Outstanding Design Held Back by Some Build Quality Issues
review by
misternoisy
BitFenix has been releasing case after case at an almost breakneck pace over the last few years, and the latest in their lineup is the Aegis, a fairly standard mATX tower. Like the recently-released Pandora, it's quite the looker in promo shots, with a clean ODD-free front panel, huge side window and the new ICON display included. As an added bonus, the Aegis is available in a ton of colors, including some you don't see very often.
At first glance, the Aegis absolutely impresses - the sleek design is dominated by the monolithic glossy black front panel, vented top panel and the enormous side window. It may have a lot of plastic, but that's not necessarily something to hold against it - the molded-in colors of the plastic front and top fascias match the painted steel parts of the case exterior exactly and are smartly styled, with aero-inspired contours and detailing on both. All considered, the whole case treads just on the tasteful side of the 'gamer' aesthetic, and wouldn't raise too many eyebrows even in an office setting, unless you opted for the yellow model. The top panel contains the controls and external ports, offering the typical power, reset, 2x USB3.0 and audio in/out, but also includes a three-speed fan controller connected to four three-pin fan leads.
The smart design continues as you open the case. The Aegis was clearly designed with liquid-cooling enthusiasts in mind, but is a stellar choice for air-cooled types too. If you go for water, you can install up to a 360 or 280 rad up front, 280 or 240 rad up top and you get brackets for reservoirs and pumps included out of the box. Air cooling enthusiasts have room for up to 170mm tall tower-style HSFs and can install 3x120/2x140 fans up front and 2x120/140 fans up top. Either way, you can install a 120/140mm floor-sucker in front of the PSU to bring more air to your GPUs and you'll have magnetically-attached full-length plastic filters for the front and bottom and an easily-removed foam filter in the top panel.
There's room for up to four 3.5" drives and an additional four 2.5" drives, with all of the exposed drive bays being completely removable if you want. While all of the 3.5" bays and two of the 2.5" bays are fairly standard plastic rail slide-lock affairs, the other two 2.5 slots are a little unusual - one of them lays the drive out smack in front of the motherboard tray so you can show off your spiffy high-end SSD, while the other is hidden between the PSU area and the right-side door, well out of sight. You also get a PSU cover, but it's completely open in the front and its leading edge will be flush with PSUs measuring 180mm or so, which may actually make it too short to cover the really monstrous power supplies hardcore users are prone to installing - fortunately, it's easily removed if that's the way you want to go.
From a design perspective, the only real missteps are the punched-out slide-lock tabs for the side panels (I'd much rather have the front-edge roll-hinged panels you see on higher-end cases) and the somewhat tight space between the bottom of the motherboard tray and the right-side panel. With right about a half-inch of space, clean cable management is difficult, though not impossible.
Unfortunately, all of this clever design and attention to aesthetics is let down by the somewhat middling build quality of the case. The steel used in the Aegis is thinner than I'd like throughout, and while the top panel looks slick, double check your power and HDD LEDs - they're just hot-glued in and one of mine came loose during shipping. The thin steel, slide-lock doors, single included fan and loose LED would be okay on a $50-60 budget case, but combined, they seem like unnecessary cost-cutting at $100, especially when companies like NZXT and Phanteks are redefining expectations at that lower price point. You do get the slick ICON display as recompense and that's almost enough to take the edge off, but as a happy Prodigy owner I expected a bit more for half again the cost of my previous BitFenix purchase. In short, I'd have happily paid a fair amount more to get the heavier steel and swing-out doors of the Prodigy, but with the overall design and styling of this case.
In summary, I can recommend the Aegis, but only with reservations. It looks amazing and the design, features and layout are incredible, but I can't help but shake the feeling that this is an admittedly clever $50 case with $50 worth of styling and doodads slapped on/in it.
Pros | Cons |
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Clever design; Looks great; Extremely flexible; Accommodates both air- and water-cooling nicely | Somewhat thin steel construction; Side panel attachment mechanism; Cable room; Only one included fan |
Ratings