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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Internal Impressions

OK folks I am going to need you to go ahead and buckle up your shoulder harnesses; this is where the ride gets really rough and bumpy. Please leave the harnesses on for the remainder of the tour for your own safety.


InWin Griffin Case Inside


Now we come around to the inside of the case. The first thing I noticed is that the inside is not the same color as the outside -- the inside is the usual silver steel color. A first look at the inside of the case gives us the impression that it is huge and spacious, and it is. It has four 5 1/4" external bays, one 3 1/2" external bay and five internal 3 1/2" drive bays. There is a space at the front of the case to install a 60, 92, or 120 MM case fan which is handy for some solid air intake. You can see from the provided photographs that the installation of drives is tool-less and the drives are held in fairly sturdily by the black and yellow drive lock downs. Not having to fumble for screws makes installing the drives much faster and easier.


InWin Griffin Case Inside Drive Bays

The side panels are screw-less, too, along with the tool-less design and have tabs that hold the door closed. They only need to be pulled forward to remove the door and pushed back into place to close the door. The case comes with a pre-installed 92 MM fan at the rear of the case; I am assuming this is used to exhaust the hot air out the back of the case. The problem is that the fan does not move much air. I know they are trying to make this case as quiet as possible, but skimping on airflow can lead to a lot of problems. Perhaps a faster fan or one with the same speed rating that pushes more air is in order. All of the standard motherboard connections for the external I/O ports are present. The audio connector was way too short for my motherboard and I was unable to hook it up, but the rest seemed to fit just fine.


InWin Griffin Case Inside I/O connectors
There is enough room in the Griffin for video cards that measure up to 290 MM. Anything bigger than that and you are going to be in serious trouble. I have two Sapphire Vapor-X 5770's inside this case and I had to install my Raptor in between the two cards so that it would fit properly. Speaking of Hard Drives, there is no place to install a smaller Solid State drive. You would think by now a case manufacturer would have come up with a way to add a bay for the installation of SSD's as they are becoming more and more common in systems. Just a thought. It would have been another plus for a case that is starting to rack up some negatives. The motherboard tray does not require any standoffs as they are built right into the tray so all you have to do is just grab your motherboard and the provided screws and screw that sucker in.

InWin Griffin Case Inside Bezel
As I mentioned earlier water cooling is pretty much out of the question in this case as after you have installed all of your hardware, there is very little room left over, and once you put the side panel on with the 22 CM fan all of that room that was left over is now gone. Not only is there not enough room inside there is no place to mount a radiator and no place to run your tubing to the outside of the case. Due to the small fan size in the back of the case maybe another idea to improve on the current design would be to add a fan port at the top of the case so that some of the hot air that is not being pushed out by the fan at the back of the case could be sucked out at the top. I just found it odd that most cases these days come with 120 MM fans at the smallest, so to go with a 92 MM fan threw me off a bit. As you will find in the next section during the build inside the case I ran into some less than favorable situations.

InWin Griffin Case Inside 22 CM Fan

The 22 CM fan takes up a lot of room on the inside the case, but on the good side it does move a lot of air. Therefore, it does serve its purpose in the case. It is fairly quiet and moves a lot of air. The only drawback to the position that it is set up in is that it only blows on one of my video cards. It would have really been nice if it were situated so that it could cool both cards in a Crossfire or SLI setup.

Most of the edges are rolled and I have not been able to find any surfaces that I would think would cut me. The construction of the chassis is fairly sturdy; you certainly couldn't park a Suburban on it but it will hold up to regular use and travel to and from LAN's or other related travel. Now, let's go ahead and get the tram moving to the next section of the tour where you guys will get to see what the case looks like with PC components in it as well as a summary of what transpired during said install. I would advise all of you to wear your provided blast shields as a safety precaution.

Next Page - The Build


Review Index
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