#58: Enermax SpineRex case Review

MSRP: €139.90

This is a very good looking case with good airflow and with a lot of room to work inside. It's certainly a good step forward for Enermax in the case industry. There are a few issues with the case that make its size question the functionality though. The case could've had 9 expansion slots instead of 7 for example. Also the weird design for the motherboard tray doesn't help much with the cablemanagement. In the video review you can see that I wasn't able to make the cablemanagement another one of my masterpieces. Maybe I didn't try hard enough and perhaps I could've made it look better if I tried a few other things, but it didn't matter that much. A good tip would be: use expansion cables and hide as much behind the power supply as possible. But besides that, the case is Awesome. It offers many drive bays, very good airflow and a stylish design.

Pros:

• Great design;
• very good airflow;
• USB3;
• a lot of 5.25" and 3.5" bays;
• it's very spacious. You don't need to squeeze anything in;
• big feet that add the extra stability the case needs.

Cons:

• Cablemanagement isn't easy to do;
• there could've been support for bigger motherboards (extra expansion slots for example);
• no support for 2.5" devices like SSD's;
• the build quality is lacking. There are a few minor details that make the entire case suddenly look cheap (eg.:power button gets stuck or a screw that has been screwed (almost) through a dustfilter).

Tips:

If you want to do a proper cablemanagement job in this case, buy extra expansion cables for the motherboard and GPU power connectors. An SSD can be installed, just position it underneath the lowest hdd cage. It might not be secured with screws, but it's somewhere. You could just hang it between cables aswell, but remember, an SSD can get hot. And the following isn't really a tip but rather a warning, if you want to replace the sidepanel fan, you won't be able to find one that also has the switches for speed and LED's like the stock one. So don't do it, otherwise there will be 2 weird open spaces on your sidepanel.

Award: