| Raidmax Seiran Mid-Tower Computer Case |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Cases | ||||||||
| Written by Doug Dallam | ||||||||
| Sunday, 04 December 2011 | ||||||||
Page 4 of 6
Closer Look: InteriorThis is the business side of the case. Here we can see all nine drive bays, the CPU hole, cable routes, and some spaghetti coming out of the top. Altogether this is a pretty clean interior.
This is the internal cable canal. It's also about a half inch deep. As I stated earlier, if you run your cables through this groove and into the side panel space, you get a total of about one inch of cable space. If you're like me, however, and just want to cram your cables under the side panel and get that sucker closed, you might have a problem.
Remember I was saying that the drive layout was a little peculiar? That's because of the way Raidmax mounts the single fan in the front. You can see here that there is, indeed, and as previously mentioned, nothing in the front of this case, save bay covers. This is another clean aspect of this case.
Here it is. The front fan mounts to two of the drive mounts. The fan/drive mounts are a little different from the regular 3.5" drive mounts. That's why these two are for 2.5" drives, lest your 3.5" drives protrude far into the motherboard area.
Here you go. You lose around an inch and a half of space if you choose to mount a 3.5" drive here. But with four 3.5" bays, you're going to have plenty of room to mount them elsewhere. Really, you can mount any 9 drives wherever you want. So mix and match at your own will.
This is something that was missing from the Blade, drive caddies. They function like any other caddy, and lock down with the tool-less drive locks. With the Blade, using only these locks left the drives in danger of falling out, one, because there was no drive caddy and the locks were sloppy when set on a bare drive, and two, with the Blade, you only got one side of locks. The Seiran gives you drive locks on both sides, all the way up. Although not a really tight fit, the drives, after installation into the plastic caddies, lock down fairly snugly. If you want to screw them down, then you'll need to either screw into the plastic caddy itself, or use your own steel 3.5" drive caddy.
|
||||||||
Comments
"plasticware, or "steel-astic." good god man! I think you just Shakespeare'd all over yourself LOL.
On page one , I think you probably meant 'beveled' as opposed to "cantilevered"
anyway, nice review. I am looking for a gaming case for my nephew, and I think you have ruled this one out for me :)
And yes, I will have it changed to "beveled" as "cantilever" has a completely different meaning. Thanks.
I have another review due out in the next couple of days. It's of the Rosewill Ranger mid tower. It's not a bad case and if you need cooling, it's a wind tunnel. I actually gave it a recommendation.
well I will keep an eye out for that review. and keep up the colorful expansion of the language no matter what they say. You can take it, you are after all..."old flat top' :)
i'm really looking forward to it released..
Personally I don't see much to like about this case. I suppose it's pretty good for $100, but as you mentioned there are other cases in that price range that IMHO are better cases. Personally I couldn't do without removable drive cages any more. I also prefer sideways mounted cages over the front/back older style cages because you can completely hide the cables. I know looks are subjective, but personally I think this case doesn't look very good. I don't like the window design, nor the front bezel, nor the convex design on the right side panel (I realize it may be very functional for cable management, but I don't think it looks very good myself). I also don't like the big latches on the 5 1/4" drive bay covers (I think they could have found a better way to spend the development funds). Considering how seldom you have to remove them, I really don't mind interior plastic clips if it avoids big ugly latches on the exterior. I really don't like the big square front panel at all.
I suppose for $100 you could do worse, but there are better cases available for about the same price.
Here's a test fit I did of one of the Corsair 200mm fans on the optional (at the time) side panel mesh for the 600T. Looks pretty similar to me.
#img824.imageshack.us/img824/9102/p4270001.jpg