Raijintek Agos Mid-Tower Chassis Review

Introduction

Raijintek have been on a winning streak ever since they hit the market, launching one award-winning product after another. Their real strong point has been class leading performance at affordable prices when compared to the competition and their CPU and GPU coolers are a prime example of this. Raijintek are now looking to tackle the chassis market and we’ve got their budget friendly Agos at our disposal to see if they can do the same for the chassis market, as they have for the cooling market.

The Agos is certainly affordable, with a price tag of just under £40 from most major retailers. This is a fiercely competitive part of the market and while many of us dream of owning ultra high-end chassis products that cost £100, the reality is that £30-50 is where most of us end up spending our money, so it’ll be interesting to see what the Raijintek Agos has to offer for this kind of money.

The chassis comes equipped with all of the features you could ask for when building a gaming rig; lots of airflow with dust filters, modular storage bays, USB 3.0 support, water cooling support, room for large air coolers, space for extra fans, tool free drive installation and room for large graphics cards of up to 410mm; more than enough for even the largest cards on the market.

The packaging is fairly straight forward, with a black and white image of the chassis on the front, the product logo and a quick run down of the major features and specifications (see above).

Around the back you’ll find a more detailed run down of the specifications as well as a representation of the chassis interior and fittings.

In the box you’ll find everything you need to get your components installed; including cable ties, screws and an internal system speaker.

Exterior

We have the white Agos at our disposal today, which has been treated with a powder white finish and high quality white and black plastic trim. The left side panel is held in place with a pair of thumb screws and features a pair of 120 / 140mm fan mounts.

The right side is a plain white panel and is also held in place with thumb screws.

The front panel features a large mesh section at the bottom and ventilated mesh 5.25″ drive bay covers. The three 5.25″ drive bays have clip-in covers which can be removed from the front of the chassis for easy drive installation.

Extra ventilation has been added to the left and right sides of the front panel.

At the top right you’ll find a pair of LEDs, the power and reset buttons, as well as the usual inputs and outputs.

The back of the chassis features a single 120mm fan mount, with a 120mm fan pre-installed, seven expansion slots, two water/cable routing grommets and the PSU cut-out.

There are four large feet on the underside of the chassis, with a thick rubber pad on each; these provide great ground clearance that allows for lots of airflow to the bottom air vents.

There is a long slide-out washable dust filter on the base, this provides clean air to the PSU air intake as well as the bottom 120mm fan mount.

Interior

The interior of the chassis is finished in powder black with white plastic fittings. There is a large CPU cooler mounting cut-out behind the motherboard and three cable routing cut-outs with rubber grommets.

There are four rubber pegs under the PSU mount to help reduce vibrations.

There are two hard drive caddies, each with support for 3 x 2.5″ (with screws) or 3 x 3.5″ (tool free) drives.

The 5.25″ drive bays are all fitted with tool-free quick-lock mechanisms for easy drive installation.

The hard drive bays slide out from the front and feature rubber washers to help provide a good fit and help reduce drive vibrations.

The rear fan is a really nice quality black and white Raijintek 120mm model and comes fitted with a sleeved 3 pin cable.

Each of the seven expansion slots comes fitted with a reusable ventilated cover, which are fitted with quick release thumb screws.

The top section of the chassis has room for 2 x 140mm fans or a 240mm radiator.

There isn’t a huge amount of room around the back for routing cables, but it should be more than enough if you take a little extra care to keep things neat and tidy.

Cable management is made a little easier thanks to plentiful cable tie down loops.

Complete System

The Raijintek Agos is very easy to work with, the combination of easily removable hard drive bays and tool free mounts meant that I was able to put the whole system together in just twenty minutes. The build looks really nice too, there isn’t a huge amount of space for cable routing, but it’s still done a great job of keeping this build looking neat and tidy.

The Corsair H80i water cooler fits the back fan mount with ease; you may even get push-pull fans installed if you’re using a slimmer radiator.

The front hard drive bays were very easy to remove; simply take out two thumb screws and slide them right out.

The Sapphire R9 270X Toxic measures in at 310mm, so removing the hard drive bays was required, but this still leaves us with three 3.5″ bays and we now also have direct airflow from the front mounted fan to the GPU.

The hard drive trays are really nice quality. They’re plastic moulds, but they’re thick and durable; unlike many of the flimsy ones that we often find in chassis’ at this price range.

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The Raijintek Agos is a very reasonable £39.95 from Overclockers UK, which may not sound incredibly cheap, but just take a look on Google at other chassis that cost between £35 – £45 and you’ll soon see that this is of a much higher quality than most other chassis in this price range.

Overview

Raijintek have proved time and time again that they can produce an award-winning, premium quality product at an affordable price and the Raijintek Agos is a prime example of this. The Agos is cheap to buy, but still comes with all of the features you would expect to find on a chassis that costs at least 50% more; you’ve got removable hard drive bays, tool free drive trays, cable routing with rubber grommets, radiator support, high quality pre-installed fans, dust filters and more!

Build quality isn’t the best in the world, but it’s certainly some of the best in this price range. The panels are nicely finished and everything fits and locks into place easy enough. There are no noticeable rattles or squeaky panels, and everything feels nice and solid; you can’t really ask for anything else in this price range.

The Agos is nicely styled too, with both the interior and exterior being treated to a well finished paint job that will make any build look neat and tidy. The front panel easily bears the look of a more expensive chassis and you certainly wouldn’t feel ashamed to have it sat on top of your desk where everyone can see it. If I had to pick one fault with the design, it would be the cheap looking red and greed LED indicators in the top right hand corner of the front panel; surely these would have been better as white LEDs, or any other matching pair.

There isn’t much else to say about the Agos, it’s just budget chassis after all, so it’s not exactly packed full of crazy features and gimmicks. It has everything you would need for a budget rig as much as it does a high-end gaming rig; so while it lacks anything truly unique, it’s got more than enough to satisfy the needs for your next build.

Pros

• Nice overall design
• Very competitive price
• Good build quality
• Modular storage bays
• Room for very long graphics cards (with drive bays removed)
• Good quality pre-installed fans
• Cable management
• Dust filters

Cons

• Front panel LEDs look a little cheap (although you could always disconnect the headers from the motherboard)

“Raijintek are quickly making a name for themselves in the PC component industry; their coolers are some of the best we’ve ever tested and their first entry into the chassis market is fiercely competitive. This is a simple chassis done very well and the price makes this one of the best budget chassis available today.”

Raijintek Agos Mid-Tower Chassis Review

Thank you Raijintek for providing us with this information