Value Case Roundup: A Look at the Affordable

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.