by Yury Vayukin
07/03/2005 | 06:09 PM
I will talk about two system case models from MGE Company (if you don’t know, this humble abbreviation unrolls as “Manufacturer of Great Electronics”). The company was founded in 1990 and at first focused on producing system cases. Today MGE is engaged in manufacture of PC components, cases, power supplies, CPU coolers, and cooling systems for high-end computers.
The system cases covered in this review were tested according to the following rules: 1) the exterior and interior of the case are described and 2) a computer system of the following configuration is assembled in it:
To avoid interrupting the airflows, all the cables in the case are neatly twisted into plaits and fastened to the walls, if possible. Having assembled the computer, I write a report on all the positive and negative aspects of the internal design of the case and the quality of manufacture, accompanying the report with photos.
To ensure a stable ambient temperature, I place the assembled computer into the chamber of a Sanyo MIR-253 incubator that maintains a constant temperature of 25 degrees centigrade inside.
Our tests proper are carried out two modes: Idle (the OS is booted up, and the computer is idle) and Burn (the system is running a demo record in Far Cry, at 1024x768 resolution and with the maximum graphics quality settings, in a cycle). We have determined experimentally that the temperature of all system components stabilizes after 40 minutes of being in a particular test mode. So, after these 40 minutes have passed, I read temperature data from the following sensors:
Having tested the case with its standard cooling system, I install additional fans at the rear panel and run the tests once again.
I use the following software:
This model comes in three colors: black, violet and silver. We’ve got a black case for our tests. I think that the case got its name from the appearance of the bottom part of the front panel that reminds me of the masks of Subzero and Scorpion from the game and movie Mortal Combat.
There are four 5.25” bays and two 3.5” open bays on the front panel of the case. They are covered with black plastic faceplates. This entire block of bays is also covered with a door that has a slit for the optical drive in its top so that you didn’t have to open the door to change the disc. It is best to install devices of black color into this Ninja. To the right of the 3.5” bay, there is a Reset button and a HDD activity indicator. It’s not quite clear what’s the point of this indicator because it is not visible when the door is closed.
A little below the center of the face panel, there is a Power button. There are vents at the bottom and headphones, microphone and two USB connectors at the very bottom of the panel. But I don’t understand why they put them so wide apart of each other. It doesn’t matter for the USB connectors, but the wires of the attached headphones and microphone won’t look very aesthetically.
Four cables go into the case from these connectors. They end in separate connectors:
You cannot remove the top panel. It strengthens the whole construction and has vent holes in its sides. The left and right side panels of the case are removable and are held on thumbscrews: shift a panel backwards to take it off. There’s a window of bluish transparent plastic in the right side panel. In the center of the window they installed an 80mm fan made of transparent plastic and of course equipped with highlighting.
Now we can take a look at the innards of this case. There is an 80mm fan made of translucent plastic and with highlighting on the front panel of the case’s chassis, opposite the HDD bays. There are also mounting holes for a 120mm fan here. The system case can accommodate four 5.25” devices, two 3.5” floppy drives and four hard disk drives. The devices are fastened with screws. The mainboard is also screwed up to the plate riveted to the case’s chassis. There’s a speaker at the bottom of the chassis to signal about any problems occurring with the mainboard.
There are seven slits for expansion cards in the rear panel of the case. They are covered with reusable brackets. Two places for 80mm fans are at the top of this panel.
An MGE LC-B450E power supply with a declared wattage of 450 watts is installed in this system case. The PSU’s cables end in four Molex connectors for optical and hard disk drives, one mini-plug for a floppy drive, and one SATA power connector. The cables are rather too short, however. The SATA power cable cannot reach to the bottommost HDD bay. There’s an On/Off switch at the rear panel of the PSU, but no power connector for the monitor.
Here’s how this system case looks like when powered on:
This system case may be of blue, black or silver color. We’ve got a silver-colored sample for our tests. It looks extremely enough, yet retains a certain gravity of appearance.
The silvery-colored face panel offers four 5.25” bays and two “open” 3.5” bays. These bays are all covered under a magnet-held door. Unfortunately, there’s no slit for the optical drive in this door, as we saw with the Ninja. Another unpleasant thing is that the door opens to the left by an angle of a little over 45 degrees. So, if the case is to the right of you, it will be inconvenient to extract a CD or a diskette from the drive.
