Final Thoughts
So where do I even begin with this case. Well if you read the last page you could tell that when it came to installation and getting everything wired up it was pretty much a disaster. Before we get into that let me talk about what I do like about this case. The big selling point of this case is the 7 included fans, which is definitely something nice to have come stock on any case. All of the fans except 1 have blue LED’s which means your case is going to be pretty noticeable at a LAN party. The the price of the Halcon GS-6050 II is pretty attractive too at $64.99.
Now here is the bad part, all of the things I did not like about this case. The biggest thing to me is that this case seems dated. Yes it does support 2.5-inch hard drives and has a USB 3.0 port but the USB 3.0 connection is an external one and there is only a single USB 3.0 connection. Sentey has been using the same hard drive trays since 2011, while they get the job done they are anything but perfect. The back has that wall on it that makes it so you cannot install the drives facing the back of the case. You also have to pop the entire front bezel of the case off to install your optical drives.
When it came to wiring the case up I ran into so many issues. The USB 3.0 connection needs to be routed outside of the case and connected to your motherboard. That means you are going to have to have it going across the case and outside the back. The USB and HD audio connections when routed through the available routing holes are not even long enough to reach the headers so they need to be routed directly down over the motherboard. All of the fans use molex connectors so you will need a few available molex connections and since the fans do not have 3pin connections you cannot connect them to a fan controller or even your motherboard for control or monitoring. With that many fans in the case, which are pretty loud it would be nice to be able to control their speed. There is more or less no room behind the case to route cables. I only had my main 24pin ATX power connector, CPU power connector and SATA power connector behind the motherboard tray and I was not able to get the side panel back on. Why even put the cable routing holes there if they cannot really even be used? So with all of the other cables in the main part of the case it is a jumbled mess and I cannot imagine airflow is any good, even with the 7 fans running.
At the end of the day I really cannot recommend this case to anyone. It just is really too dated and there is not enough room to route cables to have good airflow and a clean looking system. It is honestly rare that we review a product that has this much wrong with it. Normally we find one or two things wrong with a product but there we just too many with this case. And there is nothing really compelling about the case that even justifies the $64.99 price tag. At that price there are at least 3 other cases I would recommend over the Halcon GS-6050 II. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Halcon GS-6050 II a 5 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– 7 included fans
– Inexpensive
Cons:
– A wiring disaster (read above)
– hard drives can only be installed 1 way in the trays
– Only a single USB 3.0 connection which uses a connector that has to be routed around the back of the case
– Fans are loud and with 7 a fan controller would have been nice
