Inside

The interior of the 901 is truly just as unique as the exterior. Once I dug into the case by removing the four thumbscrews that hold each side panel on I took the overall design in. First things first, the layout isn’t too far off from what I have seen from other Mini-ITX towers. What is unique is the very open design. I can actually see through a good portion of the case because the motherboard tray has large openings all over it. In Win included a very large access hole for reaching the back of the CPU and installing a heatsink, in fact It hardly leaves room for the motherboard standoffs. All of the interior is made of a thick gauge steel and has a very heavy duty rough black powder coat that lives up to the quality of the rest of the 901.

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Up in the top right corner are all of your storage mounting locations. You get two 3.5 inch drive trays that also support 2.5 inch drives. Both trays are held in place with a crossbeam that locks into place with a thumbscrew to keep your drives from sliding out and touching the glass side panel. There is also a third drive mount on the side of the drive cage. This mount is exclusively for 2.5 inch drives. This mount is held in place with a single thumbscrew as well as two tabs on the back. I really like this mounting location as a way to show off an SSD that matches your build.

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For your power supply you have a bottom mounted location that houses up to a 200mm power supply although I would recommend going with the shortest power supply that you can to make your wiring easier. Unlike most modern cases, the bottom mounted power supply does not support a bottom vent for the power supply to pull in cool air. This means it will pull air in from just under your video card and will most likely run a little warmer than if it had a fresh air intake.

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So how much room do you get on the 901 for wire management behind the motherboard tray? Well thee opening from the power supply area to the wire management side of the motherboard tray is 5/8ths or in between a half inch and ¾ of an inch. This is a little less than I have seen on most other modern cases but this is more than what we would have seen on a case just a few years ago. It should be enough room for someone who spends time making sure their wiring is perfect to do a good wiring job but I have a feeling that rushing through the job will make putting the side panel back on a task. To help with the wire management In Win did build in two hot swap panels for the two 3.5 inch drive bays. Both connections have power and SATA run to them. The SATA power is just a short lead that prevents you from having to fight with fitting your power cables in such a tight space, the SATA data cables do the same with their right angled design. Both cables are sleeved in a black sleeving to keep things looking slick as well.

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The rear of the 901 has a large open area between the real rear I/O panel and the rear of the case. This design is in place to hide as much of the wiring as possible and to keep the all-aluminum design flowing around the back of the case. Once you remove the back panel you get a better view of the rear I/O, dual PCI slots, and the rear exhaust fan. Due to the side of the case, you only have room for a 92mm fan, so there is a good chance you won’t have one sitting around. So when ordering your 901 you might as well include one with your order. Just above the fan there is a small T shaped slot where you can run your water cooling should you want to go that route. The only way to install water cooling in the 901 is to route it out the back and mount it to the exterior of the case. Personally I think this would kill the styling of the case, especially after In Win went to great lengths to keep the back of the case as clean as the front.

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Just above the side I/O panel, In Win slipped in a slide out fan mount for a 120mm fan. This is actually one of only two fan locations on the 901. Interestingly enough they didn’t provide a fan, but with a build of this quality I would rather get to select the perfect fan rather than getting a poor quality fan just because they felt obligated to include one. The hidden location means you can focus less on the fan’s styling and go with a fan that fits your airflow and noise requirements. Because this is the main intake fan, In Win did include a magnetic fan filter up under the I/O panel where you can slide it off to quickly clean it. Ironically the magnets did such a good job on our sample that removing the filter required a little force, but I would prefer that over the filter falling off while moving my case around any day.

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Here is the inside view of the fan opening mentioned above.

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I mentioned the slim DVD slot in the opening at the bottom of the 901. In Win filled in the slot with a panel and a pushpin for those who don’t plan on using the slot. The drive itself actually fits in the small gap under the power supply mount. This is obviously a very tight area to work in, in order to make the wiring possible In Win pre-wired the slim drive mount. The SATA cable is sleeved and runs up into the case while the power is a small cable coming out right behind the power supply. The power connector choice was an interesting one though. Rather than going with anything we normally see, In Win used a floppy disc power connection. This is a little odd to me considering floppy power connections are always at the end of a Molex power cable. I would have preferred it just be a SATA power plug, but Molex would have still been a better option than what they went with. The only benefit really is the floppy disc power connections small size, but considering most will have to run a whole cable just for this connection, it doesn’t seem like it will save much space in the end for those who use it.

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #34656 21 Apr 2014 11:30
Some of you might have seen it out at FortLAN. Here is my review of the In Win 901. Hope you all had a good weekend
Arxon's Avatar
Arxon replied the topic: #34657 21 Apr 2014 23:51
I might pick one up to replace the storm trooper.

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