The Final Five: Our Last Round Of Mainstream Gaming Cases

Atop The Ravager

Though the Ravager’s top panel supports up to two 140 or 120 mm fans, it lacks the space to mount fans and a radiator.

As a result, our concerns that the fan hole spacing is improper for production liquid-cooling radiators doesn't really matter.

Raidmax Seiran

The second Raidmax case in our 15-way round-up, the Seiran offers far smaller dimensions that more easily fit on top or underneath your desk. Its front-panel ports are also moved forward to allow easier reach from below (sitting on a desk) without significantly impeding access from above (when it rests under a desk).

A 180 mm fan fills a vented side panel that alternatively supports dual 120 mm blowers.

Seiran Ports And Controls

The Seiran’s front-panel I/O is a little more extensive than rival products, adding three-output fan speed and fan lighting brightness controls. Raidmax also includes a single 3.5” bay adapter, with its face plate screwed to the adapter tray.

The case does, however, come up a little short on USB 3.0 connectivity by only giving us one port. Fortunately, dual USB 2.0 ports support more devices, albeit at lower data rates.

Fan control also comes up short, since the rear fan uses a different style of power connector.

Behind Raidmax’s Seiran

Grommets on three ingress/egress holes protect external liquid cooling setups, though running tubes through them will make it harder to get at installed graphics cards.

A c-shaped bulge on the Seiran’s right side-panel creates more room for cable management within an otherwise-compact space.

Inside The Seiran

Nine externally-accessible (and no internal) drive bays simplify the Seiran’s interior, allowing anyone with an extra-long graphics card to run that extra length through the cage itself.

The comparison chart in our upcoming performance analysis makes clear that the case does support internal drives, since the company includes seven adapter trays.

Seiran Cable Management

If you choose the Seiran, expect to get creative with cable management, since the stow area is mainly limited to the c-shaped protrusion on the side-panel. Cable ties come in handy here.

Raidmax leaves the bottom access hole open, while grommets on two narrower cut-outs along the motherboard tray’s front edge help hide cabling mess. The Seiran does not, however, have a pass-through-point for ATX12V/EPS12V cables. As a result, it's almost impossible to use the top of the side-panel's protrusion.

Seiran Drive Mounting

Held in place by twist-on pin connectors, the Seiran’s drive trays serve multiple functions. Brackets on the intake fan are secured to them, firstly, as is the 3.5” face plate for front-panel access.

If you need extra cooling for a particularly hot disk, you can add a 120 mm fan to the tray's outer holes. Notebook drives and SSDs attach to the closer holes. And 3.5” drives are screwed to holes on the side.

Seiran Intake

Though the face plate is not designed for easy removal, most of the Seiran’s front is accessible by removing 5.25” bay covers. Adapter trays are easily accessed, along with a lighted front fan that’s attached to those drive trays.

Seiran Dust Prevention

Though the intake fan relies on open-cell foam backing for filtration, power supply fans are more easily kept clean by a filter sheet that slides out from the Seiran’s rear edge.

We hope that illustrating the extended features of the last five enclosures in our 15-case round-up has piqued your curiosity about their performance. Our upcoming comparison will demonstrate how well each of these cases holds our components, in addition to their heat and noise reduction.

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