Sahara P75 White Gaming Case Review

Hey everyone, I am on the case again. I’ll get my coat…

Sahara are a company I have not dealt with before, we recently reviewed the P35 case but other than that I can’t really find much about the company online.

Today I have the Sahara P75 in white, which is a very large case that only claims ATX compatibility which seems odd considering the size. Let’s take a look at the specifications which I have had to pilfer from various reports around the web due to a lack of official site for this thing, as a result there may be some inconsistencies. Use the specs below as a suggestion of what to expect rather than a promise as I didn’t get chance to do all the measurements personally.

Specifications

Case

• Form Factor: Full ATX
• Motherboard Support: Mini-ITX, MicroATX, ATX
• Fan Size: 12/14cm
• Fan Qty: up to 12
• Max fan connection: 10
• Dimensions: 450mm x 210mm x 530mm
• Materials: SECC Steel, ABS Plastic, Tempered Glass Front and Side Panel. Feets: Metal sealed with extra rubber
• Product Weight: 12.3KGs
• Filter: Top 1 (included) Bottom 1 (included)
• Warranty: 2 years

Fan Support

• Front: 4 (Included)
• Top: 3 (optional)
• Rear: 2 (Included)
• Bottom: 3 (optional)

I/O Ports

• USB2: 2
• USB3: 2
• Audio: 1
• RGB switch bottom: 1

Drive Bays

• Internal 3.5″: 2
• Internal 2.5″: 4
• Internal 5 1/4″:  none
• Expansion Slots: 7

Radiator Support

• Front: 280/240mm
• Top: 360/280/240mm
• Rear: 240/120mm

Clearance

• GPU Clearance with Radiator: 400mm
• GPU Clearance Without Radiator: 364mm
• CPU Cooler: 170mm
• Cable Management: Lowest Point – 17mm; Highest Point 168m
• Power Supply: ATX Power

Accessories

• HDD tray 2
• IO port protectors included
• IR Remote for Fan/RGB

Closer Look

As ever the Mrs is always mightily impressed when large boxes are delivered, this one is no exception. The only external protection when it was shipped was a plastic film wrap rather than some nice bubble-wrap to re-use as a stress toy. There’s no real branding on the box or even a product image suggesting an OEM who is supplying many manufacturers and using a stock box for all their products. Game Case is the main text on the box with a picture of what looks like something out of Halo or Unreal Tournament. A small white product sticker with the Sahara name and product name along with various bits of information adorn the rest of the box.

Unpacking the box we are presented with the case, no manuals or stickers or anything, just the case. Its big and impressive looking with the exception of that tempered glass side panel, what on earth is going on here? It doesn’t fit very well at all, I shall have to deduct points from the final score on that.

Starting to move around the case we begin with a front view, which looks great, the fans sitting uniformly behind the smoked glass are four units high, this gives me an inkling that you can build a serious system inside this chassis.

A gentle pull at the bottom of the front panel brings the plastic studs away easily. Thick wires are passed through and the panel is attached to the ports and buttons so spinning it around and resting the panel on top of the case seemed the best option. The fans look great – a little like plane engines – the opaque rings hinting at RGB goodness to come. The case also supports 140mm fans at the front although getting some in looks to be a squeeze. The six RGB fans included with this case is an impressive number for an out of the box experience, top marks for not being stingy there.

Now to the rear of the case and this picture actually demonstrates the wonderful glossy paint job Sahara have done, its smooth with a shiny finish and doesn’t scratch easily at all. Top left there is a rather odd but handy cable clip, this helps cable management of rear mounted fans and other wires that might find themselves back here, I do like that as many cases have no rear support for cabling. The grille has space for two 120mm fans, that is great for getting a good exhaust out of the case. 7 PCI Expansion plates for full size ATX support, with a little sad note of no vertical GPU support, even though it’s becoming much more commonplace these days. An opening for the bottom mounted power supply exhaust is at the bottom. Finally there is the metal rear leg, one of these both front and back lifts the case a good inch and a half off the floor, and they’re quite sturdy too.

It is with some relief that the cable side of the case is not adorned with tempered glass, while such a design looks great on many cases it does mean that you have to be really good with your cables and not so-so like me. We do get some venting here along with a view of the front side intake for those fans behind the glass.

