Design & Features

As is obvious in these pictures, the new color scheme is silver and dark blue. I was rather surprised when I was first shown pictures of this case that Casedge had not opted to go with another color, such as a red body with black drive bays. The look is still one of a kind however, and is certainly an eye grabber. The grille on the bottom slides up to reveal the front ports: four USB, one Firewire, one headphone, and one microphone jack. The only thing I noticed that was really weird on the front of the case was the ‘smiley face’ on the power button…it didn’t seem to mesh too well with the theme of the case. The normal power symbol would have looked much better, or even the Chimaera symbol from the box packaging.

The side window is unchanged, although I would prefer to see something done with the blank spot on the upper right side. The fit and finish of the window is very nice, with the window beveled to sit evenly with the surface of the panel. On the inside there is a large green duct to allow cool air to be channeled directly to the CPU fan. The duct also has a washable filtering element to keep dust out.

The rear of the case reveals a few surprises. The only fan in the case is a green 120mm Foxconn, mounted in the rear to a tool free clip. The only thumbscrews are on the windowed side panel, as both the top and remaining side panel are riveted to the chassis and are not removable. If you’re one of those people who like to hide the wires behind the motherboard, you’re not going to like this setup. The PCI covers are replaceable, and we’ll take a closer look at the PCI bracket holder later in the review. There are two small serial/game mount points directly under the 120mm Fan.

The remaining side of the case is rather plain, so I’ll mention the feet. Casedge has some unusual swing-out feet on this case, molded to look more like monster feet. That’s a nice touch. The feet are connected with gearing, so they both open at the same time to the same angle. They also have small rubber pads attached to the bottom to prevent sliding.

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Inside the Chimaera are more surprises. The Chimaera has a rail system, and claims to have a tool free installation; we’ll check that out in a little bit.

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The first major plus is the inclusion of a removable motherboard tray. The small green handle has a clip underneath it, and you just squeeze the clip and slide the whole thing out. There are simple friction pins to hold the motherboard to the tray. The case is not so large that a motherboard tray could be removed easily when the case is loaded with gear, however. Underneath the Motherboard tray are holes, just in case you’d rather use regular stand offs.

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The PCI system is not perfect, but it does do the job. It uses two clips similar to the ones we saw on the Guardian, but it only has two, and these are connected to a long plate that pushes down on all the cards at once. I like the system on the Guardian better, as holding some loose brackets in place while trying to lock down the bar is not convenient.

In the lower front of the case, we have the hard drive cage. It is made of a light green acrylic, and has lots of holes. As a matter of fact, the whole area is loaded with holes. There is no intake fan, nor are there provisions or room for one. Two strange handles are clipped to the bottom of the case, and the rails for the drives are stored underneath the drive cage with a pull ring to release them. There is also a rather nifty screw holder around the pull ring – basically to store the screws you’ll need to mount the handles to the hard drives to fit them into the drive cage. The cage itself is can be taken out with the removal of a few screws. The interior edges are all rolled, to prevent slicing up your hands while working inside the case.

The front bezel of the Chimaera is one of the easiest I’ve ever removed. It doesn’t even have any wiring attached at all. The LEDs for the eyes and power button, as well as the switch itself, are mounted to a small plastic bracket. The LEDs could be easily changed to another color if one was so inclined. The bezel must be removed in order to install any drives.

Next: Installation & Testing