Associate
- Joined
- 25 Jun 2009
- Posts
- 440
- Location
- UK
Overclockers were kind enough to supply me with a free BitFenix Colossus case (in black) for review, so i'm going to be giving it a going over and see what its like. I wont bore you with every detail and pics of every stage of the process, i'm sure most of you know more about building computers than me.
I had read a few reviews on the case beforehand which were all pretty similar, but there were a few things that I didn't read about that surprised me once I started to install everything so lets have a quick run through how it went. I will make a few comparisons to my old case which is an Antec P180.
First impressions of this case - **** me it's big. I've never seen a case this big (or heavy) infact the box was so big it was blocking the rear view mirror in my car when I had it in the back seat! The build quality is great, it's nice and sturdy, and the rubbery coating on most of the surfaces adds a nice feel to it instead of bare metal or plastic.
Here are a couple of pics comparing it to the Antec case:
Installing
The case comes with the usual selection of motherboard mountings (which I must add, took a bit of persuasion to screw in), screws, cable ties and so on. The case sports external 5.25" bays only, but is supplied with an adaptor should you need to fit a floppy drive/card reader etc. One thing that amused me was the internal speaker, which comes loose in the box, pic below. Isn't it cute?
Inside the case itself it's an all black interior, very nice. Dominating the top and front of the case are the two massive 230mm fans. There is a myriad of wires and connectors for the fans, front panel usb/sata, leds/power switches and the LED lighting. The built in fan controller has connectors for 6x 3 pin fans. The opening for the rear fan has screw holes for both 140 and 120mm fans contrary to some reviews which state 140mm only.
The front door is held shut by fairly weak magnets, which work great when the case is sitting up properly, but with the case on its side while installing all the components, I ended up taking off the door as it was flapping about. It is easily removed with 4 screws. The hinges are removed with a further 4 screws allowing you to swap them to the other side, if you wish to have the door open to the left instead. A bit fiddly, but not something you are doing to be doing every day.
Installing the motherboard is a breeze, being such a big case. Here's a pic to show you how much space there is. Can you see the motherboard? It's in there somewhere....
The distance between the PSU and 8 pin cpu power socket is quite considerable, so you may need to consider an extension cable. I needed one with my Corsair PSU. The 24 pin power connector had plenty room to spare however.
The rubber grommets for sliding cables through had a tendancy to pull out while I was feeding cables through, but they are easily pushed back into place.
On the other side of the case, you have the fairly standard access behind the motherboard. There is about 3cm of space between the back of the motherboard, and the side of the case in which to hide all the cables.
The first big thing that disappointed me was the connectors for the front panel USB 3. If you want USB 3, you need to run these cables out the back of the case somewhere and plug them in. There is a header cable supplied but it is for USB 2 only. I ended up running them out of one of the watercooling grommets as there is no other place to do so easily.
Moving on to the hard drive installation, and the next disappointment. The reviews I had read went on about the flimsy hard drive cradles and they weren't wrong. These are totally tool-less (like most of the case), having metal pins that push into the usual screw holes on the hard drive. They are pretty cheap and flimsy feeling, but once the hard drive is installed it feels solid enough.
However, these cradles do not slide into the case properly, they barely catch on the runners (as you will see in the pic, there isn't much for them to hold on to) and your hard drives are in severe danger of taking a tumble towards the bottom of the case while you are sliding them in! Once they click into place, they are pretty secure, I gave them a good amount of force and they stay put, but i would highly recommend you have a good hold on them while sliding them in.
The cradles also have a bit of play in them once fully installed, which could cause a bit of vibration noise although once up and running I didn't have any problems.
On the plus side, the cradles have mountings in the middle of them allowing you to secure a 2.5" hard drive/SSD without any additional brackets, although you will need to use normal screws here.
Moving on to the third big (potential) disappointment with this case - the tool-less expansion card holding thingies. The idea is great, but I had BIG problems with my Sabertooth board. That plastic shroud on the motherboard means you can't quite get the back plate of the graphics card down far enough to slide under the levers. I had to move the whole motherboard forward, slot in the graphics card and the slide it back into place to get it to fit. Very annoying. I'm guessing its not an issue on other motherboards, but with the Sabertooth board it was a royal pain in the arse.
