Azza Fantom 900 Mid-Tower Case

(4.5 star rating) Written by: Jeff Gedgaud

The AZZA Fantom 900 PC Case is designed with the gamer or enthusiast PC user in mind. It provides easy installation of your system components in a value priced case. The AZZA Fantom may not be the least expensive budget case available, but it does come in right around $100 - which hits the sweet spot for a value case that at the very least will keep your system cool. Let's take a look at the Fantom 900 to see how well it performs.

Design and Installation

The major material used in the AZZA Fantom is Japanese SECC Steel with an aluminum door on the front with a large slot for the Blue LED lights to shine through. The case has the usual plastic and other parts but most of the actual framing is tough, sturdy steel.

The front door opens for the five front drive bays where you can install your drives or other panels and has 7 bays internally for 3.5 inch drives. The power supply is at the bottom of the case with two large openings for the supply and a fan on the bottom if you want to add a 120MM fans for bottom intake or outlet.

The power supply can be installed either facing up or down as the bottom fan opening allows more than sufficient air flow for your PSU. The case comes with a front 140mm fan, a rear 120mm fan as well as top and side 230mm fans for exhaust. With this design you can either use their default fan configuration or rearrange them to suit your system.

The case has a few features I found to be quite handy during assembly - like the large slot openings on the motherboard side for cables to easily pass through. Another nice feature is the removable hard drive cage with padded sides so your drives already have anti vibration cushioning when you install them.

The Fantom 900 is your standard ATX or micro ATX size but has four indented screw holes in the motherboard area that fits all motherboard types for at least four of the mounts. Installing the system was simple and went quite quickly with plenty of room around the motherboard for working in the case.

I had no problem putting in a full ATX motherboard and a larger 3870 dual slot graphics card on the motherboard with a decent sized CPU cooler. The case has plenty of cooling for the components and having the larger fans already installed meant no figuring on air flow other than in the front and bottom and out the top and back.

Front View	Side View Opened	Front View, Door opened

Specifications

• Model Name: Fantom 900
• Model Number: CSAZ-900
• Type: ATX Mid Tower
• Color: Black
• Material: Japanese SECC Steel/Aluminum
• With Side Panel Window: Yes
• With Power Supply: No
• Motherboard Compatibility: ATX, Micro ATX
• External 5.25" Drive Bay: 9
• External 3.5" Drive Bay: 1
• Internal 3.5" Drive Bay: 4
• Front Ports 2 x USB, Audio, Mac
• 230mm Fan: 1 x 230mm blue LED silent fan (24DBA) on top
• 1 x 230mm blue LED silent fan (24DBA) on the side
• 140mm Fan: 1x140mm blue LED silent fan (19DBA) in front
• 120mm Fan: 1x120mm fan in rear
• Physical Spec Dimensions (H x W x D): 20.5" (520mm) x 8.1" (205mm) x 19.7" (500mm)

Front View Powered On, Door opened		Front View Powered On, Door closed

Testing and Performance

Test Setup

• Motherboard: ECS KA3 MVP
• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
• Memory: 2.5GB RAM
• CPU Heatsinks: Scythe Ninja Mini
• Power Supply: NZXT Performance Power 800 Watt
• Hard drive: Western Digital 7200 RPM 250 GB SATA
• Case: AZZA Fantom 900

Once I had my system up and running I admired things with the larger fans running and all the pretty lights ... okay the lights are a neat extra but I could do without them. What I like is performance and cooling and there is plenty of that even during these hot months of late July in Minnesota.

The fans really keep the system cool and this is just what the doctor ordered for this system which was having heat problems when using another case. The side fan does have the usual power cable dangling when you open the side panel so you do have to remember it is connected - but other than that the fans are a great arrangement.

I also like the thumbscrews that are pointed to make threading easier when you first start so that putting on and taking off panels and other parts is simpler. It may be a small thing, but these smaller things are what separates the good from the great and adds to the value of any product.

Another nice design point of the Fantom 900 is the hard drive cages side padding. This is nice so that you don’t have to mess with any yourself, they have glued thin foam rubber on the insides of the cage so your drives do not vibrate against the cage. It’s these smaller things that stick out when you go from one PC case to another and are working with so many that they are mostly alike except for a few things here and there.

Side View Powered On		Front Panel

AZZA Fantom 900 Mid-Tower Case

Overall, the Fantom 900 is a really nice case and has the cooling capabilities that any gamer would want in an air cooled system.

The problem with going with a lower price point is the case will likely not include enough fans to keep the system inside cool or it will just be made so cheaply that the case will have problems from the start of the installation. I found the Fantom 900 is a nice median between going as low cost as you can with a case, and spending too much money for not much benefit. The Fantom 900 has great cooling and plenty of features to make installation and use simple and easy.

With the blue LEDs you are also getting a good looking case. The Fantom 900 is a great choice for a gamer or PC enthusiast, and is well worth the $100 or so you would pay at Newegg.com or other online retailers.

Pros: Value priced, Plenty of large fans included with well designed cooling system, Padded removable drive cage, Pointed thumbscrews.

Cons: Side fan cable attached(but how else could you do it?), Door opens only from one side, not reversible.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

www.azzatek.com