Rosewill Throne Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on August 2, 2013 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Rosewill
- ATX
- XL-ATX
While my experience with the Rosewill Throne was admittedly colored somewhat by the quirks of my review unit, testing has nonetheless left me with mixed feelings all around. Life is simpler when you can recommend a product without hesitation, and that's unfortunately not a possibility here.
First, we'll talk about what's good about the Throne. Rosewill has once again produced a fairly solid value contender. $159 isn't cheap per se, but you're getting a case that will hold pretty much any motherboard spec and system you want to build without issue and offer tremendous cooling performance to boot. You get fader-style fan controls; I'm a huge fan of these because the traditional 5V, 7V, and 12V steppings of switchable fan controls can often miss the inflection point on fans where additional rotation and noise offers very little performance gain.
You also get a beastly amount of connectivity in the top of the case; I personally feel four ports is about the right number, but I'm not going to complain about having six. Whether or not the hotswap bay is a selling point will depend on the individual user; I know I installed one in my Nanoxia Deep Silence 1, so take that for what it's worth.
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The problem the Throne has is that it's not entering the same market the older Thor v2 entered. If you explicitly need the oversized form factor then it's settled, and I'd take the Throne over even Rosewill's flagship Blackhawk Ultra. But if you're still hanging out in ATX territory, the Throne suddenly looks far less compelling, and Rosewill loses their budget edge. At that point they're competing with the beastly NZXT Phantom 630, which offers comparable thermals at substantially lower noise levels. The Throne is easier on the eyes than SilverStone's oddly goofy Raven RV-04, but the RV-04 can do with two fans what the Throne needs six to do, and it's a lot quieter to boot. Finally, down at $129, the unique and completely awesome Corsair Carbide 540 serves as a major spoiler, offering competitive thermals and a slicker chassis at a lower price.
No option here is strictly superior to another (except, arguably, the Throne to Rosewill's own burly Blackhawk Ultra), so it does come down to what you feel like you need. If from this review and from the specs, the Rosewill Throne looks like the best fit for your build, I can recommend it without much hesitation. Just be sure to weigh your options carefully; most standard ATX builds are going to be better off with the NZXT Phantom 630 at the same price. And hey, if you're on a budget, the Thor v2 is still around.
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MiLuong - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Ohh! I saw this case's debut at PAX, and it's actually really a cool case. It's very large, and offers plenty of room for a sweet liquid cooled system. They had it modded, and it looked slick. Even without liquid cooling, there is plenty of air circulation space in the Throne case - room for multiple graphics cards, plenty of power, good cable management, etc. Un-modded, I still think the design is sleek, but I guess that is all a matter of preference - some say it's ugly, some like it... opinion. Anyhow, great gaming case.As the article mentions, dust will be an issue with just about ANY case, and so it's up to the user to keep that clean. I've found it's a pretty simple case to blow out on occasion, and keep the dust down, but, like I said ~ ANY case is going to get dust.
Good Article. Thanks.
Spydermag68 - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
I just cannot get past the look of the front of the case. It just screams don't buy me.Bonesdad - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Looks kinda Cylon to me..."Don't Buy Me!!!"...by your command.Subyman - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
I don't understand the market position. For people that need this large of a case for E-ATX, quad sli, with water-cooling, and so forth, they are already spending $3K+ on gear, so why save $50-100 on a case? It would be good for that anyway though, since it only supports one 280mm radiator. I see most people that purchase this case being the type that buy the biggest there is to put a standard ATX motherboard and one GPU in it, but bigger is better right?glugglug - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
I'm thinking of getting a case like this for my next build because it is going to have a slew of drives for use as a whole-home DVR. I'm thinking 4x4TB drives to start with (8TB storage with mirroring), plus boot SSD + blu-ray + SD card reader = half those drive bays filled immediately, good to have room to expand.Grok42 - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Why would you want your main box to be your storage box? Build a dedicated server for file storage.ZPrime - Saturday, August 3, 2013 - link
You really don't need 8TB of storage for WHDVR unless you are basically recording everything on TV. I have a 3TB mirror (using a pair of WD Red) and Media Center tells me that using *most* of that 3TB (I think I have it leaving a few GB free), it's over 300 hours *of HD*.Unless you are just saving the crap forever... but at that point, you can move it off to a NAS, which you can keep in the basement/closet/other room, where heat and noise don't matter. For HTPC, the sweet spot is a smaller system that is as quiet as you can get it. I'm using a Silverstone Grandia GD06 -- similar to the GD05 that Anandtech reviewed, but it has hotswap SATA bays in the front which make replacement of a failed drive from your mirror MUCH easier (the Grandias are a pain in the ass to work in otherwise). This way if I lose a drive, I RMA it and insert the replacement without any downtime to the machine.
Grok42 - Sunday, August 4, 2013 - link
I personally have almost 1TB of just music and audio books. I have kids and you wouldn't believe how much just their movies take up and they watch them dozens of times per year. Most of the stuff I own are DVDs I ripped into ISO format. All in all I'm using about 4.5TB on my media server. That said, I'm with you that too many people save too much junk they will never watch again. Most of my non-kid stuff is old rips from media I wanted to throw in the attic and I don't watch it much if ever.NONE of this is in my living room. I can't imagine why I would want it there. I also don't want it generating heat in any of the boxes I use daily. I put all of that on my house server in the closet that also handles SVN, FTP, HTTP and other duties. I have gigabit networking to most rooms but my main TV can't have a wire run. I use a wireless N bridge that has never had issues other than a slight ~3 second buffering when playing a video. I recently upgraded to AC and it is unbelievably good.
Again, why would anyone that has a ton of video/audio want to store this on their main workstation? I built my server new for less than $400 + HDs. Most have a basic system they could use for basically free.
piroroadkill - Saturday, August 3, 2013 - link
World's most hideous DVR.If I needed that many drives in the machine next to my TV, Fractal Design Define Mini, maybe, but even that is too big. This thing? A godawful, open mesh, noisy beast. God no.
mwildtech - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Only in Texas.. and well... yeah..