Bitfenix Outlaw Modified ATX Gaming Case Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
2,068 words · ~10 min read
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Welcome to my unboxing of the Bit Phoenix Outlaw, which is a pretty unique
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case. Now, it has an inverted motherboard tray. That's not unique, but
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what is unique is an inverted motherboard tray at this kind of a price
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point. So, we'll see what Bit Phoenix has to say for themselves, and then
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we'll we'll figure out what I think is important. So, unique thermal layout.
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Okay. I think what they mean to say is inverted motherboard tray, CPU cooler
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cutout, which is now at the bottom of the motherboard tray. That's like voodoo
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magic, right? Uh, four USB 2.0 ports. This is a valueoriented case, so we're
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still looking at USB 2. Side panel cooling. Okay, good. Full black
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interior, also very good because we will be able to see inside through the side
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panel cooling. fits long VGA cards, which is pretty much a must for a gaming
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case these days, but still gets neglected from time to time by some
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manufacturers whose products are not as
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well thought out as the ones who are thinking it out well enough to include
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compatibility for long DGA cards. And you can probably tell by this time that
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I'm just killing time while I break the seals on the box. There we are. First
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thing we find inside is a quick installation guide. Now, this this
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package went through Helen back to reach me. You can clearly see that the packing
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materials are broken. But what we're going to find out, cuz remember, broken
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packing packing materials is fine. Broken case, bad. So, we're going to
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find out if the broken packing materials were able to absorb enough impact to
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protect the case inside. So, here is the quick installation guide which tells you
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how to what is lock loop electroplated
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bit logo sticker. Cool. Cool. Remove
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screws. Basic installation. 5 and 1/4 in drives. Look at that. Pictures. I
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remember when I first got into computers, the manual for a case was
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text. Like, I kid you not. They didn't even document things like like front
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panel headers at all. And back then there weren't standards for things like
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front panel audio. So you just had to kind of guess based on well the
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motherboards one says VCC something and then the case one says VDD and one of
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them they're both kind of plus and so
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maybe they're maybe they're related in some way. Okay, so this came off. Here's
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the packing materials.
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Okay. Uh this was shipped to me uh as a
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single unit though. didn't come on a palette and I don't know where it came
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from. Actually, I can find out where it came from just to to give you guys some
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idea. So, uh yeah. So, it came from
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across the continent actually. So, let's
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take off the plastic and find out what
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kind of shape it arrived in. I see a fan
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grommet. Hm.
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All right. I'm very anxious to see what
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happened here. All right. Hold on. Looks good for now. Looks good for now. Looks
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good for now. All right. Look at that. Hey, it made it. Okay. So, let's have a
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look at the Outlaw then. Excellent. Uh, so I Yeah, let's do outside impressions
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first. So, we've got dual 120 mm fans in the top. I would have preferred to see
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these closer together. So, you can use a dual 100 mm or dual 120 mil radiator in
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the top without any modification. However, it's possible that because this
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is a value case, the inside isn't big enough to do it anyway. So, we'll have
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to have a look. You'll notice that on the side panel we where we would
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normally find like cooling or a window, there's nothing. That's because this is
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the wrong side panel for that in this case due to the inverted motherboard
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tray. On the front we find their soft touch finish which honestly as soon as
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we started demoing these in the stores at NCX where I work um customers started
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buying them far more because they really like this soft touch finish. So they
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have that on their Colossus. They have that on a number of their cases. It is
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significantly more expensive than just a um a powder coated black finish. But
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especially for the front bezel looks really really sharp and I really like
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it. So on the front top, we've got four USB 2.0 ports, a microphone port, a
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headphone port, power LED, hard drive LED, power switch, and little tiny reset
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switch. Good to see because that way you're not going to accidentally hit it.
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We've got mesh on the sides here as well
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as on the front here, the front here,
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and the sides on the other side.
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So that is going to enable us to aha
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provide these two 120 mm fans with the
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airflow that they need to cool the rest of your system. We've also got four 5
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and 1/4 in bays. And here's something I haven't seen before. So it looks like if
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you install four 5 and 1/4 in devices,
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you will be blocking that top 120 mm fan. Honestly, with this case, um,
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having the cooling options that it does already have, I wouldn't worry. Whoops.
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Hold on. I think I might have might have screwed up here. Just a second.
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And okay, maybe I just have to hit it
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harder. Oops. Yep, that was it. Okay, so we've
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got the fans here. We've got the fans on the top. I wouldn't worry too much about
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your stuff not getting enough cooling. So, thumb screws at the
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back. Thumb screws here and here. Bottom mounted power supply.
