Computer enthusiasts want their computer gear to look tough. Tough enough to go into your man-cave. Your case should steal the milk money from wimpy cases, and date their moms. Your case should look like it was made from the parts of lesser cases to form one uber-case. Your case should be a badass.
What could possibly be more manly than the Humvee; one of the biggest and baddest of all-terrain vehicles? Would you be intrigued to learn of a PC case modelled after one of these marvels of mechanical engineering? Ultra thinks so, and they’ve created their m998 case to complement your masculinity.
m998 Mid-Tower ATX Case
Named after one of the world’s toughest and most versatile military vehicles, our new m998 ATX Mid-Tower PC case will become your ultimate gaming weapon, as well as a dynamic multimedia chassis that promises years of digital entertainment. Striking a commanding presence with its sleek design and durable 1.5mm aluminum construction, the m998 offers 11 drive bays, along with front eSATA, Firewire, and USB audio ports. Two powerful yet quiet front and rear 120mm fans, plus Ultra’s superior airflow architecture, keep even the most heat-intensive components cool and at optimum performance.
This superb new case also features removable panels for easy, tool-free access, and Ultra’s exclusive Power Bar power distribution system. Component installation and maintenance is a snap, because you can remove all the m988’s panels for simple, tool-free access. And you can replace the front Firewire/audio/microphone/eSATA bracket with virtually any PCI slot-type bracket. Whether you’re a gamer, movie buff, or someone building an extremely powerful system – the m998 is the perfect fit. A rugged and versatile warrior that’s ultra-sophisticated and military tough.
- Color: Black
- Dimensions:
Depth: 20.47″
Width: 9.45″
Height: 18.11″ - Drive Bay:
4 – 5.25″ Bays
5 – Internal 3.5″ Bays - 2 – External 3.5″ Bays
- Material: 1.5mm High Grade Aluminum
- Form Factor:
ATX
EATX
Micro ATX - Expansion Slots: 7 Standard Slots
- Case Fan Mounts:
2 – 120mm Fan Mounts - Case Fans Included:
2 – 120mm Fans - LEDs:
Green – Power
Orange – Hard Drive Access - Switches:
Power
Reset - All panels removable for easy, tool-free access
- Stainless steel finished removable Mainboard tray
- Includes Ultra’s Power Bar power distribution system
- Front eSata/Firewire/USB Audio ports
- Interior and Exterior finish
- Replace front Firewire/Audio/Microphone/eSata bracket with virtually any PCI slot-type bracket.
- Easy access front panel:
2 – USB 2.0
1 – Firewire
1 – Headphone
1 – Microphone
1 – eSATA
Ultra’s tough case is made from brushed aluminum, and given a black finish (it’s not anodized, but rather painted). The overall design of the case is rather blocky, with hard angles and no girly-man curves. The case is slightly taller than your average mid-tower, but is marginally wider and longer at nearly 9.5 inches wide x 20.5 inches deep!
The side of the case is dominated by a clear plexiglass window, which allows you to see the beastly hardware within. There are two air-holes cut from the side, which are covered with black mesh vents. The top hole is circular (there goes that no-curve theory), and has a clear vent that gives your CPU access to fresh outside air. The bottom hole is oblong and covered with a hexagonal cover, which supplies air to installed peripheral cards.
The back of the case has air-vents stamped out out in honeycomb shapes. The entire silver part of the back-side is actually part of the slide-out motherboard tray, so there’s no need to remove your VGA or sound cards when doing maintenance – the peripherals (including the exhaust fan) travel with the motherboard. The motherboard tray is secured in place with several chrome thumbscrews.
The front of the case is a complete paradigm shift when it comes to the quality and workmanship we’ve seen up to this point. The front is made of brittle plastic. The top right of the front panel has a standard Power button, and below that is a single blue Power LED, and two orange HDD (hard drive) activity lights. A reset button sits underneath the LED array.
Below this is a cover that hides two USB ports, an eSATA port, a firewire port, and audio and microphone jacks. The cover is unlocked by pushing the top left corner of the lid, and locked again by closing shut.
The inside of the case looks very sleek, which is painted with a shiny black durable paint. The silver part of the case is actually the slide-out motherboard tray (yes, it is attached to the back). The hard drive cage is removable, and is secured in place with two thumbscrews. There is plenty of room at the top of the case, where you can easily stuff unsightly cables or watercooling equipment out of the way.
