Although they often don't get as much love as they deserve, cases are critical components in any new system build. That's why we've made an effort to not only write up in-depth build-oriented reviews of enclosures, but also photograph them from every possible angle. If you haven't already read In Pictures: Five Mainstream Gaming Cases, Previewed, check that piece out before this one.
When we build our $1000 PCs for the System Builder Marathon, cases in the $80-120 price range dominate the reader-favorite list. When we recently polled the audience on what they'd most like to see in an upcoming round-up, we even had a few folks let us know that they wanted a comparison of everything in that range. Though the constant flow of new hardware makes it impossible to go into that much depth, we promised we'd do what we could.
Given so many potential candidates, we decided to do a series of round-ups with five or six models per story. We then invited more than two dozen companies to send up to three of their most competitive cases, giving them just three unobtrusive requirements:
- The cases had to be priced between $80 and $120.
- The cases had to hold full ATX components.
- The cases had to provide an internal front-panel USB 3.0 connector.
That third requirement was a big problem for many manufacturers. But it was important to us because Tom's Hardware is the site that begged, pleaded, and eventually coerced motherboard companies to agree on an internal header standard, even as the forum that controls those standards dragged its feet.
Case companies have been so slow to embrace this standard that our requirement dropped a field of over 50 products to a collection of only 15. Fifteen products is an easy number to manage, dividing cleanly into a three-part series. We recently published In Pictures: Five Mainstream Gaming Cases, Previewed to show you some of the features found on our first five contenders, and today's review concludes part one of the series.

| Corsair 300R | In Win Mana 136 | MSI Stealth | NZXT Phantom 410 | Xigmatek Midgard II | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | |||||
| Height | 18.7" | 17.0" | 18.6" | 20.5" | 18.4" |
| Width | 8.3" | 7.5" | 8.1" | 8.7" | 8.1" |
| Depth | 19.4" | 19.4" | 19.5" | 21.4" | 19.6" |
| Space Above Motherboard | 1.4" | 0.5" | 1.3" | 1.25"**** | 0.2" |
| Card Length | 11.8" to 16.3"** | 11.5" | 11.5" to 16.4"*** | 10.8", 11.8"^, 16.8"^^ | 11.9" to 16.7"^^ |
| Weight | 14.1 Pounds | 12.0 Pounds | 14.8 Pounds | 20.8 Pounds | 16.1 Pounds |
| Cooling | |||||
| Front Fans (alternatives) | 1 x 140 mm (2 x 140/120 mm) | 1 x 120 mm (2 x 120 mm) | 1 x 120 mm (1 x 140/160/180 mm) | 1 x 120mm (1 x 140 mm, 2 x 120 mm) | 1 x 120 mm (2 x 120 mm) |
| Rear Fans (alternatives) | 1 x 140 mm (None) | 1 x 120 mm (1 x 92 mm) | 1 x 120 mm (1 x 92 mm) | 1 x 120 mm (None) | 1 x 120 mm (1 x 92 mm) |
| Top Fans (alternatives) | None (2 x 140/120 mm) | None (2 x 120 mm) | None (2 x 120 mm, 1 x 140/160/180 mm) | 1 x 140 mm (2 x 140/120 mm) | None (2 x 140/120 mm) |
| Left Side (alternatives) | None (2 x 140/120 mm) | None (2 x 120 mm) | None (2 x 140/120 mm) | None (1 x 140/120 mm) | None (2 x 140/120 mm) |
| Right Side (alternatives) | None | None | None | None | None |
| Drive Bays | |||||
| 5.25" External | Three | Three | Four | Three | Three |
| 3.5" External | None | None | None | None | None |
| 3.5" Internal | Four | Six | Four | Six | Six |
| 2.5" Internal | Four* | Two | Four* | Six* | Six* |
| Card Slots | Seven | Seven | Seven | Seven | Seven |
| Price | $80 | $80 | $100 | $100 | $85 |
| *Shared on 3.5" tray **Slots 1-5 ***Slots 2-4 ****w/o Top Fan ^w/o fan bracket ^^w/o Center Cage | |||||
Three of today’s cases weigh less than 15 pounds, yet all five cases use a steel structure. In other words, the lightest of today’s cases is going to inherently have less rigidity than we might expect of products priced over $80. We’ll try to reserve most of that critique for our conclusion, though.
Corsair’s Carbide Series 300R has enough space for an oversized ATX motherboard up to 11.8” wide, with an empty space between upper and lower bays that allows graphics cards up to 16.3” long to fit into slots one through five.

