Looking inside the case, I was surprised to see yellow drive retainers on the internal drive racks. Generally cases found in this price range lack innovative features, but the Stealth-X includes a unique quick-release drive retention mechanism that rivals some of the more expensive cases we have seen. A simple slider moves forward and aft to lock or release installed drives. The slider mechanism can itself be locked into place to prevent accidental drive release. A simple solution, and more importantly, it saves a good deal of time when building a new system. In all, the Stealth-X features 4 external 5.25″ drive bays, external 3.5″ bay, and two internal 3.5″ bays. While not quite a server tower, this case has ample expansion room for new drives, without the added weight of a SOHO enclosure. And let’s face reality, not all of us want or need a massive case like the SX1030 SOHO tower.
The Stealth-X does not include a removable motherboard tray, which is something a case this size really should have. Installing the system is not overly complicated, but being able to preassemble the parts outside of the case makes the assembly much easier.
The overall contruction of the Stealth-X is extremely light weight, not quite to the degree of an aluminum case, but still light light enough for a good LAN box. The pre-modded design is also nice for attracting some attention from your gaming buddies. For the sake of the review, I installed a neon light kit and blue LED fan, and the results were quite nice for a project time of about 10 minutes. For the gamer wanting a trick case without the hassles, this is hard to argue with. The following images show the side panel with a 10″ neon light installed, both with a flash, and in total darkness.
As you can see through the window, there is plenty of space inside the case, illustrated well by the large Abit SR7-8X installed for testing.
Cooling effects of the Stealth-X were quite good when equipped with additional fans in the factory fan mounts. Two 80mm fans can be installed in the lower front of the case, a single 80mm in the center of the window, and a fourth 80mm serves as an exhaust fan in the rear. I find that nearly any case can cool your hardware well if adequate air supply is provided, and the stock locations of the Stealth-X were no exception. Our AMD test system was used for temperature testing in this case, and the overall system temperature was similar to the superb Antec SX1080Plus, typically within 1-2 degrees of room temperature. I’m not going to quote a bunch of numbers and charts, since your experiences with this case may be quite different depending on the hardware configuration installed and environment. The bottom line is, when you install four 80mm fans in a case this size, it will generally stay pretty cool, and it does.