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Actually, it's more like a top mounted power supply because check this out. If
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I take the whole case and I go like this now, it just looks like a standard case
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with a top mounted power supply, your IO shield, your uh 120 mil cooling fan, and
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your PCI slots, right? Whoops. But that
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would be upside down for this case. But I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to remove the side panels. Now I'm breaking
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everything. This has been sort of one thing after another for this unboxing,
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hasn't it? All right, let's flip it back over. And you are going to find a very
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strange internal layout. So, the cooling
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summary is dual 120s in the front, 120
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in the bottom, dual 120s at the top, 120 at the back, and dual 120s or 240s on
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this side panel, which sits like this and will blow down on your graphics card
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area as well as your CPU area or rather
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sorry, your graphics card area as well as your CPU area because they are upside
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down in this case. Okay, accessories.
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Here we have your power supply, which has little rubber pieces to allow you to
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even if you have a long power supply. Look at that. They go all the way out to here. It's going to support it. Um,
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you're going to be able to mount it with the fan down. So, you won't have any uh,
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you know, loose screws falling into your power supply because some cases have
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room for power supplies in the bottom, but they don't have ventilation here.
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So, what can happen is unless you mount the power supply with the fan facing the
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top, it won't get any air. So you can accidentally drop things in it. I
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dropped water in one once. That was bad. So it didn't work anymore. Fortunately,
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it didn't kill any of my other stuff when it died. So I uh I was fortunate I
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was fortunate that way. I don't remember what power supply it was I killed,
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though. Um okay.
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So I don't like I this is throwing me off a lot. I'm going to be like honest
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with you guys here. It's like really confusing looking at this because I'm
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like, "Oh, I'm holding the case upside down." but I'm not. Okay. So, 1 2 3 4 5
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6 seven PCI slots. You've got water cooling grommets here. So, that's at the
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top of the case. Here, you're going to you've got a couple pre-installed
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motherboard standoffs, but you'll have to fill in the rest of them on your own.
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your CPU tray cutout is uh not huge, but
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the reality of it is it doesn't have to be huge in a lot of cases because you
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can even if your even if your CPU socket is here, you can slip it in from the
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back and then position it and then screw on whatever it is from the front. So,
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it's not that big of a deal as long as it's big enough to fit the back plate
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through and then you can reposition as needed. Uh up on the top here it looks
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like uh due to the oh up on the top at
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the bottom here never mind nothing up at
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the top it looks like yes we will not be able to fit a dual 120 mm radiator just
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due to the clearance uh that would be
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interfered with by this by a bottom installed PCI card. So that's probably
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why they didn't bother with that spacing. Five and three and 1/2 in bays.
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We've got 1 2 3 four 3 and 1/2 in hard
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drive bays. And then down here at the bottom, we've also or that is the
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bottom. That's the bottom. Okay. We've also got a 2 and 1/2 in um 2 and 1/2 in
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cutout so that you can put an SSD down at the bottom of your case. 1 2 3 4 5
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and 1/4 in bays. I think we already talked about that. And black internal
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cables. Love to see black internal cables. There's your front panel
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switches and LEDs and whatnotss. Here's your front panel audio. your front panel
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USB 2 and then your other more different front panel USB 2. So, thank you for
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checking out my very confused unboxing of the Bit Phoenix Outlaw. I think what
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is outlawish about it is that it just
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sort of breaks every rule for a value case. It's got a nice finish on the
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bezel, which is really good to see. Lots of cooling options, tons of cooling
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options. It's like a cooling box. And then in theory, it also provides better
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cooling due to the inverted ATX layout, which allows you to blow away all your
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CPU heat here. And then heat rises. So having your video cards, especially if
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you're running two or more, up at the top where you can exhaust the heat right
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away, could in theory be a good thing as
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well. And you've also, due to the layout of the case, got ventilation almost all
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the way up to the top if you only have one five and a quarter inch device because this is all mesh. And then
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you've got mesh on the side here as well. So you can exhaust that way if you
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have uh cards that blow not only out the back of the case but also out the front
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of the card. So thank you for checking out this unboxing. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more
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unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos. Sorry guys, I forgot. Inside the
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accessory box there are some zip ties. There are also about 300 billion thumb
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screws. Yeah, like seriously like how
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many thumb screws could one person need? The answer is this many. And then
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finally, some other more different screws. Power supply screws, motherboard
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standoffs, motherboard screws, and last but not least, a very stylish looking
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shiny metal metal metal Bit Phoenix
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logo. And that is all.