[section_title title=Closer Look – Exterior]
Closer Look – ExteriorÂ
Starting with the front of the case. We can see that the front of the chassis, and the entire case itself, is rectangular in design, much the same as the Prodigy and the Phenom. This is because it shares the same steel chassis with different exterior panels attached. The front of the chassis is split into two parts with the top part above the LiteTrak being a door and the part below being being solid. The LiteTrak itself is set to its red setting. However, there is a choice of; solid red, solid blue, solid green and then a breathing effect that alternated between all three colours. The LiteTrak can also be switched off altogether. Above the middle of the LiteTrak we also have a shiny silver BitFenix logo which is a nice touch and really stands out against the black panel. On the left side of the this panel we also have a small button which allows the user to toggle the different colours of the LiteTrak.
Upon opening the door we can see that the door itself is heavily ventilated, with the ventilation for the air intake in the top of the door and then holes all the way down the length of the door panel. The door itself opens to just over 90 degrees from its closed position and when closed is held in place by a couple of magnets. We can also see that there are two meshed areas. The larger of the two is the intake for the 120mm fan on the other side and the top is the cover for the optical drive bay. On the rear of this panel, both intakes have some fine foam which doubles as dust filtering and noise dampening which is a nice little touch from BitFenix
Looking at the metal work behind the front panel. we have same design that greeted us with the Prodigy and the Phenom. There is a support for dual 120mm fans as well as a single 180mm or 200mm fan. The optical bay cover at the top is a snap off if you did want to use it, but please note that you will then lose the mounting holes for the 120mm fan mount. You will also see that there are four screws which are there to hold the optical bay in place. This is so that the optical bay can be easily removed for larger graphics cards or water cooling setups, but I will show you more on that later.
Onto the back of the chassis we have a standard affair like with the Prodigy and the Phenom. At the top, in the middle we have the 120mm and 140mm fan mount with a 120mm exhaust fan pre-installed. To the right of that we have the two PCI express expansion slots, which is standard for an ITX chassis. Below the fan mount we have the motherboard cut out for the IO and then below that the mount for the power supply. With the power supply mount, note that it is secured in place by four thumbscrews which can be removed to allow the plate to be screwed into the power supply before the power supply is installed to make life easier.
Moving onto the side panels. Both of them feature the same design with the LiteTrak, which gives a nice uniformity to the chassis itself. The only difference between the two being the IO panel. The IO panel consists of Two USB 3.0 ports which are connected to an internal header. Below those are two 3.5mm jacks for headphones and a microphone and have the power and HDD LED’s next to them. Lastly at the bottom we have the power and reset buttons. Something that I was a little disappointed with was the lack of SSD mounts on the back of the panel like we saw with the Prodigy, though I suspect that this is down to the placement of the LiteTrak bars.
The roof is a pretty plain affair. We get a better look at the ventilation for the front intake fan and a good sized grill for the optional two 120mm fan mounts underneath it. Due to the design of the roof panel and the grill it is not possible to get a set of fans under the grill, which is a little dissappointing as it would have allowed for a larger radiator to be installed into the chassis for those people wanting to water cool. The grill itself is removable via a little catch towards the rear of the chassis. The grill itself consists of a strong plastic hexagon design which metal mesh over the top of it. This is then complemented by some fine mesh underneath to act as dust filtering. This shows BitFenix’s innovation and attention to detail as a lot of time and effort has gone into designing this removable grill.
The bottom of the case, once again, is similar to that of the Prodigy and Phenom. Towards the rear of the chassis we have the removable dust filter for the power supplies air intake fan. we then also have two rows of screws which allow for complete removal of the hard drive racks inside the chassis. We also have four rubberised feet which come with a brushed aluminium finish effect which is particularly pleasing to the eye.Â