Well that paint job must be quite a thick one as that side panel was very firmly in place. Behind the panel we have the cable area which is also where we have spaces to mount three SSDs with two brackets included on this side, two HDD Bays at the bottom with caddies and a large open area to install the power supply which if any of my regular readers have noticed is a massive thumbs up from me. Many fan and board cables are already busying up the area with some leading to a fan and RGB controller; I am somewhat concerned by those connectors, let’s take a gander.

What is going on here? a 6 channel connector that looks nothing like any fan or RGB plug I have seen before, I am going with non-standard here. Proprietary connectors are generally unwelcome in my builds, especially with something like fans. While it’s nice to have the RGB and fan power in one cable it ties the setup into Sahara’s own parts.

Oh heck it’s that oversized pane of glass again. I really don’t understand it, let’s move on.

Now that’s better, how awesome does this look now? Oodles of space in here for a build with a full length vented and detailed PSU shroud covering up not just the power unit but cables and hard drives too. We have two more SSD mounts to the right hand side which are neatly offset against the mounting points on the other side, very smart. Oddly there are brackets above those that are for CD Drives, but I would be remiss in discounting the opportunity for a bay-reservoir or fancy controller, however even if you sacrificed the top fan anything that needs access is behind a solid panel with no door so the reservoir wins. The motherboard mounting area is spacious, I even think with a little careful measuring some smaller E-ATX boards might actually fit, be aware though that the metal to the right sticks out and would not allow you to house a really wide board. Rubber grommets and cable tie indentations surround the motherboard area and there are plenty of places to feed cables in and manage them, the cable you can see sticking through is the IR receiver for the fan/RGB controller. The inside of the case has the same excellent paint job as the outside, very bright and impressive.

The top of the case looks impressive, it does looks similar to many other manufacturers but that’s not a bad thing. A magnetic filter over a grille that supports up to a 420mm rad even though the specs say 360mm, mounting holes are available for up to three 140mm fans. Buttons and ports from top to bottom in image are as follows: RGB switch, USB 3.0 x 2, USB 2.0 x 2, Headphone and Microphone Audio Jacks, Reset Switch, HDD and Power LED’s and finally the Power Button, all finished very neatly.

The bottom of the case showcases those excellent legs which have rubber feet on them to stop any surface scratching. The power supply area has a removable filter over the grille which is quite long so supporting large units is a bonus. There is a small unfiltered air intake at the front which sits under the HDD area, this may bring in some dust. We can also see rivets holding in the HDD cage so removing that without modding is not an option.

Finally in this section we get a quick shot of the accessories, nothing much out of the ordinary here with the normal screws and cable ties, with the notable inclusion of a rather comprehensive RGB and fan remote. This is a very nice addition.

The Build

I wanted to really test what this case could do and as luck would have it a friend of mine volunteered his watercooled system to be transplanted to the case. (He loves white cases).

Going into the Sahara P75 would be an Intel 5820k mounted on an Asus X99 motherboard, four sticks of Corsair Ram, a 512GB Samsung M.2 NVMe drive, a Samsung 2.5″ SSD and a big 2TB 3.5″ SSD. An Aorus watercooled 1080Ti provides the GPU and a Corsair RM850x PSU providing electricity. Cooling the system is a custom loop made up of XSPC and Alphacool components with a rather impressive Helix reservoir. The big challenge this offers is his Pump/Topper and Reservoir are separate and demand some serious space. A white 360mm Radiator finishes off the cooling loop.

After draining and beginning disassembly of my friends existing setup we thought it would be prudent to measure up to make sure we could get the loop parts installed, mounting the pump and reservoir in this case proved to be quite easy so we pressed on.

After mounting the full size ATX motherboard into the case you get a feel for the size and capability offered by the P75. We can also see here how easily cables can be brought in from the rear. Some may notice that the upper rear fan has been uninstalled, this was necessary to allow for the installation of the 360mm radiator and fans.

Speaking of radiator clearance, take a look at this! There is loads of room, you could put a 60mm thick radiator up top and still have room for fans and cables. That’s one area this case is doing much better than so many more expensive units.

Here we have a bit more of a visual on how well the cable grommets are placed, however they are quite flimsy and come away from the casing easily so you do have to pop them back in a few times. As the system takes shape you can see that the option of a front mounted radiator is possible but depends greatly on your other watercooling components, much less worry with an AIO.

