CM Storm Trooper Full Tower Chassis Review
Chris Hadley / 13 years ago
The side of the case is quite plain, yet still follows with the contours that the upper edge gives us from a side on look, with a small grill to allow for airflow to the hard drive area.
The other side of the case is very much the same except the grill on the side is much larger and also has space for mounting two 120mm fans.
The front of the case reminded me somewhat of the old Stacker case where you simply have nothing but drive bays. The beauty of this is that there is tons of space for mounting fan/ water cooling monitors and controllers, optical drives, card readers and any other accessories that you can think of. Above all of these is an x-dock which allows for a 2.5″ SATA drive, such as an SSD to be quickly connected. At the base is the accessory tray cover which un-clips via a push button on either side.
Like the front of the case, the rear also has loads of space for expansion. As the chassis can hold XL-ATX motherboards, there are 9 expansion slots to play with. Next to these is a cable guard bracket that allows you to lock accessories to the chassis (such as your mouse / keyboard) by looping the cable through the slots to keep everything secure. Above the fan grill are 3 rubber gromits for alowing cables and water cooling pipes to pass through. Above this is the upper fan filter which slides out like the filters on the base.
The main feature that we see on the top of the case is the grab handle for carrying your system about (most likely to a LAN event). The handle is made from rubber to give extra grip (after all you don’t want to lose grip and drop a heavy system on your foot!). Cooler Master also claim that this handle has the capability to withstand 43Kg of weight, which is far more than the weight of your average high end gaming system. To the side of this is the Trooper marking and a large grill runs down to the back for airflow and heat dissipation from the upper mounted fan.
On the bottom of the chassis we can see that there is plenty of space to mount a triple length rad for water cooling. Both the front and rear air filters simply slide out in their respective directions for easy cleaning and replacement.
On the front I/O panel which on this case is mounted on the top, we have 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports, audio jacks, and one eSATA connection. In the middle of this is the fan speed controller which adjusts between 6 speeds – changed simply by using the [+] and [-] buttons that are either side of the fan LED on/off button. Above this is the huge power button.
