snow edition. The migration to more of a blue lighting theme is an excellent decision by Thermaltake’s design team, allowing a smooth arctic white and subtle blue appearance. Fundamental features which set the Level 10 GT apart from the chasing pack haven’t been changed meaning that you won’t have to make the compromise between a more fitting style or better performance, Thermaltake’s Level 10 GT Snow Edition has everything that its predecessor did and more.

We have explained the background and features to the £215/$270 Level 10 GT Snow Edition, so without further ado, let’s head on into the main review.

Fractal Design are a Swedish brand who specialise in the engineering and designing of cases. Their concept is “to provide products with an extraordinary design level, without compromising the important factors of quality, functionality and pricing. “. They took the market by the throat back in 2009 when the extremely popular and somewhat revolutionary Define R2 was released and soon became a fan favourite. The Define R2 was very popular due to its ‘no nonsense’ appearance which lacked the ‘bling’ factor that so many people hate. It offered some of the features that we have become accustomed to from the likes of Lian Li and Corsair, but at a significantly lower price. The Define R3 was a worthy successor which added useful features such as more colour choices, better cooling capabilities and improved cable management. The Define R3 however was a somewhat dignified exit, if only temporarily, to the quiet operating cases that the Define series were built to offer.

Enough about the history of Fractal Design, let’s move on to the case we will be reviewing today, the Fractal Design Core 3000. The Core 3000 is a mid tower case which retails at around £50/$75. Fractal Design’s goal with the Core 3000 was to offer an elegant appearance which is understated and not overwhelming or intrusive as well as good cooling performance for expensive hardware. The case itself features 7, yes that’s right, 7 fan mounting locations, 4 of which support 140mm fans. A combination of 7 PCI expansion slots, 6 3.5”/2.5” HDD trays and 2 5.25” (1 external 3.5” bay with the included adapter) bays ensure that cooling performance and exquisite looks aren’t the only weapons in the Core 3000’s arsenal.

An all black interior is very smooth on the eye, especially with the welcomed contrast of the pure white PCI shields and HDD trays. Both of the 140mm fans and the single 120mm fan that Fractal Design include use a black frame with white blades which adds to the black with touches of white styling.

The Core 3000 is one of Fractal Design’s first attempts at conquering the mainstream market. Will it be enough of a success to challenge the rulers of this flooded category?

Thermaltake produce a wide range of products that includes some quality power supplies and a variety of gaming peripherals under their Tt eSPORTS brand. But one of their key areas of expertise is in the PC case market. While they have a sizeable range of budget cases, they have proved that they can produce high quality top end cases like the original Thermaltake Level 10.

Today we are going to look at one of Thermaltake’s latest cases, the Armor A30, which boasts quite an impressive feature set for a small form factor case. It supports Micro ATX motherboards alongside a full size PSU, a couple of solid state drives and long graphics cards so is excellent for taking to LAN parties or for an exotic-looking HTPC.

In the past few years we have seen a vast number of cases being released around the £100 mark from a number of manufacturers like Corsair and Lian Li. We have looked at a number of these cases and have been generally impressed with what they have to offer for the money. At this price point, we would usually expect a plentiful feature set which includes good cable management, a high quality finish, water cooling support and good airflow.

We have looked at a couple of cases from Enermax in the past which have wowed us with their jazzy Apollish Vegas fans which give them a bit of bling that the competition doesn’t posses. But other than that, the cases we’ve looked at have been quite average and haven’t really wowed us in any other respect. Don’t get us wrong, they haven’t been bad but they just don’t quite compete with the other offerings on the market.

Hopefully their latest case, the Enermax SpineRex, will be able to buck this trend and crush the competition. We have it on our test bench today and are ready to see whether it really justifies it’s price tag of around £120. While most cases at this price point are mid-tower models, the Spinerex is actually a full tower case, meaning it supports extended ATX motherboards.

One of the newer case manufacturers to the market is BitFenix who started producing cases last year. Since then they have added to their range or products with the Alchemy modding accessories and range of Spectre fans.

Today we are going to look at the Colossus Venom Edition case from BitFenix. This is a special edition of their original Colossus case which features green and red LED lighting instead blue and red LED which feature on the standard case.