An explosion of wires!
All done (I know, I couldn't be bothered sorting the gfx card power cables)
Disappointments aside, I finished up installing, put the door back on and connected up the LEDs. Then proceeded to nearly break my back when I picked it up... I just had to weigh this thing - 23.4kg! This is not the sort of case you want to be moving about on a regular basis unless you want to do yourself a permanent injury, or you lift atlas stones for a living.
So whats it like in use?
Having been very happy with the cooling and quiet operation of my old Antec case, I was curious as to how this case would perform, and I wasn't disappointed. It's very quiet in operation, even with the 230mm fans set on high, the difference in noise compared to low isn't much at all.
Comparing CPU temps idle and load between the two cases, they are much and such the same, the Colossus perhaps having a small edge. My i5 2500K @ stock speeds idled at about 35°C in the Antec, and about 33-34°C in the Colossus with the fans on medium. Load temps also have the same couple of degree difference in the Colossus, reading about 58-59°C with Prime95 running. Room temp is usually around 24°C.
The storage compartment on the top of the case is nice, if a bit gimmicky. I do like the power/lighting buttons, a nice satisfying click instead of usual spongy switches on all my other cases. The fan controller knob is in here too along with 2x USB 2, 2x USB 3 and 1x eSata. The power led, HD led and the lock for the storage compartment are hidden behind the door when closed. The power led is stupidly bright, so i'm glad its hidden away.
The LED lighting on this case is a lot nicer in the flesh than in any pictures, the blue is bright and very in your face while the red is a bit more subtle. I rather like the red myself. You can set it to pulsate or stay on solid.
One last thing, once you turn off the fancy lighting with the door closed, this case has absolutely no lighting/LEDs visable, not even a bit of leakage, which is great if you want a nice dark room for watching a movie or whatnot. Unless you have something inside shining out the back of course
Conclusion
On the whole, this case is pretty nice. The build quality is good, its got plenty of features and there is enough room to host a small party inside. While the issue of fitting graphics cards with my motherboard sticks in my mind, given that the majority of motherboards out there won't have this issue, then it's not really a major problem but definitely something to keep in mind if you are buying.
Thanks for reading.
I had read a few reviews on the case beforehand which were all pretty similar, but there were a few things that I didn't read about that surprised me once I started to install everything so lets have a quick run through how it went. I will make a few comparisons to my old case which is an Antec P180.
First impressions of this case - **** me it's big. I've never seen a case this big (or heavy) infact the box was so big it was blocking the rear view mirror in my car when I had it in the back seat! The build quality is great, it's nice and sturdy, and the rubbery coating on most of the surfaces adds a nice feel to it instead of bare metal or plastic.
Here are a couple of pics comparing it to the Antec case:
Installing
The case comes with the usual selection of motherboard mountings (which I must add, took a bit of persuasion to screw in), screws, cable ties and so on. The case sports external 5.25" bays only, but is supplied with an adaptor should you need to fit a floppy drive/card reader etc. One thing that amused me was the internal speaker, which comes loose in the box, pic below. Isn't it cute?
Inside the case itself it's an all black interior, very nice. Dominating the top and front of the case are the two massive 230mm fans. There is a myriad of wires and connectors for the fans, front panel usb/sata, leds/power switches and the LED lighting. The built in fan controller has connectors for 6x 3 pin fans. The opening for the rear fan has screw holes for both 140 and 120mm fans contrary to some reviews which state 140mm only.
The front door is held shut by fairly weak magnets, which work great when the case is sitting up properly, but with the case on its side while installing all the components, I ended up taking off the door as it was flapping about. It is easily removed with 4 screws. The hinges are removed with a further 4 screws allowing you to swap them to the other side, if you wish to have the door open to the left instead. A bit fiddly, but not something you are doing to be doing every day.
Installing the motherboard is a breeze, being such a big case. Here's a pic to show you how much space there is. Can you see the motherboard? It's in there somewhere....
The distance between the PSU and 8 pin cpu power socket is quite considerable, so you may need to consider an extension cable. I needed one with my Corsair PSU. The 24 pin power connector had plenty room to spare however.
