| Enermax CS-800TA-MW Case - Page 2 0f 2 |
The CS-800TA line of cases also includes a removable hard drive cage that is able to hold 4 hard drives. The drives are held in with purple strips with metal wires that are slightly turned in on each end. The surface of each rail has a small rubber pad to aid in noise isolation. The rails hold themselves to the drive with the metal wires until the drive is slid into the carrier. This method of drive mounting is very quick and handy for those who do a lot of removing and replacing. The HDD cage is slid into the case sideways and locks itself snugly into position; there was no possibility of the cage rattling. Hard drive access was so good with side access, that there is really no need to remove the entire cage just to install or remove a drive. The 5 ¼” drives are held in a bit different. On the backside of the bay is a small spring-loaded tab with an indent. Once an optical drive is inserted, the indent locates the screw hole and then the bracket on the front side is snapped closed. This method is also the same for a floppy drive.
The sample case I received did not have the bracket on the upper two 5 ¼” bays. I checked pictures of the case at a few different web sites including the Maxpoint site and they all showed a full complement of brackets. Initially I thought this was going to be a problem. After I went to install an optical drive I found out that the bracket would not have worked with the stealth drive cover anyway. That may be the reason why they were omitted. The optical drives need to have their faces left in tact to make the stealth covers work right and to mount them back far enough, required they be mounted using screws. If the stealth covers aren’t used, (they are easy to remove) then the brackets could have been used as intended. I would have at least liked to see the brackets included in the box.
 
On the PCI slot side of things, cards are held in place with another bracket. This bracket holds cards very firmly and there is no chance of them slipping around. However, as I have found with most cases that use this kind of locking method, if you unclip the bracket with the case sitting upright, most of the devices that don’t actually plug in to a PCI slot will tend to fall out. This case has threaded holes in addition to the bracket, so both methods can be used, although not at the same time.
Cooling:
Lets take a look at the cooling capacities of this case. There are provisions for one 80mm fan in the front, one 80 mm or 92mm fan on the back, and of course the included 80mm on the side of the case. One thing to note however is the amount of metal covering the fan spots. Airflow through these areas will be somewhat limited by the grill. Not only that, but then you add the mesh surface over the front and side fans I would imagine there would be some pretty severe airflow restriction. Without extensive modification, this case will not be for extreme over clocking.
 
It is now time to mention one of the greatest parts of this case. So great, that it needs to be sold separately in every location. This item would be the tiny little rubber fan connector in the image below. This thing is great. It totally isolates a vibrating fan from the case and will quiet down any fan. I removed one from the side fan to take a closer look. Removing it was a bit of trouble, but installation couldn’t have been easier. Insert one of the long ends into the hole and pull. Then do the same for the fan side. Quick, quiet, and easy, I would like 2-dozen of these coming in the mail. I have never personally seen any of these for sale by themselves; they may be more common than I thought.
Assembly:
The Enermax CS-800TA series of cases comes with the necessary parts including an assortment of screws, plenty of brass standoffs, one fan worth of fan screws, 4 hard drives worth of purple rails, and a nice color coded back plane cover. This cover is only punched for some of the more standard motherboards and will not work with any board with sound jacks across the bottom. This is no big deal, however, most motherboards come with a back plane of they’re own.
 
Installing almost any motherboard will be easy. I installed an aging Soyo Dragon Ultra Platinum motherboard and the fit was perfect, screw holes lined up with the standoffs exactly and the motherboard sits right up to the back plane unlike some cheaper cases that leave a gap.
Filling the hard drive cage was also a pleasure. Hold the rails on the sides of the drive and slide them in until they lock, couldn’t be easier. I decided to install a Western Digital 20 gig for system functions and try out a little SATA RAID action with a Highpoint 1540 RocketRAID and a couple of Seagate 120 gig drives for 240 gig of RAID 0 fun for data. The only thing that may be a concern is hard drive heat, with the cage facing the side of the case; there is no airflow across the drives from the fan on the front of the case.
On to the rest of the gear. There is plenty of room to install the power supply, either before or after the rest of the equipment is in. I decided I needed to have a bit of quality and chose an Enermax 380 watt PSU with a couple of SATA power connectors, variable speed blower, and two 12 volt rails.
Installing an optical drive proved not quite as easy as the rest of the drives, but I still can’t call it difficult. Removing the front cover is much easier than most cases, unclip the catches on the business side of the front cover and the front will pivot on the backside, and then just lift it off. Next I had to remove one of the EMI plates, simple enough, a few bends and it pops right off. I believe case manufacturers are required to have these plates installed to meet certain EMI radiation requirements, as it seems you can’t buy a case without these nowadays. I installed a black CD-ROM I had laying around and discovered that luckily one set of holes lined up to allow the front stealth cover to work. The stealth cover idea is a great one, it allows for a clean look and one does not have to go searching for a more expensive drive to match the case. However, the stealth covers on this case seem kinda out of place, they are thin and flex quite a bit, not high quality like the rest of the case. They look great, but require a significant amount of pressure to get the drive tray to activate. I tried 3 different optical drives to see if it was a particular drive and nothing changed. I must mention that all three drives were drives that had both Play and Eject buttons on the general area of the activation tab on the stealth cover. I didn’t test this with a single button model. A single button drive may work much better.
 
Conclusion:
After all that is done, don’t forget to slide the front foot in its slots under the case to complete the look. As you can see, this case has tons of room inside for perhaps a large dual processor server type motherboard, lots of hard drives, extra long CD-ROMS, and ample space for some nice cable management (which I have yet to tackle).
 
It is not the perfect case, and there has never been a perfect case yet. In my opinion, the Enermax CS-800TA series of cases comes very close overall. Most of the flaws that do exist with this case have simple workarounds. This case is not for extreme overclockers due to the airflow considerations, but it looks second to none with an incredible finish, fine mesh fan guards, and smooth rounded corners.
Checking PriceGrabber finds a version of the Enermax CS-800TA for between $66.00 and $73.00 shipped, with this specific color being available at Newegg for $69.99. Using other shopping search engines locates one vendor selling these cases for almost twice that!
Enermax has come up with a true winning combination of ease of use, special features, and great looks and I give the CS800TA-MW 4 out of 5 stars.
Final Rating (4 out of 5 stars): 
Pros:
• Incredible finish
• Good price
• Lots of special tricks
• Plenty of room
• Little rubber fan mounts!!!
Cons:
• Displays deg F
• Flimsy stealth bay covers
• Poor airflow
• Possibly missing 2 optical drive locks
Special thanks to Maxpoint for providing the Enermax CS-800TA-MW Case to Bigbruin.com for Review!!!
Please drop by the BigBruin.Com forum and feel free to discuss this review!
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