What you get
Shipping is not a worry and you should receive your case in mint condition, just as I did. Extra care has been taken to package the case, and the shipping was fairly quick as well taking 3 days from Texas to Florida. From the printing on the box, it appears this is a Super Flower case or is made by Super Flower. It also states that its made of Aluminum-Mg Alloy and is clearly labeled 201B which I assume designates the model.
After removing the case from the box, you have to remove 2 large foam pods that are protecting the front and back of the case during transit. Beneath those are 2 thick plastic bags guarding the body of the case. It appeared to be completely flawless which left me somewhat amazed. I've received packages that look like they have been in the trunk of a car thats been in an rollover accident, but not this time.
This model does NOT come with a power supply included so either you've got one already or you'll have to purchase one. Directron has an excellent selection of power supplies to choose from and their pricing is reasonable should you decide to buy everything at once.
The case itself is pretty big, but extremely light considering it's contents. I was really surprised at how light it actually was but that's one of the reasons you got to like aluminum. There's a plastic handle on the top of the cardboard shipping case that seemed laughable when it arrived, but this thing is light enough that the handle is more than enough to carry it with.
The front bezel is actually 2 separate parts. The first is a 1/4" thick piece of clear acrylic. It gives the front of the case an already modded appearance, and it quite cool looking if you ask me. Beneath that is a thin black aluminum plate, creating a flat black color beneath the acrylic. Very smooth looking and it opens countless modding possibilities involving colored lights or pics one could put behind the acrylic.
There are a total of six 80mm case fans included with the case, five of which have gold finger guards mounted on them (the top exhaust fan being the exception). This gives the case an even better look than it already has and is really a nice touch. You'll notice in the second picture below there is an 80mm fan mounted on the side panel of the case. This intake fan is positioned to draw air onto the AGP and PCI cards for additional cooling.
On the Outside
There's also an exhaust fan mounted on the top of the case as seen in the picture below. It is, however, a bit disappointing both visually and functionally. I wanted to see a gold grill on this also, but instead the fan is beneath a grill cut out of the top panel itself. It's a bit thick and will restrict the exhaust airflow. I would like to see the hole completely cut out and a gold grill placed here also to keep with the overall appearance. This is only worth noting considering how well the rest of the case has been designed. A bit more thought should have gone into designing this feature.
Located at the rear panel of the case are two more 80mm fans, positioned one above the other which serve as as the primary exhaust fans. While the positioning is standard, having a second 80mm rear exhaust fans gives the case a substantial exhaust volume.
Although the top panel is not removable, Directron has seen fit to include thumb screws for removing the side panels, the power supply and the slide-out motherboard tray. Yes it has a slide-out motherboard tray which is a must have feature as far as I'm concerned. So far this case is packed with numerous sweet features.
Located as usual on the front bezel are the power button, reset switch and the LED's for the power indicator and hard disk activity. They are chrome in color and really accentuate the overall look of the case. At the bottom portion of the bezel are two USB ports and ports for your desktop speakers and head phones. Plans are for the other two ports to contain Firewire connections but my model was not so equipped.
On the Inside
Removing the side panel is easy with the use of thumb screws and I haven't seen a need for a single tool yet to get into this case. Once inside, you'll notice the white plastic strips which cover the edges of the 5.25" bays. They provide extra protection against the sharp and sometimes painful edges found in many computer cases and are one more example of the user-friendly features included in this case. I removed them and found the edges to be only slightly sharp in certain places. No cause for alarm though as the edges were not sharp enough to cut into the skin, even when attempting to simulate the sporadic reaches into the drive bays. Overall, I wasn't able to find many sharp edges and the rough edges I did find were nothing to be concerned with.
You can see the array of wires and cables already in place on the bottom of the case. These wires are the two USB extensions to activate the USP ports on the front of the case. You'll have to run the wires out the back of the case and connect them to the USB ports. Same with the sound ports. Connect the wiring harness provided to your sound card, plug your speakers into the ports on the front bezel and you're in business.
On the Inside Cont.
Another nice feature is the the removable hard drive cage. Removing the cage enables you to fully access the pair of 80mm intake fans which are also protected by gold grills. These fans draw air directly through the breather holes in the front bezel and through the hard drive cage. This case was definitely designed with cooling in mind.
Inside the cardboard box were two remaining faceplates, one for the 5.25" bay and one for the 3.5" bay. This is another nice addition having the spare faceplates since I had assumed there would be no spares. Also included are assembly instructions and 2 plastic bags of screws and case hardware that will allow you to completely assemble assemble a fully operational system.
You can see in the picture below that the blowhole fan on the top panel is located in some sort of protective housing. This could be a hassle later on when replacing or servicing the fan. The tabs holding the fan in place are easily removed, as is the fan, but the mounting design could be improved.
On the Inside Cont.
Having a slide-out motherboard tray is probably the best feature of this case. It is a snap to work on your board when the entire tray slides out giving you plenty of space to swap out heatsinks, memory, video or PCI cards. More cases seem to be incorporating this feature and I'm certainly in favor of that. The tray slides in and out easily and having it held in place with thumbscrews is a nice touch.
Removing the front bezel exposes another welcomed feature...a fan filter. The filter is placed in front of the twin 80mm intake fans offering protection against a number of known attackers, number one being dust. The plastic mesh filter is easily removed and can be washed with warm soapy water to keep it from getting too clogged. Yes the filter restricts the airflow a bit but with all the fan capacity of this case, thats nothing to worry over.
While working with the case so far, I still can't get over just how light it really is. I think the cardboard box the case arrived in is probably as heavy, if not heavier than the case itself. Being such a light case, there's the concern of durability. This is an aluminum case; it's not steel. If you drop something on it, it will dent. If you are not careful you can easily bend the side panel. These are just things that come with owning an aluminum case. It is definitely not cheaply made though. Despite the fact that the case is very light, its also quite solid. It didn't have any looseness or play in the framework, giving it a sturdy and rigid feel.
Hardware Installed
After installing all the hardware in the case, its time to slide in the motherboard. Its a great feature to be able to remove the tray, install the board, all it's components, then just slide the entire assembly back into place. It definitely saves some time and is a lot less frustrating than trying to reach into a cramped case. It's a lot easier to slide in a fully assembled board than piecing it together inside the case.
Having wrapped the cables on my power supply already, I wanted to use rounded cables throughout the case, thus leaving it as neat as possible. Its a shame the only color I have is blue, because I really would like to see some bright yellow inside this case. I got the idea from the gold fan grills. The grills accentuate the case making it not only look good, but a bit more expensive too. Maybe its just the shine of gold, but it looks like the case would cost more than one with silver grills (ahh the allure of gold!).
Spend a few minutes running the extra USB cables and the sound card cables out the bottom PCI slot, plug in the side panel fan and close her up. You're finished. This was the fastest I had ever assembled a computer. As I was doing a lot of picture taking and just staring at the case, the actual time spent getting it set up completely was very short.
Once the beige CD-ROM and floppy drive are installed and you look at the front of the case and suddenly you're totally bummed. But you'd be just as bummed if the case were white or even beige as its pretty hard to completely match up all your colors. If you manage to do this, then you are by all means Superman and need to be given a trophy.
You could fix it with a black Sharpie (time consuming and somewhat insane) or you could head over here and get it done the right way by installing black components.
Conclusion
For a price of $149.00, the Directron SF-201-B Black Aluminum Case won't break the bank and offers a number of excellent features. The general appearance and looks of the case are very appealing, even cool. Overall, I'm very pleased with this case for a number of reasons.
Its very well constructed, has cooling fans in all the key locations such as blowing on the hard drives and the AGP and PCI cards, and has relocated the USB and Sound ports to the front of the case for ease of access. The slide-out motherboard tray makes changing board components much easier and the case is capable of holding up to twelve drives. Throw in the little features like thumbscrews, the gold fan grills and the plastic covers over the exposed potentially sharp edges, and its easy to say this is one solid case.
Packed with six 80mm fans which provide the necessary system cooling as well as a fresh, clean, modded look. And with the 6 case fans include in this case, cooling is not going to be a problem. The fan holes are completely smooth with not a single burr or jagged edge among them. Inside the case, the frame and rails were smooth while the rubber safety guards add another layer of protection against slicing a finger or two.
Sure it would have been nice to see quick release tabs or a slide mounting system for the 5.25" drives, like those featured in the Antec SX1030 and Enlight 7237 cases. Its not very often I remove those components but if you're someone who does, the lack of a better mounting system for the drives may be more of a consideration than it is for me.
Finally, as with most aluminum cases, the Directron SF-201-B doesn't dampen sound as nearly as well as a steel case, so it's a bit louder. I was surprised with the 6 case fans that it was't any louder than my previous configuration with only 5 fans. The sound isn't so bad that it couldn't be lessened with the simple addition of the Akasa Pax Mate Acoustic Dampening Mat. Aluminum does, however, offer considerable cooling and weight advantages over steel, although you must be careful not to bend or dent the soft aluminum.
Our thanks go out to Michael Chang from Directron for providing us with the opportunity to review this case.
Pros