A Look Inside
Nothing particularly special inside of the bezel, the electronics are on the bezel itself. The bezel is of a style that the side panels have to be removed to press the keepers that lock the bezel in place, something that I haven’t seen in a while.
The side panels are held in place by provided thumbscrews, but they really aren’t necessary, the panels are pretty difficult to remove and replace. I suppose that they will loosen up after a while. Inside of the left side panel is a telescopic hood designed to provide outside air to the CPU cooler. I’ve had a few cases with these, they are to be used with stock coolers, and usually have to be removed when using aftermarket cooling.
Peering into the open case, I have to admit the unpainted surfaces make the case look pretty cheap. But the fit and finish are just fine, I found no sharp corners or surfaces anywhere. Even with the side panels removed, the case feels sturdy, with none of the flex you often get from inexpensive cases.
The case has bays for four optical drives. The way the metal is punched for the bays, it looks like it was intended for some kind of tool-free devices to hold the optical drives, and the instructions show locking devices, but after checking with Rosewill, it has no tool-free optical drive locking devices.
There is room for a pair of 3.5″ external devices, and four hard drives. Though I have never seen hard drive locking devices exactly like these, they are similar to others I’ve seen.
The offsets are stamped into the motherboard tray, no need for brass offsets that can strip out. There is a 120mm fan in the rear of the case. The PCI locking device is also something a little different that I have seen similar devices on other cases, a single locking bar holds all cards in place.
The bundle is what you’d expect from a very low budget case, a bag of screws, some zip ties, and an instruction pamphlet.
Installation
Test Rig:
Intel Core 2 Duo E-8400 45nm
ASRock N7AD-SLI
CSX-CEC DDR2-800 4GB Kit
Palit geForce 9600GT 1GB video card
Sunbeamtech Tuniq Potency 550 power supply
I decided to build an economy rig with the Wind Ryder, including shipping less operating system, this rig would run under 600 bucks including shipping, and would do pretty much anything you’d want to do with a rig, including play any game.
Installation is very straightforward, install the power supply and optical drive, using included screws.
Install the hard drive. I couldn’t make the locking devices work, and ended up using screws. I examined the locks for some time, and really couldn’t figure out how they are supposed to work.
Prep the CPU and cooler, apply thermal compound, and install both. Install the memory. Place the I/O shield that came with the motherboard in the opening, and install the motherboard in the case. Wire things up, and install the video card. The PCI locking device probably works well, but it wouldn’t work with the multi-slot video card, with it’s single two-slot bracket.
The case is actually designed for some decent cable management, something not usually found in a low-budget case. My wiring is a little sloppy, I’ll tidy up a bit later.
