Five More Mainstream Gaming Cases, Rounded-Up

By Thomas Soderstrom
published

We've already given you a pictorial walk-through of cases six through 10 of our 15-chassis round-up. Today, we build PCs inside of them, evaluate their value, and pick one as the most likely to satisfy your needs (though several excel in other ways).

Building With The Raidmax Agusta

Raidmax turns the layout of traditional full-towers upside-down in its Agusta, its modernized motherboard-on-top design putting drive cages at the bottom. Like most cases with a power supply below the motherboard, the Agusta has a hole at the top of the motherboard tray that looks like it'd be suitable for an ATX12V lead.

You might also expect a 23.8” case with a top panel over 2” thick to support liquid cooling, but the Agusta’s design doesn’t make that possible. There’s barely enough room in the top panel to hold its two stock fans, and those can only be installed and removed after first pulling out the motherboard.

Our Agusta sample arrived without a manual, but the rest of its installation kit includes three cable holders, several fiber washers, several cable ties, and mounting screws. Standoffs were factory-installed on the motherboard tray, with one missing.

Raidmax ditches the outdated AC'97 audio connector in favor of cleaner HDA-only wiring. A flat ribbon holds power, reset, and activity leads to further clean-up the cable cluster.

The Agusta’s drive trays place 3.5” drive mounting holes on the side and 2.5” holes on the bottom. Five-and-a-quarter-inch bays above those use quarter-turn release latches.

We stated that a hole at the top of the Agusta’s motherboard tray appears to support ATX12V leads, but that hole gets covered up by any motherboard. Raidmax can’t fix this without a complete redesign, since there’s no room above the board to move it. We were instead forced to wrap our cable over the motherboard’s surface.

The finished build looks like it should be an excellent performer.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
43 Comments Comment from the forums
  • samorf
    That's a great looking case. I know value isn't a huge point for the CM Cosmos 2 but I would love to see your benchmarks on it.
    Reply
  • mjmjpfaff
    I really thought that the Antec Eleven Hundred would get this site's nod, especially with its build quality and its plethora of features to help with cable management, as well as all of its removable dust filters which many cases at the 100$ mark lack as well as some cases well over 100$.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    mjmjpfaffI really thought that the Antec Eleven Hundred would get this site's nod, especially with its build quality and its plethora of features to help with cable management, as well as all of its removable dust filters which many cases at the 100$ mark lack as well as some cases well over 100$.
    Antec, I think, has fallen behind in case design as of late. While the Eleven Hundred is much better than the aging 900/300 design, it still has some small points of meh such as only one 2.5" drive bay when there are other cases close to the price (not current price but original price) trat support 2.5" in every drive bay.

    Also the design is a bit meh. Though I have fallen in love with the Corsair 500R so its a bit hard to make me think of another case. And the CM Storm Enforcer is ok. Had one in the shop the other day. Nothing amazing honestly but its not overly bad.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    jimmysmittyAntec, I think, has fallen behind in case design as of late. While the Eleven Hundred is much better than the aging 900/300 design, it still has some small points of meh such as only one 2.5" drive bay when there are other cases close to the price (not current price but original price) trat support 2.5" in every drive bay.Also the design is a bit meh. Though I have fallen in love with the Corsair 500R so its a bit hard to make me think of another case. And the CM Storm Enforcer is ok. Had one in the shop the other day. Nothing amazing honestly but its not overly bad.I really liked the Eleven Hundred, it's just that the Enforcer's super-low price makes it a better value for the majority of builds.
    Reply
  • damric
    I really felt like I was reading a commercial. Was this review cut and paste from the marketing documents provided?
    Reply
  • randomkid
    Nice article. I feel glad about my choice of the CM Storm Enforcer... :)
    Reply
  • Crashman
    damricI really felt like I was reading a commercial. Was this review cut and paste from the marketing documents provided?I'll have what you're having! Then I can look past all the careful observations, performance data and criticisms and see a world made of cotton candy!

    BTW, you should at least read the ENTIRE conclusion before calling an article a fluff piece. Thanks!
    Reply
  • randomkid
    ^No editing feature while in the Article comment mode. But I found out that once in the forum, it can be edited or deleted just like any post.
    Reply
  • jaquith
    I tend NOT to recommend cases to folks (personal preference) - it's like saying your Girlfriend is ugly or has a flaw.

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

    As long as the case functions and has what you need -- it's all what YOU like and flips that switch.
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    I'm not a fan of obviously gamer looking cases, but the Antec 1100, by virtue of being so similar to my P280, gets my vote.
    Reply