Installation & Performance

Once I saw the Viper and knew that I’d be reviewing one I immediately decided that it was going to get my trusty little AMD gaming rig. The specifics are located in the table below, but needless to say with the almost red NF7-S and Radeon video card plus a fully sleeved Super Flower chromed power supply, this case was going to look pretty cool all polished up.

**click to enlarge**

One thing that I noticed once I poured out the bag of hardware was that MGE provided a pretty good number of black screws. That’s a nice little touch, and those will quickly add up when you’re trying to put together a nice rig. Kudos to MGE for doing that! On the flip side, I found myself short a few stand offs. There should definitely be at least enough for the biggest motherboard, and then add two more.

Another issue was with the length of the temperature probe…it’s barely long enough to get to the CPU. That is just poor planning on MGE’s part…hopefully that gets revised. I tested it against a few other sensors I have around the shop and it is fairly accurate.

The PCI brackets are also a strange animal. I found the screw holes to be almost a little too far away from the motherboard making you have to really put some stress on the components or bend the frame some to make it fit. They are not so horribly out of alignment that you wouldn’t be able to install components…they just need some more adjustment from the factory end.

So, aside from those few points the install went without a hitch. The system was then subjected to a few tests, to determine the viability of the power supply and the effectiveness of the cooling system. I also figured it was time for a little fun. I picked up a few extra 120mm red LED fans, so I took the liberty of installing these extra components and getting some more pretty pictures. This “second build” was also subjected to the temperature tests again to see if there was any added benefit to having the 120mm fan. One thing I’d like to mention here is that although the propaganda states that you can mount a 120mm as an intake, it’s almost impossible to fit the fan into the spot where it would have to go. I would recommend using a 92mm instead.
 

Out of the box, the Viper is not the coolest performing system we’ve ever seen, but with the addition of a 120mm exhaust fan plus another 120mm on the new power supply it gets down to six degrees over ambient. That’s about the average level for most chassis that we’ve tested. This could probably be improved a step further with the addition of a 92mm intake fan, plus some clearing up of the grilles and cables to allow for better airflow.

So just for fun, I’ve included a movie of the “Viper” logo in action on the LCD as well as a few pics of the final modified version. Note the HDD indicator ‘spinning’ on the upper left portion of the display. That’s what it looks like when it’s hooked up…it doesn’t change pace if you’re idling or defragging, so it’s little more than eye candy.

flash video clip

**click to play**

Next: Conclusions