Corsair Vengeance C70 – get it in green
Call us suckers for military theming, but
Corsair's Vengeance C70 is a beautiful steel case that's every bit as
functional as it is fun to look at. The system sports a hefty arsenal: no fewer
than six screwless hard drive trays and three screwless 5.25-inch bays, in addition
to one 12cm fan in the case's rear and two directly to the left of the system's
hard drive bays. You can add two additional 12cm fans to the system's front and
two on top – arranged perfectly for a 240mm water-cooling radiator, if that's
your calling.
Corsair
Vengeance C70
The first thing you'll notice about the C70
is its handles. Specifically, the two carrying handles at the top of the case
that make the chassis a breeze to move around. Two military-style latches secure
each of the side panels in place – a feature that's as creative as it is useful,
as you no longer have to bother with screwdrivers or thumbscrews just to get to
your system's guts. The C70's front panel sports two USB 3.0 ports on an internal
header and a fun flip-up switch for the reset button that makes you feel as if
you're about to ‘fire zee missiles.’
The C70 only supports ATX or micro- ATX
motherboards, as the standoffs for either come built directly into the chassis.
A hole in the motherboard tray simplifies the process of adjusting (or installing]
aftermarket CPU coolers, and four cable-management cutouts (three rubberized,
one bare) along with a few snap-locking mechanisms on the rear of the
motherboard tray help keep your system's insides from looking like Medusa.
Tight PCI thumbscrews and fan filters that
kept falling out of the case’s bottom were two of our bigger frustrations with
this otherwise svelte chassis. Like the military machine, this no-nonsense chassis
gets the job done and then some.
MSI Ravager – cheap, but not inexpensive
The MSI Ravager looks like it was extruded
from Monster Energy cans. Its exterior is black-painted SECC steel with bright
blue claw-mark decals, and the inside is black with the mobo tray, drive trays,
slot covers, and optical bay mechanisms picked out in bright blue.
The Ravager has six HDD trays (all with SSD
mounting holes), three toolless optical drive slots, and seven PCIe expansion
slots. The top hard drive cage is removable, though there's plenty of room for
extra-long graphics cards even with the cage in place. The mobo tray has four
cable-routing cutouts, a CPU backplane cutout, and plenty of tiedowns.
The Ravager ships with one 12cm intake fan
and one 12cm exhaust fan, and can take two more 12cm or 14cm fans on the side
panel, two on the top, and one more 12cm fan on the front, although only the
stock front fan is filtered. Strangely, the front fan uses a Molex connector
rather than a standard fan connector – and the power LED uses Molex as well,
instead of the normal front-panel connector pins. The case's top panel
contains two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 (internal), and audio jacks.
Radioactive
blue: the color that goes with everything
The build quality of the Ravager leaves
much to be desired. The front panel is built of plastic so cheap that half of
the mounting posts had snapped off before we opened the box. The hard drive
trays are flimsy, and the PCI thumbscrews are just regular screws wrapped in
blue plastic, which left shavings everywhere each time we used them.
The Ravager would be an OK, if ugly, case
at $50. At $100, it's insulting. For the same price you can get a much
better-looking and better-constructed case from Fractal, Silverstone, Corsair,
or NZXT. MSI should stick to the stuff that goes inside cases.
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Details
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Verdict
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6/10
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Price
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$100
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Website
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us.msi.com
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