Associate
I bought the green windowed case after reading people’s comments about cooling, with the plan that I could take off the window, add a dust filter and mount a 120/140mm fan. Since I'm not using a tower cooler (having bought the base parts to use in a Lone Industries L2) I’ve got space to do that.
Well, the case is not the green it appears on the website. It was a surprise, but it’s grown on me and I like it. The colour is like a transparent glaze over the aluminium, and the result is a reflective case that glows. I was expecting a more solid-coloured anodising, but hey ho!
One with coloured items around to give a colour comparison:
I have seen it look like the website colour under fluorescent lighting, but that's the only time.
Inside the case I'm putting:
The assembly went together smoothly after a couple of dry runs. Being able to remove the bottom of the case makes it very easy to get everything in. In spite of being small there’s a lot of unused space. The most fiddly part was getting the 2.5” drive mounted, as the daisy-chained power connector wouldn’t fold sharply enough to fit when the drive was screwed down.
The mobo cutout is wrongly placed for the ASUS Z97I-PLUS, but the backplate isn’t touching so all is good. It just means to change the thermal compound I use I’ll have to take everything out of the case :sigh:
There's a lot of space above the SFX PSU - looks to be enough to take the 500W SFX-L if you need it
That pesky cable for the front audio ports. Everything else is well placed on the ASUS board... so why put this at the rear?
My one error was not plugging in the rear fan to the motherboard fan header before assembling. Because the Shuriken is so wide I can’t get to the fan headers when it’s in the case, so I had to take the bottom off the case again to plug the fan in
There’s ~1mm between the Shuriken and the case fan:
The USB3 cable to the front ports is quite loose in the motherboard, and every time I rearrange anything in the case it comes out.
Above the graphics card there is a surprising amount of space. Chillblast have modded the Metis cases they sell and put a fan here as an intake for the graphics card. I am curious what effect a fan at the end (above the PSU) blowing along the graphics card and out the back would have.
I turned the rear fan round and mounted it as an intake, my aim being that air would come in here, flow round the end of the graphics card and along the top of it, and exhaust out the vent at the back. In practice, the air seems to vent out the grille on the other side of the case. The holes in the bottom of the case (for attaching drives etc) also let out a lot of air, and I am experimenting with blocking them up.
Temperatures are surprisingly good. On Prime95 using 4 threads and the max heat option, the CPU got up to 79 and then dropped back to a stable 74, with the rear fan noticeable but not bad. I hadn’t got round to re-seating the Shuriken before putting it in the case and I think I’d reduce it a few degrees if I did. I used a very old Akasa white thermal paste, and now have new Gelid Solutions GC-EXTREME to replace it - and more knowledge to ensure it spreads correctly.
Using Furmark, I haven’t managed to get the graphics card past 61 degrees yet (on the 1080 benchmark - the frame rate is 26fps so not usable). I am impressed with the Strix, I cannot tell when it’s turned on over the system noise.
Noise levels under normal use conditions (programming & associated work) are good enough to be silent against background noise. I will test gaming, and with a lower background noise level, when I get a chance (have to turn off the central heating).
Conclusion
Would I buy the case again? Yes. It’s well designed and put together. My only quibbles are the colours (not great for a western market), mobo cutout, and the black screws supplied - the black coating is not durable and I have bright silvery bits showing.
I really wish Raijintek or a seller would show the colour accurately in their pictures. I have contacted Raijintek asking they offer some other, more subdued colours, but had no response yet.
Regarding my build, if I did it again I would use a CPU cooler ~1cm narrower to make access to the fan headers easier. I don't want a full tower cooler to leave space by the window for future cooling options. Any suggestions?
I'd like to see a variant ("Diet Metis"?) where the case is 14cm wide, there's no fan at the back, and the window is used as an intake. I've a lot of unused space in my build, and a smaller footprint on the desk would be very nice.
