Gadgetory

so today marks the release of the CM storm and for cert so this is a new case from coolermaster it is a value oriented option so it is a sub $100 case and as you may or may not be able to tell right off the bat the front of it is stylized kind of like the helmet of a knight so that's why they've got this knight guy next to it although it seems to be some kind of like futuristic Knight because he seems to have technology on him and glowing lights and whatnot rather than just armor so here is a picture of the case here is a picture of well more detailed pictures of the case so we're not gonna worry too much about those right now since we are going to be opening up the box here we have specifications so it's all black that means including the interior it does have a black interior here's the dimensions here's the weight it takes ATX motherboard so it does have 7 PCI expansion slots plus one auxilary one that you can use for fan controllers or anything like that it's made of steel plastic and mesh it has four exposed five and a quarter inch bays one external three-and-a-half inch as well as six internal three and a half inch it has four two and a half inch trace base so I'll show you how those work once we get inside usb3 this is huge USB three with a an internal header so that means that all those new p67 boards that use internal headers instead of goofy like pass throughs to the back of the board this will support it so that is a huge selling feature right there a couple USB 2 comes with a front 200 millimeter fan a rear 120 millimeter fan and it's got a couple optional fans at 200 in the top and a 120 on the side over your graphics card here we are it accepts video cards up to 390 millimeters with the hard drive cage removes well you only have to remove one of them so 390 millimeters is what about 15 inches 16 into something like that so I wouldn't worry too much about running into any graphics card for the time being that will not fit in this case because even the Radeon 6990 and the 59 1769 59 7 yep even those video cards will fit in here without any issues and they're both about 12 inches long and they're the longest ones on the market so it comes with a an operator's manual next we will find and removing it from the box this is the unboxing portion of our video all right so we find packing material to match pieces made of a stiff foam so while it's probably not the best packing material in the world you prefer the soft closed cell foam it is thick enough and this case is light enough that I really wouldn't worry about any damage in transit to the CM storm enforcer and then remove the plastic so we can see the case itself now so let's just do a little tour of the exterior of the Chaffee alright so first thing we see is the front as I mentioned before it has kind of a night looking appearance to it so this is sort of overlapping armor plates and then right here we have a grill where presumably the night would be able to speak to others you know battle cries and whatnot all that good stuff you can clearly see through the front the 200 millimeter intake fan so that has a red LED on it so it should look quite imposing from the front on this side actually you know what let's finish up at the front first before I get ahead of myself so this is held closed by magnets and you can see here your four or five and a quarter inch base with one optional three and a half inch external if you've got a card reader or something else like that that goes in a three and a half inch external bay your reset switch is and I actually really like this right next to your power switch but safe from you accidentally hitting it whenever you have the front door closed and given how rarely you need to use an optical drive these days this will pretty much always be closed so you won't accidentally hit your reset switch you got your power led here your hard drive activity led here microphone and headphone ports two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports and I'll show you guys that internal header in a minute you've got a convenient drink tray document tray CD tray whatever kind of things you happen to need to put there maybe you want or your manual there if you want to put your keys there no problem storage area on the top of the case I actually really like that then you've got another 200 millimeter fan mount but it'll also mount other stuff so by the look of things you can throw another two 120 mils there but it does not support a radiator due to clearance issues inside so you'd be looking at two just two fans okay in the top however it does support a 120 millimeter rad in the back so since we're going around talking about the back why don't we have a look at the back so here's your 120 mm fan in the back that's included supporter rad it has enough clearance around the bottom and around the top for that you got water cooling grommets if you wanted to do an external radiator set up okay some people do do those and you've got your standard back flip io backplate shield pepper missing thing well it's not missing but you put it in when you get it with your motherboard then you have the seven PCI slots plus the one auxilary one I mentioned so for example some coolers come with a little speed adjustment dial for the fan you put that there rather than using up one of your valuable PCI slots supports standard ATX power supplies and you can see it has all eight mounting holes so you can mount your power supply either with the fan down or with the fan on top depending on whatever you prefer you're not locked down to one way like I've seen with some cases in the past so give me a sec to take these screws off and then we'll be back now I've been saying this for a long time but what is the point of a black interior if you don't have a side panel window to show it off so well I mean it's not a complaint about this case obviously because it has a side panel window so I've taken off the covers that come to protect it during shipping it has also some where the overlapping arm or effect belt into the side panel you can see the window is quite clean so it is attached via grommets here