Cooler Master CM Storm Enforcer Gaming Computer Case Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
2,580 words · ~12 min read
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so today marks the release of the CM Storm enforcer so this is a new case
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from Cooler Master it is a a value oriented option so it is a sub $100 case
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and as you may or may not be able to tell right off the bat the front of it
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is stylized kind of like the helmet of a
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knight so that's why they've got this night guy next to it although it seems
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to be some kind of like futuristic night
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because he seems to have technology on him and glowing lights and whatnot
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rather than just armor so here is a picture of the
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case here is a picture of well more
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detailed pictures of the case so we're not going to worry too much about those
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right now since we are going to be opening up the box here we have
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specifications so it's all black that means including the interior it does
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have a black interior here's the dimensions here's the weight it takes
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ATX motherboard so it does have seven PCI expansion slots plus one auxiliary
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one that you can use for fan controllers or anything like that it's made of steel
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plastic and mesh it has uh four exposed
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5 and 1/4 in Bays One external 3 and 1/2 in as well
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as six internal 3 and 1/2 in it has four
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2 and 1/2 in D Bays so I'll show you how those work once we get inside USB 3 this
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is huge USB 3 with a an internal header
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so that means that all those new p67 boards that use internal headers instead
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of goofy like pass throughs to the back of the board this will support it so
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that is a huge selling feature right there a couple USB 2 uh comes with a
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front 200 mm fan a rear 120 mm fan and
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it's got a couple optional fans a 200 in the top and a 120 on the side over your
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graphics card so here we are it accepts
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video cards up to 390 mm with the hard
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drive cage remove well you only have to remove one of them so 390 mm is what
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about 15 in 16 in something like that so
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I wouldn't worry too much about running into any graphics card for the time
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being that will not fit in this case because even the Radeon
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6990 and the uh what is it 5970 6990
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5970 yeah uh even those video cards will
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fit in here without any issues and they're both about 12 in long and
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they're the longest ones on the market so it comes with a an operator's manual
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next we will find flipping it over and removing it
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from the box this is the unboxing portion of our
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video there we
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go all right so we find packing
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material two matched pieces made of a a
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stiff foam so while it's probably not
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the best packing material in the world you prefer the soft closed cell foam it
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is thick enough and this case is light enough that I really wouldn't worry
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about any damage in transit to the CM Storm
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enforcer just going to go ahead and take off the other
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piece there we are and then remove the
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plastic so we can see the case itself
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now so let's just do a little tour of the exterior of the
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chassis here we go all right so first
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thing we see is the front as I mentioned before it has kind of a
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night looking appearance to it so this is um sort of overlapping armor plates
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and then right here we have a grill where presumably the KN would be able to
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speak to others you know battlecries and whatnot all that good stuff you can
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clearly see through the front the 200 mm intake fan so that has a red LED on it
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so it should look quite imposing from the front on this side actually you know
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what let's finish up at the front first before I get ahead of myself so this is
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held closed by magnets and you can see here your four 5 and 1/4 in Bays with
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one optional 3 and 1/2 in external if you got a card reader or something else
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like that that goes in a 3 and 1/2 in external Bay your reset switch is and I
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actually really like this right next to your power switch but safe from you
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accidentally hitting it whenever you have the front door closed and given how
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rarely you need to use an optical drive these days this will pretty much always
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be closed so you won't accidentally hit your reset switch you got your power LED
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here your hard drive activity LED here microphone and headphone ports two USB
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2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports and I'll
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show you guys that internal header in a minute you've got a convenient drink
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tray document tray CD tray whatever kind
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of things you happen to need to put there maybe you want to store your manual there maybe you want to put your
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keys there no problem storage area on the top of the case I actually really
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like that then you've got another 200 mm
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fan Mount but it'll also Mount other stuff so by the look of things you can
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throw another two 120 Ms there but it
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does not support a radiator due to clearance issues inside so you'd be
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looking at two just two fans okay in the
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top however it does support a 120 mm rad
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in the back so since we're going around
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talking about the back why don't we have a look at the back so here's your 120
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mil fan in the back that's included it does support a red it has enough
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clearance around the bottom and around the top for that you got water cooling
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grommets if you wanted to do an external radiator setup okay some people do do
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those and you've got your standard back I/O back plate Shield cover missing
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thing well it's not missing but you put it in when you get it with your motherboard then you have the seven PCI
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slots plus the one auxiliary one I mentioned so for example uh some coolers
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come with a little speed adjustment dial for the fan you'd put that there rather
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than using up one of your valuable PCI slots supports standard ATX power
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supplies and you can see it has all eight mounting holes so you can mount
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your power supply either with the fan down or with the fan on top depending on
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whatever you prefer you're not locked down to one way like I've seen with some
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cases in the past so give me a sec to take these screws off and then we'll be
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back now I've been saying this for a long time but what is the point of a
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black interior if you don't have a side panel window to show it off so well I
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mean it's not a complaint about this case obviously because it has a side