Well, the case is not the green it appears on the website. It was a surprise, but it’s grown on me and I like it. The colour is like a transparent glaze over the aluminium, and the result is a reflective case that glows. I was expecting a more solid-coloured anodising, but hey ho!
One with coloured items around to give a colour comparison:
I have seen it look like the website colour under fluorescent lighting, but that's the only time.
Inside the case I'm putting:
- ASUS Z97I-PLUS
- Intel i5 4590
- Scythe Big Shuriken Rev 2b CPU cooler
- 16GB Crucial Ballistix vlp RAM
- Crucial MX100 SSD
- ASUS STRIX GTX 750 Ti
- SilverStone SST-ST30SF 300W SFX PSU
The assembly went together smoothly after a couple of dry runs. Being able to remove the bottom of the case makes it very easy to get everything in. In spite of being small there’s a lot of unused space. The most fiddly part was getting the 2.5” drive mounted, as the daisy-chained power connector wouldn’t fold sharply enough to fit when the drive was screwed down.
The mobo cutout is wrongly placed for the ASUS Z97I-PLUS, but the backplate isn’t touching so all is good. It just means to change the thermal compound I use I’ll have to take everything out of the case :sigh:
There's a lot of space above the SFX PSU - looks to be enough to take the 500W SFX-L if you need it
That pesky cable for the front audio ports. Everything else is well placed on the ASUS board... so why put this at the rear?
My one error was not plugging in the rear fan to the motherboard fan header before assembling. Because the Shuriken is so wide I can’t get to the fan headers when it’s in the case, so I had to take the bottom off the case again to plug the fan in
There’s ~1mm between the Shuriken and the case fan:
The USB3 cable to the front ports is quite loose in the motherboard, and every time I rearrange anything in the case it comes out.
Above the graphics card there is a surprising amount of space. Chillblast have modded the Metis cases they sell and put a fan here as an intake for the graphics card. I am curious what effect a fan at the end (above the PSU) blowing along the graphics card and out the back would have.
I turned the rear fan round and mounted it as an intake, my aim being that air would come in here, flow round the end of the graphics card and along the top of it, and exhaust out the vent at the back. In practice, the air seems to vent out the grille on the other side of the case. The holes in the bottom of the case (for attaching drives etc) also let out a lot of air, and I am experimenting with blocking them up.
Temperatures are surprisingly good. On Prime95 using 4 threads and the max heat option, the CPU got up to 79 and then dropped back to a stable 74, with the rear fan noticeable but not bad. I hadn’t got round to re-seating the Shuriken before putting it in the case and I think I’d reduce it a few degrees if I did. I used a very old Akasa white thermal paste, and now have new Gelid Solutions GC-EXTREME to replace it - and more knowledge to ensure it spreads correctly.
Using Furmark, I haven’t managed to get the graphics card past 61 degrees yet (on the 1080 benchmark - the frame rate is 26fps so not usable). I am impressed with the Strix, I cannot tell when it’s turned on over the system noise.
Noise levels under normal use conditions (programming & associated work) are good enough to be silent against background noise. I will test gaming, and with a lower background noise level, when I get a chance (have to turn off the central heating).
Conclusion
Would I buy the case again? Yes. It’s well designed and put together. My only quibbles are the colours (not great for a western market), mobo cutout, and the black screws supplied - the black coating is not durable and I have bright silvery bits showing.
I really wish Raijintek or a seller would show the colour accurately in their pictures. I have contacted Raijintek asking they offer some other, more subdued colours, but had no response yet.
Regarding my build, if I did it again I would use a CPU cooler ~1cm narrower to make access to the fan headers easier. I don't want a full tower cooler to leave space by the window for future cooling options. Any suggestions?
I'd like to see a variant ("Diet Metis"?) where the case is 14cm wide, there's no fan at the back, and the window is used as an intake. I've a lot of unused space in my build, and a smaller footprint on the desk would be very nice.