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Price-Point Comparing Three-Way Case Shootout

 by Joshua Buss on January 13, 2006 12:05 AM EST
69 Comments | Add A Comment
69 Comments
Dynapower E68

In our last roundup, Dynapower surprised us with a very sturdy case designed for more ”industrial” use (namely a server configuration), which offered many great tool-less features and was simply built like a tank. At roughly the same time, the company released a more typically configured tower, the E68. In this first picture of the tower, take note of the gold-colored 120mm fan grill – it's the only active cooling component included in the case.


Click to enlarge.

Normally, we're not fans of taking any pictures of the packing job of any hardware; we expect the packaging to do a good enough job of protecting the vital components and don't feel that readers care to see the packaging unless something is horridly wrong. Upon the opening of the E68 though, we discovered something that we've never exactly seen before, and felt we should share what we saw. The tower of the case was 90% there, but the front bezel itself was packaged separately.

We found it particularly interesting because the front bezel of the E68 is only plastic. However, that really doesn't change the fact that it's a thoughtfully designed unit, which is both highly functional and styled in a particularly unique manner.

Connecting the front bezel to the rest of the case simply consists of guiding the cabling through the circular opening and pushing until the clips snap in place. The bottom portion slides to the left to reveal the port cluster on the E68, which only includes two audio jacks and two USB ports, and unfortunately, the USB ports are pretty tightly placed.


Click to enlarge.

This portion of the bezel is also where the power and HDD activity LEDs are found. Moving upwards, we find the large power button and much smaller, recessed reset button. The silver space to the right of the buttons is not another space for an external 3½” bay, but there is still a dedicated bay centered above.


Click to enlarge.

Raidmax X1 (cont’d) Dynapower E68 (cont’d)
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  • Tamale - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    Lol.. I've gotten this several times now. It's a solid, quiet, dependable, modular unit that's made by NEC. It's a great unit that we've chosen OVER similarly priced and even much more expensive units from antec, ocz, and thermaltake.

  • photoguy99 - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    I'm sure the first time I read the article it warned that people have been having problems with the P150 powersupplies.

    I've also seen reports of this.

    Has it been removed from the article?

  • yacoub - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    If the article doesn't mention it, here you go:

    Antec has been aware of the problem with the NeoPower 430W PSU (with Asus motherboards) that happens to be the one included with the P150. They have fixed the problem but no idea if all the P150s that were already stocked at distributors have been sold by now and the new ones have worked into the system.

    Either way, Antec support will work with you to swap you an updated model of the PSU.

  • puddnhead - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    For me thre are four standards to evaluate a case: cooling, noise, installation proagmatics, cost, and "interface" (getting stuff into and out of external ports and removobale media drives mounted in it). While I realize it's a subjective thing, IMO the last is too often ignored. THis review did a good job in one aspect, noting how far the USB ports are spaced apart. But it failed to notice what I immediately saw as a HUGE flaw in the "edotors choice" case, the X1: the USB, etc ports are BEHIND the door! SO if you have anything plugged into the port, the door MUST stay open. A door is nothing more than something that gets in the way if it can't be closed. AM I the only person in the world that has things plugged into front USB ports for more than a few seconds at a time (the amount of time the door on my current Sonata case is open, to insert and remove CDs & DVDs. The front ports, not behind the door & including firewire, is a big reason I went with the Sonata.

    What I would really like to see is a case that has USB/firewire/audio/etc ports AND one 5 1/4" drive bay not behind a door, and the rest of bays hidden behind the door. Like most people I suspect I pretty much have one CD/DVD drive I need access too a lot, and another less frequently, & of course other bays with no external access needed at all. That would be cool.

  • Zepper - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    Why was the front fan mount on the X1 ignored in the review. Looks like it can hold a 120mm there too. Personally I'd mount the front and rear fans and block off the side fan (unless I was going to duct directly to the CPU) and any other large area of ventilation holes like those at the back. Looks (from the limited view in the one picture - should have taken the front bezel off and taken a shot of the naked front so we could see what's there for ourselves) like the front fan grille is very restrictive and would need to be cut out for best cooling. No real technical-level user or reviewer would have missed that.

    For the fellow in Australia looking for Raidmax, those cases are sold here under several names like Fudin and Logisys as well as Raidmax. I suppose that anyone that wants to can import them from Korea (I believe) and sell them under their own brand name. Another little item that any reviewer with any level of perspective on the PC market would know...

    One would hope to get better than superficial, FANBOY-style reviews from AT. <rolleyes>

    .bh.

  • Zepper - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    Another question I have is why is there a Mad Dog PSU in there? That is one of CompUSA's in-house packagers. Raidmax usually uses L&C-type bottom-feeding junkboxes...

    .bh.

  • Zepper - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    re. the Mad Dog PSU - OIC, the X1 can be had either with or without PSU. The OE one is a junky old design w/ only 14 Amps on the +12, so now we know the why of the PSU swap.

    And the 0.7mm metal thickness is marginal in my book. Can't imagine how that case could not feel flimsy and have ringy acoustics.

    .bh.

  • Tamale - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    Actually, we couldn't use included power supplies because the P150's unit would not allow us to boot the test bed.

  • yacoub - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    For a review of the P150 based on what it was designed for (silence and usability) read this review: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article272-page1.htm...">http://www.silentpcreview.com/article272-page1.htm...

  • Tamale - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link

    I'm sorry, but spending $150, and then going to a lot of extra effort on top of that, all to get a computer as quiet as the X1 would've been in the first place for a third the price seems a little silly.

    I compared these cases for a reason... I really like the P150 too, but I really feel people need to know that there's much cheaper options that are just as/almost as good.

    As for usability, you do have a nice point. The P150 definitely is a nice advancement in this regard. Still, please use some common courtesy and don't use the public comment space to advertise for other websites. Thanks.
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