The Final Five: Our Last Round Of Mainstream Gaming Cases

Buc Intake

A single 120 mm intake fan feeds cool air to the graphics card area through space between hard drive trays. A clip-on air filter reduces the likelihood that dust will eventually clog other fans.

Atop The Buc

The Buc’s 120 mm top-panel exhaust fan is mounted to the plastic panel itself.

Though that doesn’t leave any radiator options, In Win does make the panel easy to remove for fan service.

Buc Air Filtration

While the intake fan has a separate dust filter that’s a little harder to access, the Buc’s power supply dust filter that's a lot easier to clean. It slides out from the back edge of the enclosure's base.

MSI Ravager

Sharing structure with the firm’s Steath, MSI’s Ravager uses flatter exterior panels, alternative drive bay layout, and blue “slash” graphics to win over customers with differing aesthetic tastes and storage needs. Exterior panel design affects both noise and cooling, so we’re giving this model a separate test.

Ports are moved to the top panel, but the dual 140/120 mm fan mounts on the side panel remain identical to the Stealth.

Ravager Ports

The area surrounding all of those front-panel connectors would make a great storage tray, if it wasn't for the fact that there are four ports down there you don't want to get clogged with gunk. MSI includes two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 interfaces, along with a pair of audio jacks.

Behind MSI’s Ravager

Two grometted holes that help enable external liquid cooling are placed low on the Ravager’s back panel for convenient routing to liquid-cooled graphics cards. Once you run hoses there, however, you'll have limited access to the cards themselves.

Inside The Ravager

Six hard drive trays and three 5.25” drive bays occupy the front portion of the MSI Ravager’s interior, compared to the 4+4 layout of the Stealth. The Ravager also moves its hard drive cages slightly forward compared to the Stealth, yielding more space for add-in cards.

Ravager Cable Management

Approximately three-quarters of an inch between the motherboard tray and right side-panel is enough for power cables. Access holes are rolled to prevent scraping the cables (or your fingers), but they don't employ grommets, which vendors sometimes use to clean up aesthetics a bit.

Expandable Card Space

Shown partially opened, the Ravager’s three center 3.5” drive trays are mounted on a slide-out cage. Removing the cage entirely creates about 17" of room for the longest add-in cards.

Pins on hinged brackets lock 5.25” devices into external bays, and side pins lock 3.5” drives into trays. Smaller 2.5” drives have to be screwed to the base of 3.5” drive trays.

Ravager Intake

MSI extended the Ravager’s card space by moving the case's intake fan forward, placing it between the structural sheet and plastic face panel. That single fan includes a dust filter, though the installation kit doesn’t include an extra filter for the optional second intake fan.

Notice that the mounting holes for a second fan are offset the wrong way, towards the enclosure's interior. Securing a fan to the inside requires the removal of the aforementioned three-tray hard drive cage.

TOPICS
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
  • bit_user
    I'm quite happy with my Lian Li PC-9F, thank you. It has good airflow, plenty of drive bays, good noise reduction, easily removable air filters on the intakes , and I'm a fan of its mature, understated looks. When you use a case like that, all the small touches really make you feel like you got your money's worth.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    bit_userI'm quite happy with my Lian Li PC-9F, thank you. It has good airflow, plenty of drive bays, good noise reduction, easily removable air filters on the intakes , and I'm a fan of its mature, understated looks. When you use a case like that, all the small touches really make you feel like you got your money's worth.Yes, I'm usually a fan of Lian-Li's designs. On the other hand, the Antec Solo II is quieter than most of the Lian-Li's I've tested, and more durable, so there are options within these three sets of five cases that will please a wide group of buyers.

    Actually, Lian-Li doesn't usually compete in price-based roundups. I think some of that is due to their use of materials that bolster performance but boost price by a larger amount than performance. Appearance doesn't show up in a performance value chart, but the price you pay for it does.
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    Would love to see benchmarks on these (airflow/heat and noise consumption).
    Reply
  • Crashman
    JOSHSKORNWould love to see benchmarks on these (airflow/heat and noise consumption).Looks like the benchmarks are coming up a week from Tuesday. If you check every day until then, the increased traffic might give the the bosses justification to add another editor :)
    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    I would love to see a case specifically designed for GPUs that vent their exhaust sideways instead of through the rear.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    A Bad DayI would love to see a case specifically designed for GPUs that vent their exhaust sideways instead of through the rear.One of the cases in THIS preview (Raidmax Seiran) has a side fan that can only be mounted as exhaust. But have you considered that a vented side panel that lets out twice the noise kind of defeats the purpose of a multi-fan GPU cooler that makes half the noise?
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    CrashmanLooks like the benchmarks are coming up a week from Tuesday. If you check every day until then, the increased traffic might give the the bosses justification to add another editorHopefully a competent editor...one that at least knows where the spell check button is. I'm not asking for too much, am I?

    Anyway, I'll be looking forward to this. I'm on the fence about getting a new rig, now. That Antec Solo II case looks good to me.
    Reply
  • Onus
    The Antec case I'm sure is high quality, but being limited to only three drives limits my enthusiasm for it. If I use a SSD boot drive and a RAID-1 for my data, I'm already out of drive bays. An adapter in a 5-1/4 slot isn't an option; it's only got two, one for an optical drive and one for just one of: a utility drawer (those are really useful), a memory-card reader, OR a fan controller.
    The InWin Buc was interesting; reminiscent of a 1950s locomotive. Some people will probably like that look and find it imminently suitable; although it isn't my personal style I can still appreciate it.
    MSI has created another child's toy, and Raidmax looks gimmicked out the kazoo with a lot of plastic parts that look about as sturdy as a sugar wafer.
    Reply
  • cknobman
    I really like the Antec and Corsair designs but some of the other vendors cases in this roundup are fugly as heck.

    I guess I am more of a less outspoken person these days vs my younger days when I built PC with flame throwing skulls illuminated by blue and red leds all over the side panels.

    FTR I absolutely love my Antec P280!!!!
    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    CrashmanOne of the cases in THIS preview (Raidmax Seiran) has a side fan that can only be mounted as exhaust. But have you considered that a vented side panel that lets out twice the noise kind of defeats the purpose of a multi-fan GPU cooler that makes half the noise?
    Maybe a box could be placed over the side exhaust with only one opening, to the rear. Not as efficient cooling, but it should muffle more of the noise.

    The only issue I can think of is that it may look unsightly.
    Reply