Up for review today I have another PC case from MSI, this one is part of their Interceptor series and it’s called the Ravager. Yes it’s a different name for a case but it’s a unique looking case. The Ravager is meant to be a gaming case and it has claw marks on it that give it a very unique and rather interesting look that is just a perfect fit for a case destined to have a gaming system it.  The Ravager isn’t just all about looks though as it’s mostly tool-less making installation quick and easy, the only thing you’ll need a tool for actually is installing the motherboard. Anyway, read on to learn more about an exceptional case from MSI….

As usual we start with the box and it’s an exciting looking box for sure.

The case is packaged well with styrofoam padding and wrapped in plastic.

The Ravager is marketed as a gaming case and as such is designed to look unique and it has claw marks on it. Most of the case is black and the claw marks are blue or more turquoise really. The front of the case has claw marks that go from front bezel to over the top. The case has three 5.25” bays on the front and a large power button beneath them. The case is made of metal, steel according to the specs, and it seems well made overall, very sturdy and durable I think. The front bezel is plastic as you might expect and it actually just pops off fairly easy for access to the drive bays.

    

On the top you’ll find two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports along with a reset button, audio ports and a hard drive activity light.

The right side of the case is plain except for the claw marks. Both of the side panels are held on with thumbscrews for easy access.

Moving to the left side you’ll find similar claw marks along with the Ravager logo and two spots of additional fans.

Moving around the back of the case you’ll find blue colored PCI slot covers and a fan with blue blades. The case is water cooling ready with rubberized holes already installed for you.

 

 

In the box with the case you’ll find a black envelope that includes fasteners for getting your system installed, zip ties for wire management, a user manual and even a special MSI metal dog tag.

  

The front bezel easily pops off for access to the front bays. Once the front is off you’ll find the 120mm cooling fan that comes with a removable filter.

 

Removing the left side of the case you’ll be struck with the color of the motherboard case, it’s blue like the claw marks. The tray has room for wire management along with many, many places to fasten the wires to the motherboard tray.

The case has room for six hard drives in the racks.

Removing the left side of the case we can get a better look at where your system will go and we can see there’s more of the blue and black color scheme.

Here’s a better view of the motherboard tray for you:

You’ll find all of the connections including UBS 2.0, USB 3.0 and audio hanging around in the case. There are also two power connections, one for the front fan and one for the LED in the front of the case for power, which you’ll see a bit later.

Here’s the bottom of the case without the wires in the way to show you the space there for the bottom fan and where the PSU goes. There are small silicone or rubber stand that the PSU will sit on, these should help keep vibrations down and possibly make your system a little bit quieter in the process.

At the top of the case you’ll find room for two more fans or even a radiator for liquid cooling.

 

There are two hard drive racks, the bottom one is permanently attached and the top on is removable by just squeezing the plastic tabs.

 

 

The trays are removable and they have silicone fasteners in them to help keep your hard drive quiet.

One of the interesting things to note is that the trays are expandable to make getting the hard drive in place easier.

 

The 5.25” bays are tool-less, they use a plastic spring system to secure the drives in the bays.

Here’s a couple view of the back of the case from the inside, you can see all of the PCI slots have thumbscrews for easy installation of your cards.

 

On the bottom of the case you’ll find four rubber feet and two spots for ventilation, one for the power supply and one for the optional fan on the bottom of the case. There is a cutout in the bottom of the front bezel that can be used as a handle of sorts to remove the front bezel.

Specifications:

 

The system I’m installing this case is a dual core AMD based system with a microATX motherboard. This system is actually a second one for my kids as they just don’t know how to share. It’s summer so they’re out of school and one computer just isn’t cutting it with three kids. It’s not the most powerful system out there, but their ages 6,10 and 11 so they’re not really into hardcore gaming or anything just yet so this works fine for them and their needs. The optical drive just slides right in through the front.

The hard drive just slides right into the rack easily and depending how many drives you have you may have room left over to hide any loose wires to keep them out of the way.

On this motherboard the second power connector on the motherboard is located below the CPU socket but on most motherboards it’s up in the top left corner and I found it’s rather tight up there to work. The CPU cooler I have was installed before I put the motherboard in the case and it’s rather small, but if you’re using a larger cooler there might be issues with getting it installed as the room is limited at the top of the case. The case comes without the optional top fans installed, if you do install fans or even a radiator there will be even less room at the top of the case.

The Ravager case has more than enough room to install large sized video card. Here’s the HIS 7870 installed and as you can see there’s plenty of room left over to the right of the card so you could install even larger cards if you wanted to.

 

Here’s everything installed in the case except for one additional hard drive that I’ll be adding later for backups:

Here’s the back side view of the case where I did a little bit of wire management, there’s plenty of room back there to route wires and many, many spaces to attach your wires to so they can be fastened in place and stay there.

The front fan does have blue LEDs in it and in the dark they are rather bright. The power button also has a blue LED ring around it that lights up when powered on.

Here’s the view from inside of the case with the fan on:

I like the fact that one hard drive rack is removable, this gives you options if you’re not using more drives and just more space in the case really.

The case is basically $100 priced at $99.99 most places I looked and and I don’t think that’s exactly a budget case price. For that price I honestly would have expected more than two fans to be installed when it arrives. This is just nitpicking really, personally when I have a case for myself I remove the stock fans and install ones like Noctua so to me it’s not a big deal but to others it might be.

As far as noise levels, the two fans are quiet and seems to do a decent job of keeping things cool. If you’re planning on a higher end system or doing some overclocking I’d certainly advise adding more fans to the case for better cooling ability.

   

Conclusion:
I really like the looks of the MSI Ravager case, especially for a gaming system to be in it, the claw marks on it make it look fierce and just plain unique and unlike anything else on the market today. The case is a mid-tower style but there’s plenty of room for even the largest video cards to be installed in it. There’s room for six hard drives and one of the racks is removable for easy access. The racks have unique trays to help you install the hard drives easier. The case overall is mostly tool-less making installation quick and easy, the only thing you really need a tool for is the screws for installing the motherboard.  Overall I can recommend this case as it’s full of great features and just looks great.

There is a slight issue about the room at the top of the case especially if you install fans, it will be very tight working up there. I have found that many cases have this problem so it’s not unique to the Ravager at all.

 

Pros:
+Unique design
+Plenty of room for large video cards
+Mostly tool-less installation
+USB 3.0 ready
+Plenty of wire management space and options
+Seems well made

Cons:
-Not much room near top of case especially if fans are installed
-Only two fans come with case

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

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