Raidmax MONSTER Author: Gh0sTly -- Posted: 2009-04-10
Raidmax has always been commited to bringing their best to the PC market, and this new case hopefully is a sign of the future, because its light, incredibly strong, and it looks amazing. I am talking about Raidmax's latest case, the MONSTER.
This looks incredibly aggressive. The Raidmax Monster is a aluminum ATX mid-tower chassis with a mesh faceplate, and a aluminum motherboard tray. The design is really amazing and its well thought out. In the front, you get four 5.25 inch drive bays for your dvd/cd drives. On the top, you get a power and reset switch, 2 USB ports, a E-SATA port, and front headphone and microphone jacks, as well as your power and HDD activity LED's. Closer to the back, you have a blue led 120mm fan that works as a top exhaust fan. I want to point out that this is not painted aluminum, its actually anodized aluminum. This means there is no paint to scratch!
The inside of this case is wonderful. Its spacious, and you could easily fit a tri-SLI setup in here with something like the GTX295, and not have any issues with hard drive placement. The power supply is located in the bottom of the case, and rests on 2 rubber strips on the floor of the case. The MONSTER also supplies you with a rubber gasket that goes in between the case and the PSU. This will help reduce the vibration noise from the power supply even more. The mounting area for your drives is made of a heavy gauge aluminum and should be able to hold up to even the heaviest components with no issues.
The hard drive cages in this case are made of the same grade aluminum that the mounting rack for the drives is. I love the design of this and it makes more sense than most because it fits the hard drives in vertically, so you can fit 4 hard drives in the same area as you would if you was to try and fit 3 drives in horizontally. And you get 2 of these racks for a grand total of 8 hard drives. Attached to these cages are the 2 front, blue LED 120mm fans that are good and bright, but not overpowering.
The bottom of the case features a vent for the PSU fan to vent all of its hot air out of, so it cant blow it all into the CPU/Gfx card area. This is great for thermal management. The bottom of the case also features 1/2 inch clearance feet that keep the bottom of the case well elevated so the PSU can vent properly
The side panels on this case are rather unique in design and feature 2 spring clips that hold onto a lip at the bottom of the case, and then 2 spring loaded latches that lock tightly at the top of the case. In the middle of the side panel, you get a almost heat sink looking design from extruded aluminum fins that goes from the front to the back. It looks great and it doesn't feel flimsy at all.
The rear panel of this case is much like any other except the 120mm fan outlet is recessed almost 3/4ths of an inch. This could put a hinder on anyone that wants to put their radiator on the outside of their case. I'm sure you could easily put the fan on the outside and keep the radiator inside, as long as you route your fan's power well. You do get some very nice and large watercooling hose ports with a nice soft rubber that wont dig into your hoses at all.
Overall the design and look of the case are incredible and it really stands out in the vast sea of cases. It looks amazing, and the airflow is wonderful. It reminds me a lot of a Stealth Fighter, with all the angles that it has. I would suggest this case to someone that wants to build a real show stopper case, or someone that wants to mod a completely aluminum case. It has plenty of room for lots of mods. Again, the craftsmanship is top notch on the Raidmax MONSTER PC case.
I would like to take this time to thank Raidmax for letting us review this great product, and I look forward to reviewing more from them in the future.
