Closer Look: Exterior

The Ranger is a clean design, perhaps so clean it's dirty, but too clean is better than too busy. Here we have beveled front corners, four 5 1/4" bays, and a non removable front fan intake. What's unclean about this case is that you can't clean the filters behind the front faceplate very easily. The front pops off easily enough; but remember, there are wires coming out of it. Thus, cleaning from the inside is impractical. I guess the only way to clean this front intake is from the outside. Nor can you pop-off the front intake bays because Rosewill saw fit to make the front fan area nonremovable. What's more, the filter material is unremovable from the faceplate itself. If that weren't enough, the bay covers are only removable from the back, and do not come out from the front of the faceplate. This, my friends, is what I meant when I said, “Perhaps so clean it's dirty.”

Here we have the intake side view. Two windows here. If you need to see into your case, you got it. If you need twin 120mm fans (optionally), you got it. It's always nice to see cooling options offered on a gaming case. However, one of the fans may interfere with your video card's power cables, depending on how fat your card is, which means one less side fan.

This is the top and you can see that powerhouse 140mm fan sitting there. Top fans are another plus to any gaming case. Yes, I said "fan(s)" because with the Ranger, you can mount two 140mm or 120mm fans in the top. That, my friends, means we're up to four fans already, and that should make us pretty happy, indeed.

The bottom. Note here the negation of an item: no power supply filter. (Strike One.) Interesting that there are slots for the filter, just no filter. Note the addition of an item: a bottom 120/140mm fan mount, which more than makes up for the missing PSU intake filter. If your PSU is long, only the 120mm bottom fan will fit. Even so, we're now up to five fans, and that's not including the front and the rear. The feet are hard plastic, which means impact tests should be avoided.

Fairly standard meat and potatoes here. Seven expansion slots, water cooling or party holes, and a darn good looking hole-vent design. The water cooling holes are in the right place too, given you can mount a radiator on the top of this case.

Guess what? There isn't really anything to talk about on the outside of this case, so we're skipping the "detailed" exterior section. The only thing that could have gone in the "Detailed Exterior" section is the front I/O Panel, which you see here. Two USB 3.0 ports (with a real internal connector), an eSATA port, mic and earphone I/O, and a red LED with a reset and power switch.

"Hal, do you detect anything missing from the Rosewill Ranger Closer Look Selection." "No Dave, I do not. Why, is there something missing of which I should be aware?" "No HAL, and if you ever miss anything, I'll shove a 12" screwdriver right up your . . . ." Well, if it's good with Dave and HAL, it's good enough for me, which means we're off to the interior section.

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