Installation and Features
The first thing to check before installing parts in any computer case is whether the edges are sharp or not. Back in the 1990s the vast majority of cases were cheap stamped out affairs and the edges inside were sharp, it was a rare install that didn’t draw blood! These days things are better, but it’s still important to check.
This Rasurbo case has nice rounded edges throughout, no blood was spilled during this review. Thanks Rasurbo!
The installation procedures aren’t much different than with any other case, the only difficult/annoying part is figuring out which screw holes in the motherboard tray you need to put standoffs in. There are a few motherboards out there that have standoffs built into the tray, that works great until you try to use a motherboard with a different pattern. Rasurbo went with the more classic and compatible approach of using screw in standoffs.
Here in fact we have the first of many things I like about the case: The standoffs are black, just like the case interior! It’s nice to see a company taking color matching seriously. There is a downside though, it’s harder to see if you have the motherboard lined up with the standoffs than if they were brass colored.
The tool-free drive bays are quite simple, you turn the knob and pull the clip out, slide the drive in, line the clip up and push it in, than turn again. If it doesn’t turn easily do not force it, something isn’t lined up right and the clip will break if you act like a gorilla (Guess how I figured that out? Insert gorilla noises here) On the plus side, there are screw holes you can use as well, so it’s not like you’ll cost yourself a drive slot.
The optical bays are set up so that you can use the tool-free latches in two positions: Forward, so that the face of the optical drive is flush with the front of the case, and offset to the rear so that you can use the bay covers that come with the case.
The PCIe/PCI slot covers are of the stamped but not removed sort that you have to tear out, I would have preferred pre-cut slots with covers already installed, but that adds substantially to the manufacturing cost and forces the price up. Rasurbo being a price/performance type company it makes sense for them to go this way.
The issue with this type of slot cover is that if you aren’t careful you can gouge your motherboard and destroy it on the spot. Rasurbo did think about this though, and the covers clear the motherboard by a decent amount, but be careful anyway.
The power supply goes in the bottom of the case as with most modern high end cases, and you have a choice as to whether the fan faces up or faces down. Some people like it to face down so that the PSU (power supply) gets nice cold air, this works well on cold floors and can keep a marginal PSU happy.
Personally I prefer to install PSUs with the fan up, the PSUs I use are quality units that can deal with a little warm air, plus my computer (and test space) is carpeted and that blocks off the bottom intake area for the PSU. Lastly, the PSU acts as an extra exhaust fan for the case, improving case cooling a bit.
This Rasurbo Xange case has holes drilled in the rear to support both fan up and fan down operation.
You can also see the two cable ports at the far right, these are to let the USB3 cable come out the back and plug into the motherboard. Alternatively they could be used to pass water cooling hoses out to an external radiator.
The front ports for sound, eSATA, and USB as well as the connectors for the front panel buttons and LEDs have nice long cables attached that shouldn’t have any trouble reaching the ports on any but the most difficult motherboards, I had a little bit of trouble on my Gigabyte Z68-UD3-B3 motherboard as the sound connection is quite literally as far away from the front panel port as is possible. I had to undo the twist-tie cable management that comes with the case and re-route the sound cable to get it to reach, but reach it did.
The USB3 cable is designed to go out the back of the case and loop back around to the rear IO panel on your motherboard, this bypasses the question of which sort of internal USB3 port your motherboard has (if any), at the cost of a little bit of extra cable mess at the rear. I think it looks kind of cool really, and the cable is a light blue color that looks great against the black case.
The Xange also has a nice large cutout in the motherboard tray to make installing an aftermarket heatsink with a backplate nice and easy. It’s especially refreshing to see that the cutout is shaped for both Intel and AMD type backplates, that’s a fairly rare feature. This is easily the best cutout I’ve seen in any case out there.
Another nice feature is room behind the motherboard tray and slots cut out for cable management, that is to say you can run the cables behind the motherboard instead of in front of it. This not only looks better, but also improves airflow and cooling performance. As you can see in the picture below, the back side gets pretty messy! It was a bit tricky getting the side panel on, as the cable to the main motherboard power connector is very thick on this power supply. Very doable however, and worth the effort.
Then there is the cooling fan.
This Xange case comes with fan installed in the top exhaust slot, the fan is said to be a “quiet” fan, a claim that I am always skeptical of. In testing I found the fan to be quite quiet indeed, and it moves a decent amount of air as well. It was a good choice by the folks at Rasurbo.
The rear panel fan is much easier to install, except here we run into our first issue. Someone on the design team didn’t check the length of the rivets used to hold the case together, and one of them interferes with the rear fan. You can still use the fan location, but the fan doesn’t sit quite level. It’s not a major issue, but it is disappointing.
Three 120mm fans is a bit light for a modern high end case, and only one intake fan is cutting things close in my opinion, we’ll see how it works out in testing.
Last in the installation section there are the trim panels, they’re cleverly packed in a box in one of the foam packing pieces that protect the case.
They’re very easy to install being magnetic, and quite stiff and strong when dismounted from the case. I recommend care be taken however because if you do manage to bend one of the trim panels you’ll have a hard time getting it perfectly flat again! You get a nice variety of colors, as pictured below:
If you really need instructions for how to install these, you probably should not be building a computer in the first place. The panels are magnetic, so they stick on happily and come off simply by pulling on them, it’s a cool setup.
If the colors that come with the case don’t suit you, Rasurbo suggests repainting them in the color(s) and pattern(s) of your choice. The only limit to the possiblities is your imagination! In the picture below you can see the two optical drive covers, my drive is installed behind the top one. Looks nice doesn’t it?
As a sidenote, you can see the lack of a side panel fan or vent in the above picture. How much, if at all, this impacts case cooling performance we’ll check later on.
Next up are the three built in fan controllers, which get their own page.
