so today marks the release of the CM Storm enforcer so this is a new case
from Cooler Master it is a a value oriented option so it is a sub $100 case
and as you may or may not be able to tell right off the bat the front of it
is stylized kind of like the helmet of a
knight so that's why they've got this night guy next to it although it seems
to be some kind of like futuristic night
because he seems to have technology on him and glowing lights and whatnot
rather than just armor so here is a picture of the
case here is a picture of well more
detailed pictures of the case so we're not going to worry too much about those
right now since we are going to be opening up the box here we have
specifications so it's all black that means including the interior it does
have a black interior here's the dimensions here's the weight it takes
ATX motherboard so it does have seven PCI expansion slots plus one auxiliary
one that you can use for fan controllers or anything like that it's made of steel
plastic and mesh it has uh four exposed
5 and 1/4 in Bays One external 3 and 1/2 in as well
as six internal 3 and 1/2 in it has four
2 and 1/2 in D Bays so I'll show you how those work once we get inside USB 3 this
is huge USB 3 with a an internal header
so that means that all those new p67 boards that use internal headers instead
of goofy like pass throughs to the back of the board this will support it so
that is a huge selling feature right there a couple USB 2 uh comes with a
front 200 mm fan a rear 120 mm fan and
it's got a couple optional fans a 200 in the top and a 120 on the side over your
graphics card so here we are it accepts
video cards up to 390 mm with the hard
drive cage remove well you only have to remove one of them so 390 mm is what
about 15 in 16 in something like that so
I wouldn't worry too much about running into any graphics card for the time
being that will not fit in this case because even the Radeon
6990 and the uh what is it 5970 6990
5970 yeah uh even those video cards will
fit in here without any issues and they're both about 12 in long and
they're the longest ones on the market so it comes with a an operator's manual
next we will find flipping it over and removing it
from the box this is the unboxing portion of our
video there we
go all right so we find packing
material two matched pieces made of a a
stiff foam so while it's probably not
the best packing material in the world you prefer the soft closed cell foam it
is thick enough and this case is light enough that I really wouldn't worry
about any damage in transit to the CM Storm
enforcer just going to go ahead and take off the other
piece there we are and then remove the
plastic so we can see the case itself
now so let's just do a little tour of the exterior of the
chassis here we go all right so first
thing we see is the front as I mentioned before it has kind of a
night looking appearance to it so this is um sort of overlapping armor plates
and then right here we have a grill where presumably the KN would be able to
speak to others you know battlecries and whatnot all that good stuff you can
clearly see through the front the 200 mm intake fan so that has a red LED on it
so it should look quite imposing from the front on this side actually you know
what let's finish up at the front first before I get ahead of myself so this is
held closed by magnets and you can see here your four 5 and 1/4 in Bays with
one optional 3 and 1/2 in external if you got a card reader or something else
like that that goes in a 3 and 1/2 in external Bay your reset switch is and I
actually really like this right next to your power switch but safe from you
accidentally hitting it whenever you have the front door closed and given how
rarely you need to use an optical drive these days this will pretty much always
be closed so you won't accidentally hit your reset switch you got your power LED
here your hard drive activity LED here microphone and headphone ports two USB
2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports and I'll
show you guys that internal header in a minute you've got a convenient drink
tray document tray CD tray whatever kind
of things you happen to need to put there maybe you want to store your manual there maybe you want to put your
keys there no problem storage area on the top of the case I actually really
like that then you've got another 200 mm
fan Mount but it'll also Mount other stuff so by the look of things you can
throw another two 120 Ms there but it
does not support a radiator due to clearance issues inside so you'd be
looking at two just two fans okay in the
top however it does support a 120 mm rad
in the back so since we're going around
talking about the back why don't we have a look at the back so here's your 120
mil fan in the back that's included it does support a red it has enough
clearance around the bottom and around the top for that you got water cooling
grommets if you wanted to do an external radiator setup okay some people do do
those and you've got your standard back I/O back plate Shield cover missing
thing well it's not missing but you put it in when you get it with your motherboard then you have the seven PCI
slots plus the one auxiliary one I mentioned so for example uh some coolers
come with a little speed adjustment dial for the fan you'd put that there rather
than using up one of your valuable PCI slots supports standard ATX power
supplies and you can see it has all eight mounting holes so you can mount
your power supply either with the fan down or with the fan on top depending on
whatever you prefer you're not locked down to one way like I've seen with some
cases in the past so give me a sec to take these screws off and then we'll be
back now I've been saying this for a long time but what is the point of a
black interior if you don't have a side panel window to show it off so well I
mean it's not a complaint about this case obviously because it has a side
panel window so I've taken off the covers that come to protect it during
shipping it has also some more of the overlapping armor effect built into the
side panel you can see the window is quite clean so it is attached via