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panel window so I've taken off the covers that come to protect it during
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shipping it has also some more of the overlapping armor effect built into the
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side panel you can see the window is quite clean so it is attached via
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grommets here around the outside and it is pretty yeah it's actually flush with
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the steel of the side panel so you just slide that off pretty much the standard
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way to remove any case side panel from any case pretty much ever other than the
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ones that try and get creative about it and inside we will find oh you know what
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I'm actually going to remove this side panel as well so that I can show you
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guys the whole interior of this chassis
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accessories box why don't we do this first for a change I always do this at the end and frequently end up forgetting
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it entirely so we're just going to get this out of the way here so in here we
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find Drive rails all right so these are for
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mounting your 3 and 1/2 in drives in the toolless cages here so you just push
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those into the sides of the drives either side click in and there you go
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Cooler Master actually does a great job of their hard drive mounting mechanisms
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I'm a big fan because they're secure easy to use and I mean is that is there
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really anything else you can ask for when it comes to mounting a hard drive okay we've got some black zip ties we
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have a whoops motherboard speaker so that'll beep if you're having problems
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with your system or whatever else the case may be since it's not built into
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the case and since a lot of people don't want them anyway that's just fine we've
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got screws here as well so there's your motherboard screws any other screws you
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might need as well as a way to lock the side panel should you so desire so you
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can this functionality is not built in but you can throw that on there and then
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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
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you want to protect your valuable Hardware now this feature is another one
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that as far as I can tell and this is a bit of a guess but it's called stormu
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guard it is for safeguarding your gaming peripherals and from what I can see it
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looks like what you do is if you're going to a land or you're using it in a
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public place you put this in the whoops you throw it at the case and then break
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everything you put this in the auxiliary PCI slot here you run your
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cable inside pass it through this hook and
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then run it back outside and plug it into the back of your IO panel so what
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that means is that without and then once you put a padlock on the side panel
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without removing your side panel and removing this no one can take your
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peripherals away because the cable is routed through the inside of your case
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so that they can't steal it pretty much okay so there's that we also have
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this whatever it is it's like
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Christmas just opening things up and not knowing what they are oh that just looks
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like a drive adapter
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okay so that's probably the 5 and 1/4 to
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3 and 1/2 in drive adapter there and finally we
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have is this dual oh how does that work
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neat okay we have a uh 3 and 1/2 in
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to uh 2 and 1/2 in Drive Bay adapter as
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well all right finally the case
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itself so why don't we have why don't we start with let's start at the front so
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here's our six hard drive Bays what how's that the front what's the
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cameraman even looking at oh designed by Cooler Master yes he's looking at the
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stamp here that says designed by Cooler Master that's very good cameraman okay
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why don't we start at the top front so we've got four 5 and a/4 inch Bay these
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are all using tooless mechanisms although should you so desire if you
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want to just back up a sec there should you so desire you can also put screws
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into your drives from the other side so that way you have the convenience of
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toolfree with the security of putting in a screw should you need to ship the
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system or do anything like that moving
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down you have a removable 3 and 1/2 in
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Drive cage so that supports four drives you can remove the whole thing and then
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under that you have a fixed one so you can see this one uses rivets 2x 3 and
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1/2 in Drive cage you have another removable Drive cage this one is for 2
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and 1/2 in drives right here so that one supports too you just take out a couple
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screws here slide it out install your drives and put it back in conveniently
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lined up with the cable management holes here so you can deliver the power and
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SATA cables up to wherever it is that they need to go from those drives okay
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moving down we've got uh four rubber mounts here for your power supply in a
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case like this I would probably recommend using the fan facing down
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because you can see here you've got a filter this is appears to be removable
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although it might be a bit challenging you've got a filtered intake for your
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120 mm fan on the bottom of your power supply that way it keeps the cooling
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Zone separate from the rest of your case rather than sucking up hot air that is
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being exhausted by your graphics card okay the PCI slots we've pretty much
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covered the 120 mil fan in the back we've pretty much talked about you've
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got a a CPU cutout so that means that if you want to mount a CPU Cooler that uses
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a back plate you do not need to remove the motherboard to mount it you can just
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take off your back side panel and mount it that way up here you can see what I
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was talking about cuz the top of your motherboard is going to be right here so
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by the time you install a radiator and a fan you're not going to have enough
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clearance so that is fans strictly up
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here in the top all right Micro ATX ATX
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okay let's have a look at what we've got for included front panel connectors even
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though we've pretty much already talked about them when we looked at the front
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panel itself here we are so there are your
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front switches and LEDs all that good stuff colorcoded next we have our front
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HD audio nice long cable for that so you'll be able to reach you know
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depending what motherboard manufacturer using got like a goofy uh one right here
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for example you'll be able to reach it just fine uh you got your USB 2.0 nice
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black cables and then finally here we are USB 3.0 so that is your USB 3.0
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internal header lots of mother boards have them here or here so you'll be able
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to reach that regardless and I think that pretty much covers everything I
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wanted to say about the enforcer don't forget to subscribe to lonus Tech tips
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