Enermax is a company that has been around a long time making PC power supply units, and great ones at that. It was only a year or two ago that they delved into making PC cases, mostly aimed at the enthusiast market. This time up at the ‘Shop we’ve got an Enermax Xpoint CS-528 case on the reviewing bench. This is a lower-end case, with a price of about $70-$80, depending on where you buy it from, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is lacking in features. We will take a look at all the good, bad, and weird characteristics of the case in this review. Let’s take a look at some of the selling points of the case:
Features
– ATX compliant case
– 300W Enermax ATX Power supply
– 4x 5.25″ Drive Bays
– 6x 3.5″ Drive bays (1 exposed)
– X-shaped window with blue LED Fan
– 2x Front USB 2.0 & Audio In/Out jacks
– Crystal bay cover w/ultra-bright blue LED
Not a bad list of features for a budget minded case, lets check it out (as always, click on a picture to see the larger version):
This is all the usual stuff. The box has all the info about the case, and does a very good job of protecting the case from shipping hazards. I didn’t find any damage on the case when I received it, which is a good thing. The case also comes with a box that holds screws, the PC speaker, and the instruction sheet for connecting the USB and audio headers on the front of the case to the motherboard.
Now lets take her out of the box and see how she looks.
Here are some pics of the outside of the case. As you can see it is very attractively pre-modded, which is cool if you want the modded look without buying a Dremel and spending hours over the workbench in the garage modding it yourself (although personally I enjoy modding and feel very limited by pre-modded cases). But nevertheless it is a pretty cool looking case, as you can see (notice the protective plastic that protects the plexi):
This case is an Enermax, so it comes with an Enermax power supply unit. It is a standard 300W ATX PSU which is P4 compatible (meaning it has the square shaped 12V connector). It also has a fan monitoring wire which you can plug into your motherboard to see how fast the PSU fan is spinning.
What I really like about this power supply is that the wires are not overly long like they are in some other PSUs. They fit the case perfectly, and the PSU is powerful enough to run my system quite stably (Athlon XP 2100+, 512 Corsair PC3200, Radeon 9700 Pro, DVD, CDRW, 4 case fans, 2 cold cathodes). Here are a few pics of the unit itself and the wire length:
Also, as you can see from that last pic, the USB and audio headers are neatly put together so as to not contribute to cable clutter.
As I stated before, this is an entry level case, so its pretty small in comparison to some of the SOHO or server style cases. One problem that I have with this case is the lack of a removeable hard drive cage. Without this it become frustratingly difficult to work with the hard drives after the computer has been assembled. Another caveat of this case is that it has no removable motherboard tray, which really should be the standard for enthusiast cases by now since they are so much easier to work with than cases without removable trays.
All that being said, the Enermax case is surprisingly roomy for its small size, and should handle most setups without too much trouble (although I wouldn’t recommend one for any dual processor boards, as they tend to be quite large). Here are a few more pictures of the case.
Now lets check out some aesthetic features of this case.
Alright, lets take a look at what Enermax is doing to appeal to the enthusiast market with their cases. This case has the X shaped window preinstalled, with a bright blue LED fan in the center, which is good for bringing cool air onto the motherboard. The front cover has a small crystal-like lens on it, which has a bright blue LED behind it. This is really kind of weird, since Enermax uses a special dual-drive bay cover to hold one blue LED in it which lights up the front. Take a look:
This makes the front of the case look very cool when the door is closed, but it also takes up 2 5.25″ drive bays for one LED. If you can live without the light you can take the LED holder off and use the drive bays though, so it doesn’t really come at too much of a sacrifice. Here are some pictures of the blue LED fan, which is very bright and nice looking.
All in all I think that this case looks very nice and very professional, especially when compared to the cookie cutter generically modded cases that we have been seeing very much of in the last few months, at least around the ‘Shop.
Conclusion
All in all, Enermax has put together a pretty nice budget case for those who want a case that looks nice without having to exert the extra effort to mod it themselves. There are a few negatives to this case which I would like to point out.
First of all, the lack of removable hard drive cages irks me, since you can get cases with this feature for around the same price range. Second is the lack of removable motherboard tray, but this is usually reserved for higher end cases, so I can let that one slide.
Those are about the only quibbles that I have with this case, other than the fact that I prefer larger cases. If you are in the market for a premodded midtower case with high quality power supply, I would recommend this case to you wholeheartedly. I am going to give this case an 8.0/10 and award it the OCmodshop Seal of Approval.
Pros
- 300W Enermax PSU
- Small footprint
- Looks great
- Lots of potential for cooling
Cons
- No removable motherboard tray
- No removable hard drive cages
- Front LED takes up 2 drive bays