CM Storm Trooper Full Tower Chassis Review

With our test system installed, its clear how such a simple solution of passing cables to the other side of the motherboard tray cleans everything up and in turn ensures a better airflow through the case.

On the other side, cable tidying is simple yet effective but I do wonder if with a system with more cables whether the side panel will go on as easy or if a bit more space could have been allowed for between the tray and side panel.  If your not like me and not too fussed about having your cables run round in neat bundles then this wouldn’t be a problem, its more of a personal thing.

Black optical drives blend in smoothly and 2.5″ drives, in this case an SSD simply push into the X-Dock and pull out when not needed, a dust cover closes when the dock is empty.

As mentioned before, there is substantial space for a large power supply, this shown by our test supply which itself is little over 7″ deep and still has space to spare.

SSDs can be mounted onto the drive trays instead of the cage in front of the power supply. I do feel however that the mounting holes could have been a bit more toward the tray edge as (as shown here) the plastic tray did bow a little when the SATA power was connected up and this position also prevented 90 degree SATA cables from being used.

As expected with a case of this type, all the expansion slots have vented covers held in place with a thumbscrew.  In our installation, we removed the rear 140mm fan and in place installed the radiator and fans from our Corsair H80.

With the system powered on, the power button now lights up with the Storm logo.  Below this are 3 LEDs which light up in 6 stages depending on the fan speed you have selected.

With the system powered up, we can see how well our test system blends in with the red LEDs in the fans and the black chassis.

With the side back on the case, the position of the fans in relation to the grill are easy to make out with help from the lit fans.  The glow from the fans is subtle rather than being too bright and lighting up everything in and around the case.