Rosewill Line-M Case Review: Wherefore Art Thou Micro-ATX?
by Dustin Sklavos on February 26, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- MicroATX
- Rosewill
Noise and Thermal Testing
When I moved onto testing the Rosewill Line-M, I actually had a funny feeling it would turn out to be a pretty solid performer. Noise levels were entirely at the mercy of Rosewill's fan choices (and those fan choices are pretty lackluster, admittedly), but the way airflow moves through the enclosure is very direct and neat. You don't need a lot of fans to get good cooling, you just need a couple of them, smartly placed.
All you really need are two well-placed 120mm fans and you have a solid performer. The Line-M produces excellent thermal results in our stock testing, although the SSD does absorb at least a little bit of heat from the bottom of the chassis.
Unfortunately, you really pay in a major way in noise. To Rosewill's credit, the character of the Line-M's noise isn't actually too bad, mostly a low-pitched hum. The problem is that the two fans included are both conventional 3-pin, voltage-controlled fans. If you use a motherboard with good fan control you can probably mitigate this, but running at full bore they definitely make themselves known.
With such solid thermal results for our stock testbed, I was eager to see if the Line-M would still be able to hold up when placed under the stress of our overclocked system.
Once again, the Rosewill Line-M is able to produce very competitive performance. Enthusiasts looking to build an overclocked machine on the cheap may actually want to eyeball this case if only because its stock cooling configuration is so efficient.
While idle noise is still pretty bad, load noise is actually mitigated somewhat by the case's excellent airflow. Even with a decent mess of cabling around that front fan, air flows smoothly and freely through the Line-M.
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Zap - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
I believe the Line-M case was birthed in the same factory in China that pooped out the Cooler Master Elite 341. The design language is the same and it even uses the same drive bay subchassis with the same toolless clips.xrror - Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - link
If the blue illumination out of the front fan is such a problem, why not just swap the front and back fans?If these are going to be crammed in an office cubical, you likely won't see the back anyway.
konroh77 - Friday, March 1, 2013 - link
This case is $39.99 with a coupon code at newegg right now...Grok42 - Sunday, March 3, 2013 - link
** "...and a single 3.5" bay for the inevitable card reader. "Really, inevitable? I've never seen a single person with a card reader in their machine that wasn't there because it came with the pre-built machine. I've taken to asking people if they have ever used it and I haven't had anyone answer yes in at least 50 inquiries. According to NewEggs stats, USB card readers are way more popular and what we use at work in what I would call "industrial usage". The USB ones are also cheaper.
Finally, what I hear you saying in all the quotes below is that this case, as well as a lot of other cases, would be much better without the 5.25" bays. Yet only two cases in the world give us this option.
** "Currently the biggest albatross hanging around the neck of case design is the 5.25" bay..."
** "...but you'll have to tilt the board into the case if you're using a full-sized Micro-ATX board, as the drive cage overhangs the tray..."
** "...optical drive and the storage drives, as they're most liable to get buried under cables."
** "..but I must stress that you really are limited to 160mm of PSU depth unless you eschew using the 5.25" bays entirely."
** "Bottom-front intake to top-rear exhaust is inefficient design..."
MosBen - Sunday, March 3, 2013 - link
Just fyi, but wherefore means "why". The usage in the title seems to be using it as "where", as in "where are the micro-ATX cases at?" "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" is Juliet lamenting that the guy she likes is a member of a rival family. Why is he a Montegue, the hated rival of her father's family, rather than someone that she could hook up with easily.nickfouskas1992 - Saturday, June 1, 2013 - link
whats the max size of the cpu cooler when installed i7 core extreme onto an mirco atx motherboardrayden54 - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
It's not even "black is cool" or "blue is best" or whatever. Black and blue are both relatively neutral colors. If they make a case lime green or fire engine red, there's a lot of people who won't buy it JUST because they don't like the color.