While most standoffs are threaded to accept screws, Corsair places a stud in the center of the motherboard tray to positively locate the board. This simplifies pushing the board into position when the other screws are installed.
Limiting front-panel connectivity to a pair of USB 3.0 ports helps Corsair to reduce the number of cables. Ditching the old AC'97 audio header in favor of HD Audio connector further cleans up the installation. Anyone still using AC'97 should probably consider upgrading his or her motherboard before splurging on a new case.

Carbide Series 300R hardware includes a variety of screws and standoffs to mount the motherboard, SSDs, and optional fans.
Offset mounting of 2.5” drives is required to make a single tray work in cases that include backplanes (though the 300R has no backplane). A 3.5” drive locator pin must still be removed from its silicone noise dampener to make room for the smaller drive, which is screwed to the bottom of the tray.

Manipulating a latch on each 5.25” bay allows devices to be added and removed without tools. Each drive is secured on only one side, though a tab on the opposite side has a bump which centers on one of the drive’s screw holes.

Our P9X79 WS motherboard is about 0.9” wider than the ATX standard, yet Corsair's case swallows it with room to spare. That extra board width does, however, partially block certain cable holes, requiring the ATX and PCIe power cables to follow an alternative path.

The finished product is stylish yet plain, which are two words that should only be used together when describing an object (Ed.: What, as opposed to someone's significant other?).
With a structural drive cage that runs from the floor to the optical bays, In Win’s Mana 136 limits maximum card length to 11.5”. There’s still enough room to hold our slightly-oversized motherboard, however.

A USB 2.0 double-row connector feeds only a single port, while the two USB 3.0 ports get the now-standard 19-pin connector. In Win supports both AC'97 and HD Audio from separate connectors on a single lead, similarly providing separate power LED connections on two-pin (standard) and three-pin (Asus) connectors.

Standoffs are pressed-into the Mana 136 motherboard tray, reducing the size of the hardware installation kit. A slot cover is included however, which might appear a little strange until we look at the back panel.
A single piece of sheet metal is intended to hold all cards in place, though each slot also supports a traditional mounting screw. Only one mounting screw is included, though, since all but one of the installed slot covers is a knock-out (the hallmark of less-expensive cases). The chassis doesn’t even include mounting screws, since drive screws of the same size have specially-shaped heads for use with keyhole-style installation slots.
Tabs at the end of those slots grab one screw of each drive. Since the casing of a 3.5” hard drive provides half the structure of the Mana 136’s hard drive mounting system, 2.5” drives are excluded from those bays. Up to two SSDs are instead screwed into eight holes of the bottom panel.

With no top hole to run our eight-pin ATX/EPS 12 V power cable and no space above the motherboard to even place a hole, we ran the CPU power cable around the motherboard’s perimeter. We were also forced to track down a straight SATA data cable for the SSD, since our motherboard only includes right-angle cables.

The quality of In Win’s Mana 136 is found in its sturdy plastic face panel and textured white paint. Blue LED backlighting adds even more flair to this stylish case.
MSI’s Stealth provides 11.9” of motherboard mounting space that opens up to 16.4” at slots two through four. A bracket between upper and lower bays offers two sliding card support brackets. This can be removed if it gets in the way of a single super-long, dual-GPU board that you plan to install, which may require the extra space.

Thin shoulders on two factory-mounted standoffs positively locate the board as you're installing its screws. The remaining hardware comes in one of two bags from the installation kit. MSI also throws in a couple of foam support blocks and an MSI dog tag.

Slides on MSI’s trays allow them to be spread when inserting locating pins into 3.5” drives, unlike competing designs that rely on tray flex to achieve the same thing. SSDs screw into the center, which prevents the tray from being spread.
A swinging pin assembly secures 5.25” drives into external bays.

Although it covers most of the Stealth’s cable access holes, our slightly-oversized motherboard fits fairly well. The photo shows our alternative cable path.

