BitFenix Prodigy Review: The Affordable Performable Mini-ITX
by Dustin Sklavos on June 1, 2012 1:55 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- bitfenix
Assembling the BitFenix Prodigy
Putting together a mini-ITX system is almost never easy, necessarily, but the BitFenix Prodigy seems to be designed to simplify the process as much as possible. Part of that is because the Prodigy is admittedly a bit larger than I'm used to seeing mini-ITX cases be, but not by much. Most of it has to do with a smart, modular design.
Being able to easily remove both the top vent and the main drive cage without having to remove any screws made it very easy to get started. The I/O shield for the testbed motherboard fit in snugly, and then the motherboard itself was surprisingly easy to mount into place. Ordinarily with a smaller build like this one I'd connect modular power cables to the motherboard and components first and then slot in the power supply, and it was at this juncture that I first encountered arguably the biggest problem with the Prodigy: power supply clearance.
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Our testbed power supply is 160mm, but the modular connectors make it impossible to actually fit inside the power supply bay, and I suspect even a non-modular 160mm PSU would be a tight fit at best. As a result I wound up re-using the SFX power supply from the SilverStone FT03 Mini with an adapter plate, and the much smaller power supply made cabling worlds easier. I feel like if anything about the Prodigy is going to hang up end users, this will be it, so buyer beware: if you're planning a build in this case, get a 140mm power supply. Honestly even going the route I did and using an SFX power supply with an adaptor wouldn't be a bad idea.
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For the drives, I wound up installing the 2.5" SSD in one of the bays built into the right side panel and the 3.5" Corsair Link in one of the trays in the bottom cage. Installing the optical drive involves removing the front panel (easy enough to do), twisting out the bay cover from the chassis, and then popping the shield out of the panel. From there, BitFenix includes thumbscrews for securing the 5.25" drive in place. I'd gripe about a lack of toolless installation here, but realistically this is a $79 case with an awful lot to offer. I'll take the hit, plus I don't know many mini-ITX builds that get opened up and tinkered with on a regular basis once they're in service.
Installing expansion cards is a little more fraught, though. Due to the height of the case, I couldn't use my comparatively short power screwdriver to loosen the thumbscrews in the expansion slots. You also have to loosen the screw above the slots, which locks a plate into place. It's involved to be sure, but could've been made a lot easier if the screw above the slots wasn't almost perfectly lined up with the screw for the second expansion slot. These are thumbscrews and they mean it; you're not fitting a screwdriver in there. This is something I think BitFenix could probably fix on the next iteration by moving that top screw between the two expansion slot screws. Still, I was able to swap graphics cards in and out of the Prodigy for testing without too much trouble.
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Finally getting everything wired up wound up being a little more difficult, but that was due almost entirely to the drive and I/O being mounted to the right side panel. BitFenix made what allowances they could for routing cabling, but in a case this small you're still fundamentally going to have to just squeeze things in here and there. While I ran into a couple of hiccups putting the Prodigy together, ultimately it was still far easier than Mini-ITX cases typically are.
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xbournex - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Yes. It can fit 330mm cards.7amood - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
I would love to see anandtech review of silverstone SG08Termie - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
My problem right off the bat with this case is that its dimensions (9.84" x 15.9" x 14.1") are almost identical to the Temjin: 15.16" x 8.27" x 14.72". Sure, the handles make it taller than it really is, but ultimately, the case is just too big. It is both wider and deeper than the Temjin. I just can't see a reason for going with this case if you're trying to be compact.Termie - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Sorry - upon looking at the pictures again, it seems it's not deeper than the Temjin, but actually taller (hard to match up those dimensions). Either way, it sure is wide!Olaf van der Spek - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
How well is the Prodigy doing with the 560 Ti vs a regular mATX case?You just say: "Thermals for the Prodigy are still quite good, but the 560 Ti does push it a little." but some more words wouldn't hurt. The cooling in the Prodigy shouldn't be worse than in a mATX case IMO.
Taft12 - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
On the contrary, I think the short depth with front/back 120mm fans and "tunnel" for air to travel through front-to-back will provide BETTER cooling than most mATX cases.A terrific design worthy of the Editor's Choice award!
MichaelD - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Case is great except for the feet. They let the designer people overrule the engineering people, which is usually not a good idea. Yes; the top handles are symmetrical with the bottom feet. And the case will tip over if you try to set it down on carpet. The "feet" have rounded edges which will just encourage the case to fall on it's side should you accidentally bump it. I can work around every other "negative" or shortcoming this nice case has, except the feet. That makes it a failure in my book. Side note: All that mesh ventilation looks nice on paper. Two weeks after building your system you'll be vacuuming dust out of that mesh on a weekly basis if you want the thing to run cool.snajk138 - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
It looks like you can take them off.http://i46.tinypic.com/2h8b9lv.jpg
zcat - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
This BitFenix is a nice case that certainly would've been on my shortlist a few weeks ago, but I think I still would have gone with the slightly more expensive ($99) Lian Li PC-Q11A case that I did choose, as it's much prettier (all alluminum) and more minimal-looking.CPU: i7-3770S (65W)
MB: Asus P8H77-I
PSU: SeaSonic SS-300ET 300W 80+
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600
SSD: 256GB Samsung 830
HDDs: 2x 2TB 5900rpm in RAID1
HSF: Xigmatek CAC-D9HH4-U02 PRAETON (one of the few that would fit, and quieter than stock)
It went together quite easily, except for a few minor problems:
1) Lian-li still uses a 3-pin connector for the power-led, so you have to re-pin it for 2.
2) Had to order the rarer "left-angle" sata cables in order to connect the HDD sitting directly above the SSD on the drive cage.
3) The side panel is attached with 8 tiny screws instead of 2 quick thumb screws like my previous full-ATX and micro-ATX LianLi's, but mini-itx cases are rarely opened anyway.
Without the 2 HDDs, the system idles at just ~29W, and with at ~41W. Under full load it sucks ~118W so there's still headroom for me to add a 75W PCIe-powered card down the road (waiting on nvidia's more efficient mid/low-end kepler cards).
If I had no plans to upgrade from intel's integrated HD4000 to a full-length/full-height/double-width card, I probably would've chosen the MUCH SMALLER Antec ISK110 case instead (same case used in pugetsystems 'overpriced' builds).
Anyway... I guess this turned into a mini-itx mini-review of my own. Thanks Anandtech - looking forward to more mini & micro-ATX reviews as full-ATX fades to the fringes.
mars2k - Friday, June 1, 2012 - link
Enter the poster child for Chinese plagiarism. All the positives aside, I would never buy a product that was a cheap copy of an iconic industrial design like a Mac Pro…and it’s blue.Take all the careful design in the world and wrap it in a blatant counterfeit skin..voila…worthless.