Legit Case Reviews
In-Win Griffin Black Mid Tower PC Case Review
| Manufacturer: | IN-WIN Development Inc. |
| Product: | In-Win Griffin ATX Mid Tower Case |
| Date: | Wed, Jun 30, 2010 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Brian Giacoletti - |
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External Impressions
Excuse me, sir! Yes, you in the back. Can you please sit down, we are about to come to a stop at our next, and might I say, one of the most exciting stops of the tour. We are going to take a look at the outside of the case. As you look up in wonderment you will notice that this is a steel case that is painted my favorite color, black. But it's not just black; they decided that a plain black right side panel just wasn't for them, so what did they do? They painted a Griffin on the side. And I must say, it looks pretty darn cool. I wish they would have taken the time to paint the inside of the case black as well. This would have made the case really stand out from other cases in the $30 to $40 range. But hey, for that much money, why should I complain?
The front bezel is made out of the usual molded plastic and this is just my opinion, but it's not all that attractive. It gives you the illusion that your optical drives will be seated and an angle, and in reality, they are not. Once the drives are installed it makes the case look a bit strange because you have the angled slot covers and then you just have the optical drives that go straight down. I have been accused of having OCD, so maybe it's just me and my fruitless search for perfection. As we swing around to the left side of the case we can clearly see the behemoth 22 CM fan affixed to the inner side of the panel, but we will talk more about the giant fan a bit later in the tour.
The one thing that would have been a real gem on this case are the retractable I/O ports panel. The ports are accessed by pressing on the panel to allow it to open. The only problem is it doesn't really open; you have to pull on it a bit to get it to come out. Once you get it open and plug in, say, a USB flash drive, it starts to try closing back up again. Only after a good tug on it will it actually stay open. But it does come well equipped with two USB ports, an E-SATA Port and the usual headphone and microphone jacks.
Next up is the rear of the case. Not much to see here as it is pretty much the same as every other case in its price range. There are seven slots in back for the installation of your PCI/AGP/PCI-E adapter cards and if you are still using ISA I think it's time to upgrade, don't you? The slot covers are vented to add better ventilation to the inside of the case. There have been a few cases in this price range that have added holes and grommets for the addition of water cooling components, but In-Win has decided not to put these additions into the Griffin. It is highly doubtful that you would want to try to attempt to put a water cooling system in this case anyhow due to some size and space constraints that we will go over in the next section. You will also notice the 92 MM fan that is affixed to the back of the case. This will help pull the hot air off of you CPU cooler and out the back of the case. But you already knew that's what it did, didn't you?
As we continue our little journey around the case, we now find ourselves at the bottom of the case. Here we can see that the case has the standard round plastic feet that most cases in this price range have and because the power supply is mounted at the top of the case instead of the bottom, there are no vents or filter screens located at the bottom of the In Win Griffin.
Are there any questions about the outside of the case? No? OK, let's move on to the next part of the tour. I would like to remind everyone once again that you need to keep your arms and legs inside the tram at all times while in motion.
Next Page - Internal Impressions
| Review Index |
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Page 1 - The IN WIN Griffin Black ATX Mid Tower Case
Page 2 - Packaging Page 3 - External Impressions Page 4 - Internal Impressions Page 5 - The Build Page 6 - Final Thoughts/Conclusion |
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