Chenbro Gaming Bomb Case Review

Well it has been a little while since I have done a hardware review. I not only get to do a review but return a favor as well. Today we are going to be looking at the Chenbro Gaming Bomb Case. As some of you know I am in pursuit of Zen-like state of trying to balance Silence and Quality Cooling. But before we get into the review let's take a look at Chebro real quick.

Founded in 1983, Chenbro has established itself as a leading provider of innovative mechanical solution in the 3C industry. We service the customer base that consists of system integrators, OEM aliance partners and channel partners, focusing on products and projects that require long-term partnership and availability. Diligent in innovation, Chenbro launched the world's first tower PC and removable M/B tray to the market.


The Gaming Bomb from first glance looks like a lot of other Modded Cases out there. So I was highly suprised when I picked the case up and found it to be heavy and quite sturdy. I had heard that they were trying to made a case the would not be susceptible to low level EMP interference. This was evident in the solid casing and panels. The next thing that I noticed was it's size. I was a little longer and a little taller than most average cases.

While taking a closer look at the case I noticed something that really excited me. It had a large front vent that had a filter! I was excited to get a closer look at the filter, as I had been using furnace filters cut downt to size for a couple of years now. I was good to see that most cases are stating to see this as a valuable benefit.


As you remove the front panel (totally screwless) I noticed that the front fan hole was large enough for a big Sunon. This was pretty shocking since most front holes are of the smaller variety. It also revealed that the filters came out and they were cleanable. A definite bonus! While inspecting the front cover I noticed that the 'Spider' mesh on the front has breathable holes on almost the entire front. Very nice indeed. You will be quick to notice all of the room for front loaded products i.e. USB, FireWire and Soundcard.

Next we take a look at the guts themselves. The nice thing about Chenbro products is that you can add different components to your order. This particular model came with the works i.e. 400 watt PSU,front and rear fans. The case is large enough to fit pretty much anything you want inside. It looked as though we weren't going to have any problems with the cooling end but the noise level may come into question later.


I want you to take a closer look at the picture above. In particular two different areas, the rear area and the lower front. This two places made me smile and cringe at the same time. You see another example of the screwless concept comes in to play at the back with the addition of special 'holders' to keep your cards in place. The part that made me worry was that the hard drives were not in front of the fans and would get minimal cooling.

After all of the pieces parts were in and the giddiness wore off it was time to fire it up. As suspected once it was turned on the large fans were definitely noticable. However the good side of that was the case was not only running cool it was downright frosty! The last thing I did was place my cold-cathobe Blue light inside the case. It made the nice clear 'B' logo shine and made me wonder what it would look like with a green one.

Well it is time to wind things down with some afterthoughts. The case can be had for as cheap as $89 on some sites so that makes it a pretty decent deal. The pros to the case are definitely it's sturdy design and the front mesh setup. An added bonus is the screwless configuration. There were really only two downsides to the case. The case noise isn't terrible but it definitely isn't the best. So if you don't mind a little noise this puppy is definitely for you. The other thing I hope they address is the hard drive placement. Data Storage is the single most important thing on computer in my opinion as I keep pictures, family videos and website archives on my dual drives. I obviously want those to be as cool as possible to help prevent failure. But that is just my opinion. Overall this case really does kick ass and definitely earned a UO Fanboy Approved Seal.


I look forward to seeing their Next Gen of products very soon!

Tycho
Written: May 17th, 2004

-update- While I was at work last night the rep from Chenbro contacted me in regards to some updated information on the case. It is nice to see some of things have been added to an already impressive piece of steel.

You might want to put a note in that says that it is called the Gaming Bomb, but it might be also known as Xpider in North America. Also, the front fan holes that are behind the front bezel support both 80mm or 92mm fans. This is more than enough to reduce the temperature of the up to four hard drives located in the cage behind the fan. With the 92mm in take fan in the front and the 120mm exhaust fan in the back the cooling is hisper quiet, not to mention the face that it is good to about 170 watts of heat disappearing. This means it should be able to handle processors over 4GHz with no problem. The metal mesh large intake grill on the front of the chassis of course is one of our best features.

We have received Intel certification for the chassis for 3Ghz Prescott. Which does indicate that the case can handle the most extreme temperature situations and remove the heat generated from the high performance components that users could install into the case.

When you speak about the noise of the case, it is important to note that your fan selection does influence the noise of the case. For example the use of Panaflow or Vantec Stealth fans cuts down the noise a lot. In the new Xpider II we are having produced for us these new translucent blue UV reactive lighted fans with dual rifle ball bearings and they are very quiet as they are designed to be that way as well as move a great amount of air through the case.

Our hard drive cage placement is in the line of air flow, I am not sure how much better you can get. Our testing data does show a great impact as to the cooling of the hard drives.

I want to thank David for taking the time to read over the article and share the new information with everyone.