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Mid-Tower Mega Roundup

 by Joshua Buss on September 8, 2005 12:05 AM EST
48 Comments | Add A Comment
48 Comments
DynaPower F3323 (cont'd)

With the ability to hold extended motherboards and full-size expansion cards, the interior of the F3323 is very spacious - especially for typical desktop components.

DynaPower has made a great effort to keep the system entirely tool-less, and most of the implementations of this goal actually turned out really well. The retention clip for the 5¼” drives, for instance, simply applies pressure to hold the drives until the user depresses the large, color-coded tab to release them. The single external 3½” bay has a similar system, but uses a coiled spring to apply pressure to the mounting pins.


Click to enlarge.

We were a bit shocked to find that the F3323 only has dedicated space for four hard disk drives. Being a server case this large, we feel that it really would've made more sense to make it slightly larger if that's what it took to allow the case to hold twice as many. As it is currently designed, there is actually quite a large portion of unused space in the front bottom of the chassis.


Click to enlarge.

Perhaps more annoying than the lack of more hard drive bays, however, are the rails themselves. Once in place, they hold the drive steadfast with no issues. Actually, getting the rails to stay in place on the drive while one loads them into the bay, however, is not all that easy. If they were simple push pins, this would not be much of an issue, but they're actually pieces of metal that run the length of the rail and are then bent at the tips into points meant for insertion into the drive's mounting threads.


Click to enlarge.

One also has to be careful that their IDE cables will be long enough - the case's extra depth made it just barely possible to use our standard ribbon cables.

Another possibly big gripe for a lot of users will be the omission of any case fans in this enclosure. While having a case ready to use out of the box is certainly important to many people, DynaPower must feel as if it makes more sense to let the user determine what kind of fan to use, if any is used at all.


Click to enlarge.

Since we wanted to make the case comparisons as close to "out of the box as we could, we were reluctant to add any fan at all - but this would be rather rare in our opinion, so we included a spare Panasonic Panaflo 120mm fan for testing. Known for its air-pushing prowess, we chose to include an in-line fan speed controller to keep the fan from creating overwhelming noise.


Click to enlarge.


DynaPower F3323 DynaPower F3323 (cont’d)
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  • Abecedaria - Sunday, September 11, 2005 - link

    What was the criteria for choosing these cases? Most of them look nasty-plasticy and even the Antec P-180, although it looks good, has a veery plasticy feel.

    Where was Silverstone in your review? They have some of the best cases available:
    http://www.silverstonetek.com/product-case.htm">http://www.silverstonetek.com/product-case.htm
    and from their new subsidiary:
    http://www.tuniq.com.tw/Chassis/chassis.htm">http://www.tuniq.com.tw/Chassis/chassis.htm

    These things rock.

    abc

  • unclebud - Monday, September 12, 2005 - link

    please consider reviewing the performance 640 next time?
    it currently includes a smartpower v2 400w, for $129
    thanks in advance

  • Rudee - Saturday, September 10, 2005 - link

    There is an error in the article. The Sonata II does indeed have a removable air filter in the front of the case, thus should not be given a score of "0" for this catagory.

  • Tamale - Saturday, September 10, 2005 - link

    The filter is removable from the bottom of the case only.. while this certainly is 'removable', it is nowhere near as accessible as the other cases which I gave this point to. I struggled with the idea of giving the case .5 for this category, but it wouldn't have made a difference in the end, and I really don't feel that most users would go through the trouble of tipping the case over just to clean the filter, so no points were awarded.

    Thanks for pointing out the detail though.

  • Rudee - Saturday, September 10, 2005 - link

    The Sonata II case is great. I was able to overclock a AMD 64 3700 to 2700mhz using the stock AMD heatsink and fan with one Panaflo 92mm fan in the duct over the CPU. Temps are great and I ended up returning my Zalman 7700 as I didn't need it.

  • dgkulzer - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link

    After 1 month of use I am very happy with my P180. Assembly does take a bit longer than a standard case if you are trying to hide your cables but that isnt much of an issue to me. I put a Phantom 500 PSU in it and because its longer than most other PSU's I had to replace the lower fan with a thinner model (Nexus 120). I have 4 hard drives in the lower chamber and the Nexus at 5 volts keeps them very cool - I havent had the Phantom fan kick on yet either.

    This is one case that looks better in person than it does in pictures, the pictures make it look like a little fridge or something but it looks pretty sweet on your desk :)

  • mschira - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link

    I guess the two compartment design is great for watercooling. You could put the pump reservoir etc in the lower compartment. If something leaks, the electronic is save.
    I think that's great thing...
    M.
    P.S. onla trouble is where to put the power suply...

  • Griswold - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link

    Kids, having a flashy computer under your desk doesnt make the chicks like you more. Say no to stupid side windows!

  • Tamale - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link

    you seem to forget that most kids who think it would look cool to have the window in the first place probably don't care about girls anyway ;)

    p.s. - most people (girls included) seem to think my all-acrylic case is pretty cool

  • Griswold - Sunday, September 11, 2005 - link

    quote:
    p.s. - most people (girls included) seem to think my all-acrylic case is pretty cool


    Besides the total lack of EM shielding (which is enough reason to not do what you did, not only because it's not allowed in many countries (I know, I know, US is different, there, the cops wont stop you if your car has only 3 wheels..)), a full acrylic case is a nice show thingie. I just find side windows embarrassing, especially when the rest of the case looks like Optimus Prime's chest armor.
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