When my Raidmax Smilodon ended up coming damaged in shipping I was able to rethink my case selection and I ended up going with the Lian Li PC60APLUSII, I am at work or I would have the time to dig up links. Quick rundown, the 80mm fan on the back was adaptable to a 120mm fan, the adapter fit snuggly against a small peice of metal looped on the back, still haven't figured out what it is for exactly, but it ended up fitting on perfectly. It holds a 120mm in the front that blows directly in through the harddrives if you select to use the lower storage area for your drives. The case was wide enough to fit in a Thermalright Ultra 120 with a few cms to spare, but make sure you put your heatsink on the processor AFTER you slide the mobo tray back in the box... made that mistake once and I will never make it again LOL.
The slide out motherboard tray is very handy and allows for quick access to anything it would entail. The case easily fit in my X1900XT ATI PCI-E card with room for the wiring for the drives and such, but it leaves me wanting more room. I think if I ever do another build I may just do a full tower build so I won't have to worry about cramming anything in. There is room for a 120mm fan on the side and I believe an 80mm fan(might be slightly bigger/smaller) on the top. I just used some clear packaging tape to block off those vents. There are four 5 1/2" bays that housed my fan control and ROM drives rather easily, I just setup the fan controller ahead of time for ease of wire management. My 500 watt powersupply may have been over kill for the job I was doing, but I ended up with two sets of wires I had no use for so I just tied them up in the top with any extra loose wiring.
Summary, a decent case, seems a little fragile pulling out the motherboard tray for the first time, but it held up well enough and felt much better once the board was in place. The thumb screws or what have you come off pretty easily, but the case requires some screwdrivers to install/uninstall drives and such. No sharp corners inside the case from what I saw, everything seemed to have a rounded corner and there were even some rubber guards along the upper portion of the inside of case.
This may not be what people expected, but its a casual quick review from a first time builder. Beware cases with plastic like the Smilodon, it may look cool to some, it did to me, but in the end buy a quality case and go from there.
Dave
The slide out motherboard tray is very handy and allows for quick access to anything it would entail. The case easily fit in my X1900XT ATI PCI-E card with room for the wiring for the drives and such, but it leaves me wanting more room. I think if I ever do another build I may just do a full tower build so I won't have to worry about cramming anything in. There is room for a 120mm fan on the side and I believe an 80mm fan(might be slightly bigger/smaller) on the top. I just used some clear packaging tape to block off those vents. There are four 5 1/2" bays that housed my fan control and ROM drives rather easily, I just setup the fan controller ahead of time for ease of wire management. My 500 watt powersupply may have been over kill for the job I was doing, but I ended up with two sets of wires I had no use for so I just tied them up in the top with any extra loose wiring.
Summary, a decent case, seems a little fragile pulling out the motherboard tray for the first time, but it held up well enough and felt much better once the board was in place. The thumb screws or what have you come off pretty easily, but the case requires some screwdrivers to install/uninstall drives and such. No sharp corners inside the case from what I saw, everything seemed to have a rounded corner and there were even some rubber guards along the upper portion of the inside of case.
This may not be what people expected, but its a casual quick review from a first time builder. Beware cases with plastic like the Smilodon, it may look cool to some, it did to me, but in the end buy a quality case and go from there.
Dave