Getting Inside:

   Removing the top of the case is the easy part; it's just one thumbscrew and slide off. However in order to get the side panels off you'll need a screwdriver. There is 2 screws on the top leading edge of both panels. Once removed the panels come off easily with just a little tug upwards and out.

   Getting inside the case, now with the panels removed, we see there's quite a bit of space in there as compared to other micro atx cases. Again this is no ordinary case. One really neat feature I noticed pretty quick was all those typically annoying front port cables can be disconnected! YES! All case manufacturers need to take notice on that small but extremely helpful feature. I don't know too many people that use all those misc cables so being able to unplug them and clear them out of the case does nicely for keeping the case interior neat and help airflow.

   The frame of this case is steel while all the exterior panels are a thick 3mm aluminum with the exception of the thin aluminum top panel. The frame is sturdy even without the added benefit of the panels being attached. With the panels removed there really isn't much to the case itself. 4 of the 5 120mm fans are attached to the side panels and therefore removable. The drive bay area is pretty much one unit and entirely located in the front section of the case with just a 120mm fan attached to the rear of the inside of the chassis.

Installation:

   Oh the dreaded installation section. up until now in the review we've seen a very unique case that's large, roomy and with tons of cooling potential. I wouldn't be afraid to stick an SLI setup in a case like this for a second. It's just too bad they don't make any SLI micro-atx motherboards (anymore) and it's also too bad this case doesn't support a full atx motherboard since there certainly could've been room for it if the design spun the motherboard 90 degrees. Ahh well I guess the industry will never learn...or even listen.

   Anyway, back to the dreaded installation section of this review. First things first; installing the 5.25" drives was ridiculous. I had to unscrew the thick aluminum front panel (which is done thru 4 awkwardly placed screws) so I could get to the screws (yes screws) that hold on the empty front bay covers! Why lord, oh why would anyone screw them on? Never mind screw them on and then bury the screws for them in between the front panel and inner drive cage so that you HAVE TO take the whole font off to get to them?! UGH! Horrible design flaw there.

   Then on top of that, once that was done I tried using the completely useless steel mini popsicle sticks that NZXT labeled as "drive rails" which did nothing from jam my drive 3/4 of the way into the drive cage for about 10 minutes while I cussed, pried and twisted to try to get it back out. The icing on that shame cake is the fact that the drive rails aren't even mentioned in the case manual *sigh*. I guess I see why now, they're utterly useless.

   After promptly discarding the crappy drive rails (read: melted into thimbles), I just screwed the optical drives on the conventional way. In this day and age it boggles the mind as to why there isn't a tool-less system in this case. I mean, crappy budget cases even have great tool-less systems in them nowadays for the most part. Installing the hard drives (which it will hold up to four hdd's!) was much easier but I still had to screw them in manually.

   Once the MB tray was loaded up with a Foxconn G33M-S motherboard, E6600 Core 2 Duo, stock Intel Cooler, 2x1GB Kingston DDR2-800 and ASUS 8800GTS graphics card I attempted to slide it into the case. It went about half way and got jammed up. But it wasn't really jammed up on anything sticking out, I think it was just binding up, maybe some twisting of the MB tray or something. I eventually got it to go all the way in without removing the graphics card, but it took some work inching it in. Once I got the tray all the way, you can see where there's plenty of room inside for the most part. However also notice all the wasted space under the optical/HDD bays that goes to waste. Again, full ATX support would've taken this case to a new level for sure.

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