grommets here around the outside and it is pretty yeah it's actually flush with
the steel of the side panel so you just slide that off pretty much the standard
way to remove any case side panel from any case pretty much ever other than the
ones that try and get creative about it and inside we will find oh you know what
I'm actually going to remove this side panel as well so that I can show you
guys the whole interior of this chassis
accessories box why don't we do this first for a change I always do this at the end and frequently end up forgetting
it entirely so we're just going to get this out of the way here so in here we
find Drive rails all right so these are for
mounting your 3 and 1/2 in drives in the toolless cages here so you just push
those into the sides of the drives either side click in and there you go
Cooler Master actually does a great job of their hard drive mounting mechanisms
I'm a big fan because they're secure easy to use and I mean is that is there
really anything else you can ask for when it comes to mounting a hard drive okay we've got some black zip ties we
have a whoops motherboard speaker so that'll beep if you're having problems
with your system or whatever else the case may be since it's not built into
the case and since a lot of people don't want them anyway that's just fine we've
got screws here as well so there's your motherboard screws any other screws you
might need as well as a way to lock the side panel should you so desire so you
can this functionality is not built in but you can throw that on there and then
all of a sudden you can put a padlock on the side panel if you want if you're going to landens or whatever else and
you want to protect your valuable Hardware now this feature is another one
that as far as I can tell and this is a bit of a guess but it's called stormu
guard it is for safeguarding your gaming peripherals and from what I can see it
looks like what you do is if you're going to a land or you're using it in a
public place you put this in the whoops you throw it at the case and then break
everything you put this in the auxiliary PCI slot here you run your
cable inside pass it through this hook and
then run it back outside and plug it into the back of your IO panel so what
that means is that without and then once you put a padlock on the side panel
without removing your side panel and removing this no one can take your
peripherals away because the cable is routed through the inside of your case
so that they can't steal it pretty much okay so there's that we also have
this whatever it is it's like
Christmas just opening things up and not knowing what they are oh that just looks
like a drive adapter
okay so that's probably the 5 and 1/4 to
3 and 1/2 in drive adapter there and finally we
have is this dual oh how does that work
neat okay we have a uh 3 and 1/2 in
to uh 2 and 1/2 in Drive Bay adapter as
well all right finally the case
itself so why don't we have why don't we start with let's start at the front so
here's our six hard drive Bays what how's that the front what's the
cameraman even looking at oh designed by Cooler Master yes he's looking at the
stamp here that says designed by Cooler Master that's very good cameraman okay
why don't we start at the top front so we've got four 5 and a/4 inch Bay these
are all using tooless mechanisms although should you so desire if you
want to just back up a sec there should you so desire you can also put screws
into your drives from the other side so that way you have the convenience of
toolfree with the security of putting in a screw should you need to ship the
system or do anything like that moving
down you have a removable 3 and 1/2 in
Drive cage so that supports four drives you can remove the whole thing and then
under that you have a fixed one so you can see this one uses rivets 2x 3 and
1/2 in Drive cage you have another removable Drive cage this one is for 2
and 1/2 in drives right here so that one supports too you just take out a couple
screws here slide it out install your drives and put it back in conveniently
lined up with the cable management holes here so you can deliver the power and
SATA cables up to wherever it is that they need to go from those drives okay
moving down we've got uh four rubber mounts here for your power supply in a
case like this I would probably recommend using the fan facing down
because you can see here you've got a filter this is appears to be removable
although it might be a bit challenging you've got a filtered intake for your
120 mm fan on the bottom of your power supply that way it keeps the cooling
Zone separate from the rest of your case rather than sucking up hot air that is
being exhausted by your graphics card okay the PCI slots we've pretty much
covered the 120 mil fan in the back we've pretty much talked about you've
got a a CPU cutout so that means that if you want to mount a CPU Cooler that uses
a back plate you do not need to remove the motherboard to mount it you can just
take off your back side panel and mount it that way up here you can see what I
was talking about cuz the top of your motherboard is going to be right here so
by the time you install a radiator and a fan you're not going to have enough
clearance so that is fans strictly up
here in the top all right Micro ATX ATX
okay let's have a look at what we've got for included front panel connectors even
though we've pretty much already talked about them when we looked at the front
panel itself here we are so there are your
front switches and LEDs all that good stuff colorcoded next we have our front
HD audio nice long cable for that so you'll be able to reach you know
depending what motherboard manufacturer using got like a goofy uh one right here
for example you'll be able to reach it just fine uh you got your USB 2.0 nice
black cables and then finally here we are USB 3.0 so that is your USB 3.0
internal header lots of mother boards have them here or here so you'll be able
to reach that regardless and I think that pretty much covers everything I
wanted to say about the enforcer don't forget to subscribe to lonus Tech tips
for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos