Value Case Roundup: A Look at the Affordable
by Purav Sanghani on February 1, 2005 12:35 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Raidmax ATX-268WSP
Our first contender, the 268WSP from Raidmax, is based on the design of Raidmax's Astro 268 PC case. Raidmax has a decent number of products under their belt and has a very strong position in the industry. Their products range from gaming chassis, power supplies and accessories as most case companies do, as well as budget-priced cases like the 268WSP that we have in our hands today.
External Design
At first glance, we would not have thought the 268WSP to be a value priced chassis. Raidmax has taken a simple metal case and covered it with a silver shell with a clear acrylic on top to give it a sleek look. Our sample is silver in color with chrome accents (i.e. drive bay covers and power and reset buttons).
The front bezel consists of four 5-1/4"; and two 3-1/2"; exposed drive bays, which we see on most mid-tower cases today. The bottom half of the bezel holds the power and reset buttons as well as the power and HDD activity LEDs, which are lined up vertically down the center of the case.
At the bottom of the bezel, Raidmax has implemented a fold down door to hide the dual USB ports as well as cutouts to install audio in/out and two FireWire ports. Being a value-priced case, we don't expect the manufacturer to add in all of the little features, but making a case with all of the auxiliary ports included would bring it a few points in the end.
The right side panel has nothing interesting to look at, but the left side panel has a rectangular window to show off the rig, as well as 80mm fan vents at the bottom of the panel. They seem to be placed in some efficient spots to exhaust air from certain components. Taking the side panels off may be slightly difficult, since there is no indentation to get a good grip and slide it back.
Internal Design
As we take the left side panel off of the 268WSP, we notice that the side mounted fans are indeed exhaust fans, which will most certainly help move out warm air created by the graphics card and hard disk drives to improve temperature conditions.
At the front of the case, we see that the 268WSP has room for up to four HDDs and two more 3-1/2"; drives such as floppy drives or memory card readers. Above the 3-1/2"; drive bays are four 5-1/4"; drive bays. Neither set of bays is tool-less, which we weren't expecting anyway.
We also noticed that the slots on the sides of the 5-1/4"; drive bays are a bit wide for the normal mounting screws provided with cases. We tested these out and though they do not pose a significant threat, we wondered why they were cut out this way. The 3-1/2"; drive bays have the standard holes with the top two having standard width slots in which to mount devices.
The motherboard tray is somewhat flexible in that it accepts ATX form factor motherboards up to 12"; x 10.5";. To mount in a board, we use the supplied screw-in stand-offs. There are plenty of holes provided to support a variety of motherboards from various companies.
The expansion slots are kept simple. To use the slots, we need to punch out the factory covers. From there, we use screws to mount the add-in cards in place, which proves to be secure enough for typical applications.
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Phantronius - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
All these cases reak of over the top design and piss ass quality standards. I've worked on a wide variety of cases and I gotta tell you, the cheap as cases look and feel like they were put together with monkeys.There something definently wrong when a steel case starts to bend from the weight of a PSU.
TheInvincibleMustard - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
Agreed with others (#13, #46) about the PowMax ... the words "PowMax" and "high quality power supplies" do not belong in the same sentence unless there's the words "does not make" inserted between them. ;)All in all, though, I've got to echo what others are saying here. There is very little mention about the PSUs that come with these units (including that one that has 12A (!!!) on the +12V line). Your "average" system is way out of whack for these machines, too ... explain how someone is going to spend $100 on a high-quality PSU like that OCZ and then spend $25 on a case? Try again, Purav ... this time maybe with a system that would better fit the budget ideas behind a case of this price range? Sempron, s754, 6200, etc etc.
Agentbolt - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
PowMax PSUs are extremely high quality, huh? Tell that to my old Abit NF7 that got fried by a ridiculously out of whack PowMax 400W PSU. Oh, and the 8,000 or so ohter people complaining the same thing happened to them on NewEgg.comPowMax PSU are absolutely and utter garbage that are too light to even use a paper weight. Anyone trusting an entire computer's worth of components to one needs to be shot.
hoppa - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
#44 i couldnt agree with you more. among many fellow comp sci majors here at school ive got one of, if not the, fastest system, and im only sitting on a barton 3000+ / 9800 pro. i do have the zalman though =PAvalon - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
We have hand-picked a full system that we believe is the current system setup for the average user.PC Mid-Tower Test Bed
Chaintech VNF3-250
AMD Athlon64 3200+
OCZ PC3200 DDR x 2
Zalman CNPS7000 Copper
Seagate Barracuda 120GB SATA
ATI 9800XT
OCZ 520W PowerStream
What the hell is that? Since when do average, everyday Joe's use 520w OCZ PSUs and Athlon 64 processors? Most users who would consider cases like these are using sempron, athlon, celeron, and duron systems.
If you want a decent budget case, my favorite is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
$24 with shipping. Comes with no fans, but the PSU is sturdy and will support Athlon XPs, Durons, Semprons, and Celerons just fine, sans overclocking. The case itself is sturdy, and there are no sharp edges in it. Aesthetically speaking, it doesn't look beautiful, but it looks far from bad. I've used this case on quite a few occassions. However, I too would recommend ponying up the extra $20-$30 for an Antec case.
Cygni - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
Dude, give it a rest... anandtech isnt a goverment body, and they dont have to retract anything, haha. EVERYONE has comments about how this or that detail is just BARELY off, or because AT "Shouldnt" be publishing an article because its aimed at the low end, or the high end, or the IT sector, or the Mac world, or whatever. The comments on most AT articles these days are just forums for people to bitch meaninglessly.sirmixmasta - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
The Codegen 6209 has USB 1.1 front USB ports instead of USB 2.0 ports like every other new case. This case should CLEARLY NOT BE THE EDITORS CHOICE. The front USB ports will be useless for anyone with a new motherboard. I personally own other Codegen cases with the same USB 1.1 front USB ports and they will not work with any newer motherboard that is USB 2.0 compliant. The cases front usb cabling/connector will not correctly fit a USB 2.0 motherboard pin-out. Even when altered to fit, you will find that use of the front USB ports with a 2.0 complaint USB device will lock up all your USB ports or worse, freeze your entire system.This article should be retracted for the time being until this fact is confirmed or explained in some way by the author. I find it hard to believe that AnandTech would recommend such a case with this obvious shortcoming. Additionally, some of the other comments by readers need to be addressed as well.
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?desc...
http://www.codegengroup.com/03_products/index.asp?...
sdfg - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
Kristopher,Yeah, I think I do, too...
dgkulzer - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
I bought a evercase 4252 for 45 bucks without a PSU. It had all the features that I needed like space for a 120 fan in the rear, 2 front USB, non-flashy design, and good airflow. I bought this case to replace a more expensive case (Antec Sonota) which I didnt like because it was the first case I ever had with a door over the optical drives and it annoyed me.My computer now has a Seasonic SS450 PSU, AMD64 3200 (S754), 1 gig of ram etc and I don't think I will ever buy a 'expensive' case again. If you look around you can find some very nice low-cost cases. I would generally replace the PS though
IceWindius - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
I love my Chieftec Aluminum Dragon. Until Antec switches to aluminum, I will continue to turn plain jane cases into works of art using chieftecs