Though the design theme of MSI’s Stealth appears dated, the LED fan does get a little attention from onlookers.

NZXT designed its Phantom 410 with a removable hard drive cage, expanding the case’s normal 11.8” card space to 16.8” in the top five slots. Builders lose four internal bays as a compromise.

With both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 headers in the mix, NZXT cleans up visible cable clutter by paring back the front-panel audio connector to HD Audio-only. A second bunch of cables connect four of the front-panel fan controller’s six leads to optional fans, while the other two leads are factory-connected to included fans.
NZXT was kind enough to separate all of the Phantom 410’s installation hardware into separate bags.

Hard drives are removed from the reverse (right) side of the Phantom 410.
The Phantom 410 offsets 2.5” drives to one side of the tray. That'd be a necessary concession if the case had backplanes. It doesn't, though. Nevertheless, you still have to take a few seconds to remove the corresponding 3.5” mounting pins from their keyholes prior to screwing the smaller drive in place.

A sliding latch unlocks the 5.25” bays; pulling the latch releases its pins. The Phantom 410 secures external drives on only one side.

An internal fan bracket reduces top-slot card clearance to 10.8”, blocking access to the SATA connectors of our slightly-oversized motherboard. The bracket can be pivoted or removed.

Although removing the fan bracket may have helped our SATA cables fit, the extra width of our motherboard blocked access to needed cable entry holes. We removed the center drive cage to make room for cables to pass through, and didn’t bother to replace the lower cable hole’s grommet when we found that merely bumping it caused it to fall out again.
All cables holes have rolled edges, making the grommets superfluous anyway.

While this editor prefers cases without drive doors, it’s difficult to argue against the look NZXT achieved with the front of its Phantom 410. The upper part of the finished system looks brighter than normal for a different reason…

A multi-colored LED fan adds a little visual excitement, brightens up the look of our installed components, and is lit softly enough to prevent annoying distraction. The lighting can’t be disabled, but turning down the fan speed makes it appear dimmer.
Xigmatek’s Midgard II provides many of the internal design elements that made us like the NZXT Phantom 410, but leaves out a handful of its competitor's features, like those awkward internal grommets.

The Midgard II doesn’t have an internal fan controller, though a slot-mounted fan controller is included in its installation kit. Instead, the four-pin power connector is used by its top-panel drive dock, which supports 2.5” and 3.5” internal drives, externally.

Xigmatek’s installation kit uniquely includes a slot-panel triple-fan controller and a front-panel replacement cover, which is used for the thin optical drives found in notebooks. The Midgard II hosts only three 5.25” drives, but using a laptop's optical drive in the other external bay lets you use the trio of 5.25” bays for other devices.

The Midgard II compels you to install 2.5” drives in the center of its 3.5” trays so that you can skip the removal of drive-holder pins required on many competing models. The trays of those competing models are designed for use with non-existent backplanes.
Twisting the center knob of each drive latch 90° allows it to be pulled completely away from the drive cage, releasing its pins from the drive. Xigmatek secures drives from both sides with these latches, making the drive less wobbly, but more time-consuming to replace.

Similarities to the NZXT Phantom 410 continue in the Midgard II’s finished installation, with our slightly-oversized motherboard blocking required access holes. We again removed the center drive cage to create a place to route our ATX and PCIe cables.

The Midgard II adds ventilation and features without departing from the understated look that many experienced builders prefer.
| Test System Configuration | |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E): 3.30 GHz, Six Cores O/C to 4.25 GHz (34 x 125 MHz) at 1.40 V Core |
| CPU Cooler | Coolink Corator DS 120 mm Tower |
| Motherboard | Asus P9X79 WS: LGA 2011, Intel X79 Express, Firmware 0603 (11-11-2011) O/C at 125 MHz BCLK |
| RAM | G.Skill F3-17600CL9Q-16GBXLD 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-2200 Benchmarked at DDR3-1600 CAS 9 defaults |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce GTX 580: 772 MHz GPU, GDDR5-4008 Maximum Fan for Thermal Tests, SLI |
| Hard Drives | Samsung 470 Series MZ5PA256HMDR, 256 GB SSD |
| Sound | Integrated HD Audio |
| Network | Integrated Gigabit Networking |
| Power | Seasonic X760 SS-760KM ATX12V v2.3, EPS12V, 80 PLUS Gold |
| Software | |
| OS | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce 296.10 WHQL |
| Chipset | Intel INF 9.2.3.1020 |
We reused the test platform from Four ATX Cases For High-Capacity Water Cooling, Reviewed, but at an overclocked setting that’s more appropriate for air cooling. It includes Asus’ P9X79 WS and a sacrificial C0-stepping Core i7-3960X.
While we normally choose a cooler for its low noise and high cooling, Coolink’s Corator DS provides the moderately-low temperatures and moderately-high noise needed to properly evaluate the airflow and noise-dampening capabilities of these cases.

| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| Prime95 v25.8 | 64-bit executable, Small FFTs, 11 threads |
| 3DMark 11 | Version: 1.0.1.0, Extreme Preset: Graphics Test 1, Looped |
| RealTemp 3.40 | Average of maximum core readings at full CPU load |
| Galaxy CM-140 SPL Meter | Tested at 1/2 m, corrected to 1 m (-6 db), dB(A) weighting |
The two most closely-matched case designs take first and second place in our thermal tests, with the case that has the most factory-installed fans topping the chart.

While this editor finds drive doors inconvenient, they do occasionally help reduce the overall noise profile of a case. Thicker material also dampens noise, while vent size and location have a profound effect on how much noise escapes.

Similarities in internal design are not proven in noise dampening, as NZXT and Xigmatek take opposite ends of the chart. Corsair’s 300R is the quietest of the three thin cases, and it is also the coolest of those three.
For our cooling to noise comparison, the word relative refers to how each case compares to the average of cases in this review.
Because lower temperatures produce better results, an inverse scale of thermal performance is needed to give better-cooling cases a higher score. The average temperature of all cases is divided by the average temperature of an individual case to calculate its relative cooling.
The bottom number in a division problem is already inverted (a larger denominator produces a smaller fraction), so the average noise level of each case is divided by the average noise level of all cases to produce a direct result for relative noise reduction.

Taking first place in both cooling and noise, NZXT’s Phantom 410 has the most favorable cooling-to-noise ratio. Corsair continues its dominance as the best of the cheaper models, while Xigmatek’s poor noise control drops it to the middle of the pack.
NZXT’s Phantom 410 provides the lowest temperatures, lowest noise, and best acoustic efficiency of the five cases in today’s test. If this were simply a matter of performance, we could conclude our project without further description. However, Corsair’s performance is pretty impressive as well, and its price is also rather good.

Thus, anyone looking for the best bang-for-the-buck case will probably jump on Corsair’s 300R. Indeed, we were even able to find the case for $10 less than the $80 floor set for this story's budget range, and using that lower number would have given the case an even higher value score. But we're not really convinced that “mainstream” is the place for Corsair’s 300R. It's flimsy materials and limited number of ports are more closely-matched by several $60 models.
Xigmatek’s Midgard II takes second place in a comparison of performance to price, being the cheapest case in today’s article that really deserves to be called a mainstream gaming-oriented product. That judgement is based solely on material quality and features.
In Win’s Mana 136 looks the part of a mid-range enthusiast chassis, just like Xigmatek's, and it even has the heavy face panel and paint to match. Unfortunately, underneath those accoutrements lies the structure of a $30 budget box.
NZXT gets things right on quality, noise, and cooling, but falls to the back of the pack when it comes to value.
MSI's Stealth edges out the three lightweights on structural quality, but added features such as its SRF rubberized finish, USB charging port and VGA stabilizer brackets can't make us forget that it consistently lags behind when it comes to cooling, noise, and acoustic efficiency.
Value was supposed to be a primary consideration in today’s comparison. However, the highest value score goes to an enclosure built more like cases in a more entry-level class. We're looking for sturdier materials in the $80 to $120 segment. Quality was always supposed to be another important criteria in our round-up. And that’s where a single product really stood out.

Unable to make a clear case for a value award (Ed.: I see what you did there), we're choosing to recognize the case that won everything except the price battle. The only product in this comparison to meet all of our performance and quality demands, NZXT’s Phantom 410 gets our stamp of approval.
