The rubber grommets for sliding cables through had a tendancy to pull out while I was feeding cables through, but they are easily pushed back into place.
On the other side of the case, you have the fairly standard access behind the motherboard. There is about 3cm of space between the back of the motherboard, and the side of the case in which to hide all the cables.
The first big thing that disappointed me was the connectors for the front panel USB 3. If you want USB 3, you need to run these cables out the back of the case somewhere and plug them in. There is a header cable supplied but it is for USB 2 only. I ended up running them out of one of the watercooling grommets as there is no other place to do so easily.
Moving on to the hard drive installation, and the next disappointment. The reviews I had read went on about the flimsy hard drive cradles and they weren't wrong. These are totally tool-less (like most of the case), having metal pins that push into the usual screw holes on the hard drive. They are pretty cheap and flimsy feeling, but once the hard drive is installed it feels solid enough.
However, these cradles do not slide into the case properly, they barely catch on the runners (as you will see in the pic, there isn't much for them to hold on to) and your hard drives are in severe danger of taking a tumble towards the bottom of the case while you are sliding them in! Once they click into place, they are pretty secure, I gave them a good amount of force and they stay put, but i would highly recommend you have a good hold on them while sliding them in.
The cradles also have a bit of play in them once fully installed, which could cause a bit of vibration noise although once up and running I didn't have any problems.
On the plus side, the cradles have mountings in the middle of them allowing you to secure a 2.5" hard drive/SSD without any additional brackets, although you will need to use normal screws here.
Moving on to the third big (potential) disappointment with this case - the tool-less expansion card holding thingies. The idea is great, but I had BIG problems with my Sabertooth board. That plastic shroud on the motherboard means you can't quite get the back plate of the graphics card down far enough to slide under the levers. I had to move the whole motherboard forward, slot in the graphics card and the slide it back into place to get it to fit. Very annoying. I'm guessing its not an issue on other motherboards, but with the Sabertooth board it was a royal pain in the arse.
An explosion of wires!
All done (I know, I couldn't be bothered sorting the gfx card power cables)
Disappointments aside, I finished up installing, put the door back on and connected up the LEDs. Then proceeded to nearly break my back when I picked it up... I just had to weigh this thing - 23.4kg! This is not the sort of case you want to be moving about on a regular basis unless you want to do yourself a permanent injury, or you lift atlas stones for a living.
So whats it like in use?
Having been very happy with the cooling and quiet operation of my old Antec case, I was curious as to how this case would perform, and I wasn't disappointed. It's very quiet in operation, even with the 230mm fans set on high, the difference in noise compared to low isn't much at all.
Comparing CPU temps idle and load between the two cases, they are much and such the same, the Colossus perhaps having a small edge. My i5 2500K @ stock speeds idled at about 35°C in the Antec, and about 33-34°C in the Colossus with the fans on medium. Load temps also have the same couple of degree difference in the Colossus, reading about 58-59°C with Prime95 running. Room temp is usually around 24°C.
The storage compartment on the top of the case is nice, if a bit gimmicky. I do like the power/lighting buttons, a nice satisfying click instead of usual spongy switches on all my other cases. The fan controller knob is in here too along with 2x USB 2, 2x USB 3 and 1x eSata. The power led, HD led and the lock for the storage compartment are hidden behind the door when closed. The power led is stupidly bright, so i'm glad its hidden away.
The LED lighting on this case is a lot nicer in the flesh than in any pictures, the blue is bright and very in your face while the red is a bit more subtle. I rather like the red myself. You can set it to pulsate or stay on solid.
One last thing, once you turn off the fancy lighting with the door closed, this case has absolutely no lighting/LEDs visable, not even a bit of leakage, which is great if you want a nice dark room for watching a movie or whatnot. Unless you have something inside shining out the back of course
Conclusion
On the whole, this case is pretty nice. The build quality is good, its got plenty of features and there is enough room to host a small party inside. While the issue of fitting graphics cards with my motherboard sticks in my mind, given that the majority of motherboards out there won't have this issue, then it's not really a major problem but definitely something to keep in mind if you are buying.
Thanks for reading.
Last edited:
