Up for review today I have another PC case, this one is from Raidmax, a company known for making gaming and unique looking cases for sure. The case I have for review today is the Raptor which is a mid-tower gaming case that has plenty of features like removable hard drive cage, built-in fan controller and USB 3.0 ready, just to name a few. The case certainly looks unique, the one I got for review has a red and black color scheme, which I happen to like very much, but you can also get it in blue and black if you’d prefer. So read on to learn more about the Raptor from Raidmax…

As usual we start off with box shots and the Raptor box looks cool, it’s colorful and full of information about the case inside.

 

The Raptor is packaged very well with Styrofoam, cardboard, and a cloth bag covering it.

 

In addition to the regular packaging the case is covered in certain spots with a clear plastic film for further protection.

The Raptor case uses a black and red color scheme which I’m rather partial to. Most of it’s black but there are some red accents, at least on the outside. The case is primarily metal with a plastic front bezel, this is common with most cases these days.

 

On the front you’ll notice the Raidmax logo big and bold, and below that you’ll see there 5.25” bays with easy to remove covers. You just put your finger in and pull to the left to unlock it.There are no 3.5” bays on the front of the case sadly. Going up both sides of the case is basically just decoration, pieces of plastic there that make the case look nice.

Below the bays you’ll find the front intake system behind which is one fan pre-installed that has red LEDs in it to go along with the color scheme of the case.

Moving to the top of the case you’ll find the control panel towards the front with power and reset buttons on the left, then LEDs for power and HDD activity. To the right are two knobs, one is for fan speed and one is for LED intensity in the fans. You can adjust the speeds of the fans and the level of LED lighting or you can turn the LEDs off. Above all of that you’ll find another section with two USB 2.0 ports, audio connections and a single USB 3.0 port.

Here’s a couple views of the entire top of the case:

 

Behind the control panel you’ll see three three plastic pieces, under which are two fan pre-installed for you, these too have red LEDs in them. Here’s the view from the back of the case of the vents:

The right side of the case has a design on it that protrudes a bit to make room for cabling behind the motherboard.

The same design is on the left, but this side has a cutout for an optional fan.

 

Moving around to the back of the case we see the red and black color scheme continues with the PCI slot covers being red. There is no exhaust fan included on the back of the case, but you can add one. There are spots of water cooling ready for you, and the power supply gets mounted on the bottom of the case.

 

The side panels are held on by thumbscrews but there are handles that fold out for easy removal of the panels.

On the very bottom, under the power supply is a removable air filter, it just slides out for easy cleaning.

Here’s the bottom of the case, not much special here but I should note it does have nice large feet to keep the case stable.

Specifications

Raidmax provides velcro straps for wire management. There is one already here, but you’ll find a few more in the accessory bag.

You’ll need to undo the velcro to let the front and header connection cables loose. You’ll see the standard stuff along with the USB 3.0 connection as well.

Moving to the left side of the case again you’ll notice the bright red of the motherboard tray.

The accessory bag is thick plastic and it has a zipper on it. In the bag you’ll find screws for installation, the user manual, a speaker, extra velcro wraps and plastic cable management clips.

 

The tray already has standoffs installed for you, at least a few of them.

Here’s the back and bottom view of the case, you can get a better look at the water cooling holes and you’ll notice there are four rubber stands for the PSU to rest on.

 

The 5.25” bays use tool-less clips to hold your devices in place, one is already open for you and you can easily remove the other metal covers if need be.

 

The Raptor has two hard drive cages, or actually three is you count the smaller one that holds two SSDs or 2.5” hard drives mounted on the bottom of the case. The bottom cage holds three drives and the top holds two.

 

The top cage is removable being held in place with just a plastic clip. The hard drives are held in the cages with plastic trays that can be sued for either 2.5” or 2.5” drives.

 

When you remove the HDD cage you can see the front intake fan. You can use the cage or not, but it’s nice to be able to have extra room just in case you have an overly large video card.

 

The last thing I wanted to point out before installing my system in the Raptor is the two 120mm fans pre-installed in the top of the case since you really couldn’t see them from the outside.

The first thing I did was get my hard drive into the rack. It’s fairly simple to do, just set it on place lining up the holes and use the provided screws to secure it in the rack.

 

This system is for my kids for gaming and whatever, it only has one hard drive, a 1TB one, which is more than enough for them I think.

The motherboard is an EVGA P55 and the CPU is a Core i5 750 while the video card is a Sparkle GTX465. I didn’t use the top hard drive cage for my installation as I didn’t need so I left it out as I figured I’d get better airflow that way.

The GTX465 is a fairly large video card but there’s more than enough room in the Raptor for it. I used the SSD cage on the bottom of the case to hold the extra PSU wires I wasn’t using  which worked out well.

There’s a bit of room at the top of the case but I’m using a smaller cooler, so I guess it depends on the size of the cooler you’ll be using as to the available space.

Here’s the back of the motherboard tray with all of my wires running through. There is a cutout in the top right corner of the tray to pass your 8pin power connector through but it’s very tight, I really had to work at getting it through and really it comes out behind the motherboard so you have to do some creative wiring management to get it set in place and connected to the motherboard.

The right panel does have that protruding section but the rest is flat and that’s not exactly great for having thick wires back there, it took a bit of work to get the side panel back on. It took me three or four tries really as I just couldn’t get the tabs lined up and hold the panel down.

The LEDs are visible in the dark but not exactly bright even on the highest setting. The black and red does look nice though.

Here’s the top, the vents are semi-transparent so some light comes through but not much at all.

No real issues with installation, expect those I noted.

I did run across a major annoyance, the power button sticks down so the computer just cycles off when you push the button to turn it on. You can make the button pop back up by tapping on the cover near the button but that’s not supposed to happen at all. I think I need to take it apart and see what the problem is and fix it.

   

Conclusion:
The Raidmax Raptor is nice looking case, but I’m a bit partial to the red and black color scheme myself. The case has more than enough room for most any type of system, it will fit full sized motherboards and extra large video cards with no problems. There’s space for five hard drives or solid states drives as the racks are compatible with both. There’s even a separate dedicated rack just for 2.5” sized drives, so you could use two SSDs and five mechanical drives or any combination thereof. One of the hard drive cages is removable so you can fit a larger video card if you need the space for one. The cage can also be removed if you don’t need it to provide extra airflow into the case from the front fan.

The case overall is well made I think, it’s metal and plastic but most cases are these days. It seems nice and sturdy with very large feet to keep the case stable on most any surface.

The fans even on full speed are relatively quiet which I like as I want my computer to be as quiet as possible. The fans seem to do a decent job at cooling but I miss having a rear exhaust fan so I would install one there personally.

I did run across some small problems but nothing to really take away from the value of the case or really complain about. The issue with the power button is most likely limited to the case I got for review, so you shouldn’t expect that to happen to yours. I’m also not too happy about the lack of 3.5” bays on the front of the case, personally I always have a card reader in my system which is 3.5” in size so I would need to buy a separate adapter to use it with the Raptor. It would have been nice if Raidmax had included one.

 

 

Pros:
+Plenty of room
+Removable hard drive cage
+Hard drive racks work with both 2.5" or 2.5" drives
+Good design and made well overall
+Fan and lighting controller built-in
+Aesthetically pleasing

Cons:
-Issue with power button sticking
-Not a lot of room behind motherboard for cables in some spots
-No external 3.5" bays
-Hole very tight to slip 8pin cable through for motherboard power

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

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