Some more cable management clips sit at the top cable side which really helps not just with tidying but holding cables out of the way while routing others. Plenty of cable tie cutouts available too.

While doing the cabling I was again triggered by the non standard fan and LED controller cables, it is a smart little unit though with manual buttons for control which sadly won’t be accessible once the build is done.

Mounting the HDD into one of the caddies was easy, just snap it into place, no screws required. The plastic is quite bendy without showing any strain or feeling brittle, some of these things can sometimes be tough.

Mounting the SSD into one of the brackets was also easy, you can use side mounting or bottom mounting screws.

Once mounted in the case the drives leave easy access for cabling up which is sometimes overlooked with tricky corners and adjoining components.

Using some of my own nuts and bolts we easily mounted the pump and topper, nothing to do with my friend forgetting his box of bits. The top of the shroud offering plenty of holes to use, they would only align nicely horizontally switching 90 degrees meant only being able to mount two bolts.

Putting in the rest of the loop was a little tight as the reservoir is maybe a little too tall for this job. One of the res brackets fit which surprising held it in place quite firmly with the hoses and fittings offering a little more support. We didn’t want to create a sharp bend between the res and the pump so the bigger loop made for an easier curve. With access to the top of the reservoir difficult with the exception of being able to remove sealing caps for air, we created a break in the pump exit to have a fill/drain tap.

Filling the system was actually quite easy although we were unable to completely top up the reservoir. I think a squeezy bottle with a very bendy injection tube might help top up from one of the top caps. Time to go away and let the leak testing happen. I keep a spare power supply for loop testing which I always use externally, we also refrained from mounting any lower components until leak testing was complete reducing the risk of any bad connections delaying the build in case components needed to be dried.

With the leak test successful it’s time to mount the rest of the parts. The power supply slides in easily and can be cabled up without any fuss. So much room for PSU’s is an excellent quality of the P75.

As often happens when I build, lots of cables like to converge in the same area. luckily there is a good bit of space for those centre cables to squish into and the side panel went on without any worries of crushing or trapping cables.

Powering on the fully built rig and we have life, my friend likes to keep his LED’s white to show off components which does look good. Being able to mount a separate pump and reservoir – even if a little tight – is excellent although I think I would still go with a combo pump/res if planning for a new build in one of these cases.

Panels in place again we get lots of reflections, those fans look fantastic, that side panel is still horrible. The tinting is also quite dark so be aware of this if wanting to easily see your carefully planned insides.

Of course I had to grab the remote and play with the settings. Fan speed is controllable in several steps to help reduce noise and the lighting has quite a few modes to choose from: there are individual colours, various flashing modes, chasing lights and a whole bunch of preset options for RGB effects which show that the fans have addressable LEDs, alas there doesn’t appear to be any way of programming them.

The Verdict

What’s Hot

• Loads of space for a full tower ATX build, with the possibility of E-ATX depending on your choice of board
• Plenty of radiator and component options for an AIO or full watercooling loop build.
• Excellent 170mm air cooler clearance
• High quality of the paint job and general chassis build
• Filters on the most used grilles to help avoid dust
• Sturdy legs to lift the case off a surface
• Excellent power supply compatibility
• Clever SSD and HDD mounts
• 6 RGB fans included with the case along with a fan/RGB controller
• Great cable management components
• Priced well considering the features and capabilities

What’s Not

• Awful tempered glass side panel that doesn’t fit the case
• Fans and controller use non standard connectors
• Cabling grommets flimsy and pop out easily
• Lack of manual both paper and online

Sahara have presented an excellent chassis with clearance for some of the bigger components out there which performs really well with airflow and with watercooling. The build quality is solid with an excellent finish on the paint. I have to question the thought process behind the side panel which doesn’t appear to belong with the case, this should be addressed as it seems to be a serious oversight. Additionally the use of proprietary fan and RGB connectors, while nothing new, is not something I welcome; planning and building a rig will often involve different fans to optimise airflow, this means that the included fans could quickly become redundant. Coming in at between £99 and £110 at the time of writing this is a good £50 or so cheaper than much of the competition so I could overlook the controller issue, just not the side panel. I do have to acknowledge how capable the case is so with that I am pleased to grant the Sahara P75 our Silver Award.

Thanks to Sahara for sending us their P75 to test and review.