- Joined
- Sep 5, 2002
- Location
- Toronto, ON
I just picked one of these up about a week ago and I'm pretty happy with it. I really can't understand why everyone thinks that this this is so ugly though. In fact, my dealer thought it was ugly too but when he got it in and we actually pulled it out of the box to check it out, he thought that it looked pretty nice (I thought that it looked better than in the pic too). I'm not sure what the problem is with the looks of the front panel, it's a fairly conservative design and you can leave the blue light off if you want.
The pivoting part with the temp. display and usb ports is nice too. I haven't been able to get the front audio ports to work yet though since the NF7-S instructions are really good for that and I didn't spend much time on it (the mobo ports are actually designed for the Media XP and not cases such as this). I'm also not sure if I got the firewire port connection right either because I don't even have a firewire device to test it out. The temperature display is a nice feature, I've got one sensor under the cpu heatsink (I might put it back underneath the northbridge heatsink) and one under the video card heatsink.
It came with one 120mm fan which is pretty quiet and I installed another at the front of the case that I had leftover from my old case but it didn't make much of a difference in temps. I think there's enough airflow without it since the front vent is so unrestrictive so I don't think there's much of a need for the front fan.
The way the drives slide in and out is very nice, as are all of the thumb screws in the case (for the fan holder, mobo tray, pci and agp slots). The external drive covers fit very nicely as well. The case really does have everything, with the exception of a fan controller.
One thing I don't really agree with most of the reviews about is how quiet it is. Maybe I'm just a bit picky but it doesn't seem as quiet as I hoped. Don't get me wrong, it is pretty quiet, I just wouldn't think it's the quietest around. The loudest thing is the case is the Aeroflow though, which I even slowed down a bit with a rhetrostat. I'd rate the case as "good" for the noise level but not exceptional (most of the noise does seem to come from the from vent, which is expected since it's so unrestrictive and lets a lot of air through).
Overall I'm happy with the case. I researched for a while looking for a good, full-featured case and this one really stood out for me. For those of you who don't like the looks of it, perhaps you will change your mind when you see it in person if you haven't already, or maybe it will grow on you a bit.
The pivoting part with the temp. display and usb ports is nice too. I haven't been able to get the front audio ports to work yet though since the NF7-S instructions are really good for that and I didn't spend much time on it (the mobo ports are actually designed for the Media XP and not cases such as this). I'm also not sure if I got the firewire port connection right either because I don't even have a firewire device to test it out. The temperature display is a nice feature, I've got one sensor under the cpu heatsink (I might put it back underneath the northbridge heatsink) and one under the video card heatsink.
It came with one 120mm fan which is pretty quiet and I installed another at the front of the case that I had leftover from my old case but it didn't make much of a difference in temps. I think there's enough airflow without it since the front vent is so unrestrictive so I don't think there's much of a need for the front fan.
The way the drives slide in and out is very nice, as are all of the thumb screws in the case (for the fan holder, mobo tray, pci and agp slots). The external drive covers fit very nicely as well. The case really does have everything, with the exception of a fan controller.
One thing I don't really agree with most of the reviews about is how quiet it is. Maybe I'm just a bit picky but it doesn't seem as quiet as I hoped. Don't get me wrong, it is pretty quiet, I just wouldn't think it's the quietest around. The loudest thing is the case is the Aeroflow though, which I even slowed down a bit with a rhetrostat. I'd rate the case as "good" for the noise level but not exceptional (most of the noise does seem to come from the from vent, which is expected since it's so unrestrictive and lets a lot of air through).
Overall I'm happy with the case. I researched for a while looking for a good, full-featured case and this one really stood out for me. For those of you who don't like the looks of it, perhaps you will change your mind when you see it in person if you haven't already, or maybe it will grow on you a bit.