One of the most notable features of the case’s innards is the PowerBar, which is a power distribution board that allows you to provide power to your hardware without having to route cables to them. The case’s power supply can be plugged into the top of the board, which provides power to the ports at the bottom of the board. You can then route modular cables to your PCI-e video cards, hard drives, sound cards (in the case of Asus’ D2X), or any other internal device that needs a PSU lead. This method keeps the inside nice and tidy, as you don’t have unnecessary molex connectors dangling uselessly.
The case comes with four swivel-wheels, but are not installed by default. It is recommended that you mount these feet before you install your PC hardware, which is easy to do thanks to the pre-drilled holes.
There are three major parts of installing a case: installing the motherboard, installing the drives, and installing the power supply. It is recommended to perform a new installation in that order to maximize the room you have to work with (if you install the PSU first then you’ll be moving cables out of the way as you mount hardware).
Motherboard Installation
Motherboard installation is rather easy, thanks to the extremely forgiving slide-out motherboard tray. Even if this tray didn’t come out, there would be plenty of room in this case to work with. As mentioned before, the entire back of the case slides out with the tray, so the exhaust fan and option cards go with the motherboard when removed. All you have to do is loosen the thumbscrews… but these thumbscrews aren’t the “thumbiest” things in the world… you really need a Phillips-head screwdriver to loosen them.
Once the tray is removed you can install the brass standoffs for your particular motherboard and attach your custom I/O shield. Since there is nothing in close proximety to the motherboard, you have lots of room. Since everything is on this tray, you can go ahead and install your CPU heatsink, RAM, VGA and other options cards. Let me tell you that installing a large air-cooled heatsink is much easier when you have this much elbow-room. Rigs with watercooling systems won’t have it so easy, and you’ll probably need to do most hardware installation inside the case. You can even plug in the exhaust fan lead to your motherboard, so once the tray is back in the main chassis then all you have to do is plug in drive connections and power.
Drive Installation
Installing hard drives and DVD-RW drives are pretty straightforward, as well. If you’re not installing a DVD drive into the top slot, then you may have to remove the plastic front to remove the drive guard-plates. There’s lots of room on the right side of the drive cages to route cables, which keeps the inside of your case looking tidy.
Hard drives are also easy to install. The HDD drive cage comes out completely, and is secured with two thumbscrews. It is recommended to remove the cage, install your drives, and then put back in place. We would have liked to see slide-out trays and a right-angle drive tray as seen in Ultra’s Aluminus case.
Front Panel Connections
There are a few other minor things that need attention, such as the front panel connections. If you remove the right-side panel, then you’ll have access to the back of the front panel. Connect a SATA cable to the back, and route it (along with the USB and audio/mic cables) through the rounded hole that provides access to the main motherboard chamber. Then all you have to do is connect the leads to your motherboard.
You shouldn’t have to remove the front panel unless you’re doing mainenance (like removing drive shields or cleaning air intake filters, etc). The front panel must be handled very delicately, because it is very easy to snap off the plastic hooks that attach the panel to the chassis. To remove the panel unlatch the hooks on the left side of the panel and then swing out.
Then you can pull the panel forward, releasing the right tabs from the right side of the case. It took so much force to unhinge that we broke off some of the tabs on the right side. Also, during normal use the front panel’s I/O cover lock became broken, and one of the front USB ports broke off. Not a good sign for a case that is supposed to be more rugged than Indiana Jones.
There are many good things to like about this enthusiast-level case, but there are also some glaring flaws.
The m998’s features make installation rather easy. There is tons of room inside, allowing for large and complex watercooling equipment (or those new monster aircooled heatsinks). The removeable motherboard tray makes initial installation easy, and the PowerBar makes routing power cables much neater.
The case’s swivel wheels make this case somewhat portable, and easy to slide out from under your desk to reach the back of your PC. There’s really no need for the 360-degree swivel action: a back-and-forth wheel would have been just fine.
Ultra’s m998 case takes its namesake from one of the toughest all-terain vehicles around, and definately looks just as roomy and beefy. The case construction is well built, but not built like a tank. The Achilles Heel of this case is the extremely cheap plastic front, which is neighter tough nor beefy, and will certainly snap unless you are extremely careful during installation. You’re buying this case because of it’s toughness, and you have to baby the front like a delicate Faberché egg?
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