around the outside and it is pretty yeah it's actually flush with the steel of the side panel so you just slide that off pretty much the standard way to remove any case side panel from some case pretty much ever other than the ones that try and get creative about it and inside we will find oh you know what I'm actually gonna remove this side panel as well so that I can show you guys the whole interior of this chassis accessories box why don't we do this first for a change I always do this at the end and frequently end up forgetting it entirely so I'm just gonna get this out of the way here so in here we find Drive rails alright so these are for mounting your three and a half inch drives in the 2list cages here so you just push those into the sides of the drives either side click in and there you go coolermaster actually does a great job of their hard drive mounting mechanisms I'm a big fan because they're secure easy to use and I mean is that is there really anything else you can ask for when it comes to mounting a hard drive okay we've got some black zip ties we have a motherboard speakers so that old beep if you're having problems with your system or whatever else the case may be since it's not built into the case and since a lot of people don't want them anyway that's just fine we've got screws here as well so there's your motherboard screws any other screws you might need as well as a way to lock the side panel should you so desire so you can this functionality is not built-in but you can throw that on there and then all of a sudden you can put a padlock on the side panel if you want if you're going to Land's or whatever else and you want to protect your valuable hardware now this feature is another one that as far as I can tell and this is a bit of a guess but it's called storm guard it is for safeguarding your gaming peripherals and from what I can see it looks like what you do is if you're going to a LAN or you're using it in a public place you put this in that looks yeah throw it at the case and then break everything you put this in the auxiliary PCI slot here you run your cable inside pass it through this hook and then run it back outside and plug it into the back of your i/o panel so what that means is that without and then once you put a padlock on the side tunnel without removing your side panel and removing this no one can take your peripherals away because the cable is routed through the inside of your case so that they can't steal it pretty much okay so there's that we also have this whatever it is it's like Christmas just opening things happen not knowing what they are wow that just looks like drive adapter okay so that's probably you D five and a quarter to three and a half inch drive it after there and finally we have this dual Oh how's that word neat okay we have a three and a half inch to two and a half inch drive bay adapter as well alright finally the case itself so why don't we have why don't we start with let's start at the front so here's our six hard drive bays what how is that the front what's the camera and even looking at Oh designed by Coolermaster yes he's looking at the stamp here that says designed by Coolermaster that's very good cameraman okay why don't we start at the top front so we've got four or five and a quarter inch bays these are all using tooless mechanisms although should you so desire you want to just back up a second should you so desire you can also put screws into your drives from the other side so that way you have the convenience of tool free with the security of putting in a screw should you need to ship the system or do anything like that moving down you have a removable three and a half inch drive cage so that supports four drives you can remove the whole thing and then under that you have a fixed one so you can see this one uses rivets two by three and a half inch drive cage you have another removable drive cage this one is for two and a half inch drives right here so that one supports two you just take out a couple screws here slide it out and smell your drives and put it back in conveniently lined up with the cable management the holes here so you can deliver the power and SATA cables up to wherever it is that they need to go from those drives ok moving down we've got four rubber mounts here for your power supply in a case like this I'm probably recommend using the fan facing down because you can see here you've got a filter this is appears to be removable although it might be a bit challenging you've got a filtered intake for your 120 millimeter fan on the bottom of your power supply that way it keeps the cool phones separate from the rest of your case rather than sucking up hot air that is being exhausted by your graphics card okay the PCI slots we've pretty much covered the 120 mil fan in the back we've pretty much talked about you've got a a CPU cutout so that means that if you want to mount a CPU cooler that uses a backplate you do not need to remove the motherboard to mount it you can just take off your backside panel and mount it that way up here you can see what I was talking about because the top of your motherboards gonna be right here so by the time you install a radiator and a fan you're not gonna have enough clearance so that is fans strictly up here in the top all right micro ATX 8 X okay let's have a look at what we've got for included front panel connectors even though we've pretty much already talked about them when we looked at the front panel itself here we are so there are your front switches and LEDs all that good stuff color coded next we have our front HD audio nice long cable for that so you'll be able to reach you know depending what motherboard manufacturer using got like a goofy one right here for example you'll be able to reach it just fine you've got your USB 2.0 nice black cables and then finally here we are USB 3.0 so that is your USB 3.0 internal header lots of other boards have them here or here so you'll be able to reach that regardless and I think that pretty much covers everything I wanted to say about the enforcer don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos