Rosewill Armor EVO Case Review: Sometimes Performance Isn't Everything
by Dustin Sklavos on January 23, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Rosewill
- ATX
- E-ATX
Conclusion: Excellent Performance, Questionable Quality
I'll be clear: I don't expect the world of build quality from Rosewill's cases. These are as consumer grade as it gets, and corners must be cut. That's fine, I understand, and my expectations are adjusted accordingly. Parts of the case can look fairly chintzy (pretty much anything plastic), but basically, the case can serve its purpose.
It isn't a bad looking case, but where the Rosewill Armor EVO excels is in its thermal performance. There are very few other cases out there that move as much air as the Armor EVO does, and odds are you're going to have to spend up to get to them. Can NZXT's Phantoms do it? Sure, if you've got an extra $60 or so to blow on one. The Antec Eleven Hundred comes close and costs slightly less, but it doesn't have as much thermal headroom as the Armor EVO does. All that, and the Armor EVO still manages to fit in a basic ATX mid tower footprint.
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The problem is that there are a few flies in the ointment. At or around MSRP, the Armor EVO gets eaten alive by Rosewill's own Thor v2, a case that's built better and has been around for a while. The Thor v2 may be bigger, but it works, and it has built-in fan controllers, something the Armor EVO sorely lacks. As of this writing, you can actually get the Thor v2 for $25 less than the Armor EVO.
What we run into with the Armor EVO are two major problems: build quality is frustrating with the side panels but fatally flawed with the fan mounts in the top of the case. I shouldn't be able to simply pull the fans out like that, and they shouldn't fall out in transit. That tells me the case can't actually support any top-mounted radiators without risking having them fall onto the internal components and potentially break something. The other problem is the price tag. Rosewill is a house brand, and however much they may be expanding, they run into the same problem the bulk of the PC industry does: you can't charge Apple prices for Dell products. The Armor EVO needs to be $99 or better.
There's undoubtedly a good system to be made out of the Armor EVO, but I can't recommend it. Even if the noise isn't an issue to you, the questionable build quality and especially the falling fans make the case a very hard sell. If Rosewill fixes these problems in a revision and adds a fan controller, I'll be happy to recommend it. Until then, I'd stick with the tried and true Antec Eleven Hundred or go for Rosewill's own Thor v2.
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1d107 - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
Completely agree. In older days I tested an Antec P-180 with a 130W Core-i7 and didn't find any advantages of having the top fan. And now, when CPUs have lower TDPs, this becomes even less relevant.But, mot of all, this case looks plain ugly on the outside. Look at all those unused mounting holes on the side panel. Even the most hidden corner of my closet doesn't deserve this.
Galatian - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
Actually you are missing the point of the opening. It is (at least for some persons) the best spot to put in the radiator in their water cooling loop. And I believe people who buy cases with as many fan screw holes as this are usually the market demography this case is designed for. A complete silent freak (who doesn't use watercooling) will probably just get a smaller case with noise insulation.WeaselITB - Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - link
I don't understand the slight against this case (and others) for lack of a fan controller. Sure, back in the day when motherboards had 1 fan plug for your CPU (if you were lucky), I could understand, but doesn't everyone just plug the fans into the motherboard and let the automatic thermal monitoring control them? It seems odd to ding the case for not including a fan controller, but then ding the motherboard for not having enough fan plugs on the board (which has happened in other reviews).Which is it?
-Weasel
chaos215bar2 - Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - link
This is pretty much what I thought. I have no interest in a manual fan controller, builtin or otherwise. The inclusion of one is actually a drawback, since it wastes space with controls that I don't want or need.There's definitely room for a case to do something really innovative in this area, but until that happens, I'll either use the motherboard's builtin thermal controls or, if there aren't enough headers, I'll use one of the various third party options. That way I end up with a system that doesn't need any manual intervention for thermal control and has exactly the features and behavior that I want.
Onus - Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - link
I also agree with this. Furthermore, sometimes proprietary fans are used, for example Antec's, with the HL (or HML) switches.Although I've been satisfied with all of the Rosewill cases I've used so far, that top fan problem looks like a dealbreaker on this one.
dtolios - Wednesday, January 23, 2013 - link
I agree that the manual fun controller is kinda outdated. I would prefer a smart placed pwm splitter with aux power supplied directly through the psu. Long cabling and sharing a "fan xpert" or equiv smart fan header with more than one fan is more than enough. Imhoezekiel68 - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
It's good that you pointed out the top grommet flaw, but I'm not sure it's fatal. Most radiator designs have the screws pointing into the case with the screw heads on the exterior. Knowing the grommets could come loose, a simple set of four (slightly) larger black washers could be used to ensure a cooling unit would not fall in.Should this be necessary? No, of course not. Rosewill should certainly address the issue. But, given the other pluses of the case, it's worth noting there is an easy work-around.
ol1bit - Friday, January 25, 2013 - link
Wow,I must have missed that info in the past. Interesting it is a New Egg brand.
Mike89 - Friday, September 13, 2013 - link
Looks like a pretty nice case to me. The way the sides connect are no issue to me, I've had a lot of them and they are no problem to open and close (I think the reviewer made too big a deal out of that). What's attractive to me is the extended side and top for more room inside the case and I think it looks good. Another really good thing is all fan's are included. You hardly ever see that in any case even the expensive ones. Adding a fan controller would be a cheap and easy thing to do here. The price is about $100 now so I think it's a pretty good deal. I think the reviewer should spend less time on cooling comparisons and more on the case itself. This review didn't even pop off the front to show the fans. I personally could care less about cooling comparisons and skip them when I'm reading about a case. I mean with front, rear, side and top fans I already know what the airflow and cooling is going to be like. Thought this review could have been more thorough.