At the bottom of the front panel, to the right of the vent holes, there are Power and HDD indicators. The Power and Reset buttons are located right above them. On the right side of the front panel, there are two USB connectors, headphones and microphone connectors and a FireWire port. I met an unpleasant surprise between the USB ports: a piece of iron that acts as a spring. I wouldn’t warrant safety of your fingers if you were to connect your headphones blindly, without looking at the case. In fact, this spring can cut your fingers even if you’re just cleaning the system case.
No comments about the wires that go from these connectors into the case. Just take a look at the next snapshot:
The side panels are fastened to the chassis with screws and are shifted back to be removed. The front panel is removable and is held on screws, too. There’s a window made of transparent bluish plastic in the left side panel of the system case. Two vents are located at the bottom of this panel; they are covered with metallic grids. Two 80mm fans made of translucent plastic and with inbuilt highlighting LEDs are installed against these vents on the reverse side of the panel. There’s also a handle on this side panel for an easier opening of the case.
This system case offers four bays for 5.25” devices, two open bays for 3.5” devices (i.e. for floppy drives) and four closed 3.5” bays for hard disk drives. The devices are fastened in the bays in the classic way, i.e. with screws. There is a highlighted 80mm fan on the front panel of the case’s chassis, and you can replace it with a 92mm or a 120mm fan using the appropriate mounting holes available there. The mainboard is fastened on the non-removable plate with screws, too.
There are seven slits for expansion cards here, covered with disposable brackets. An installation place for a fan with a diameter of 80, 92 or 120mm is at the top of the rear panel. They didn’t put the fan there at the factory probably because this fan isn’t necessary. Why? You’ll learn shortly, in the Tests section.
The Sidewinder is equipped with an MGE LC-B400ATX power supply with a declared wattage of 400 watts. The PSU offers four Molex connectors for optical and hard disk drives, one mini-plug for a floppy drive, and one connector for SATA devices. There’s an On/Off switch at the rear panel of the PSU; there is no power connector for the monitor.
You can see the full beauty of this case as you power it up:
We are talking about two modder-friendly system cases in this review. Such cases are supposed to accommodate high-end hardware, so their cooling systems should be up to that purpose. Here’s the summary table of the test results of the Ninja and Sidewinder cases from MGE:
“Rear cooler + Case” means we put an additional fan at the rear panel of the case. The next diagram shows the temperatures of the computer’s subsystems in the MGE Ninja case:
It’s all right when everything’s Idle, but the CPU feels really hot in the Burn mode. The problem must be with the cooler installed on the side panel of the case. This fan is of no good use: it’s just driving warm air from the mainboard’s chipset and the memory modules right at the CPU cooler.
And here are the temperatures of the computer’s subsystems in the MGE Sidewinder case:
That’s an excellent and praiseworthy performance! I even doubted the temperature data at first, especially in the Burn mode. I suspected the sensors had yielded incorrect information or the MotherBoard Monitor hadn’t been properly set up. But I checked everything out and tested this system case once again and got the same results. So, the ventilation of the Sidewinder is superb. When the PC was working, I half-opened the side panel of the case to connect the rear-panel fan. As I put my hand inside the case I felt no heat at all. On the contrary, it was rather cool there, despite the PC working in the Burn mode!
The two fans on the side panel of the chassis and the single fan at the front panel create such a powerful stream of air that the air inside this system case just hasn’t enough time to get hot. The diagram above shows that the installation of an additional rear-panel fan doesn’t bring any considerable improvement (it’s just impossible to improve this cooling further!). The airflow created by the three fans is so strong that it seems like there is a working fan at the rear panel: at least, air comes out through the holes in a perceptible flow where this fan is supposed to be.
I liked both these cases from MGE, but of course the design of the Ninja is more exotic. The Sidewinder looks somewhat less ambitious. But if you’re going to put your top-end computer system into an MGE Sidewinder, you may not bother about overheat at all. It would be like putting your PC into a fridge!