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When word came in that the Dragon Rider by In Win was en-route, I was curious. This case looks to be basically a modified version of their Maelstrom offering. In Win certainly works to produce a unique look, sometimes to the point where it can be considered a fault. I was curious would their aggressive and unique styling fit my fancy while remaining functional? More importantly is how is it going to stand against rising competition and rising quality in the case market. I jumped into our review of the In Win Dragon Rider a little skeptical, but excited to see what they have to offer. Let’s hope In Win’s gaming focused model impresses, they are going to need it in today’s case market. 

 

Product Name: In Win Dragon Rider Case

Review Sample Provided by: In Win

Review by: Jakob Barnard

Pictures by: Jakob Barnard

Product Specifications:

M/B Form Factor ATX, Micro-ATX, E-ATX (12"x13")
Case Size Full Tower
Dimension(HxWxD) 556 x 239 x 578mm (21.9" x 9.4" x 22.8")
Power Supply ATX 12V PS2 or EPS
Drive Bays External Drive Bay: 5.25" x 5 (one can swap to 3.5")
Internal Drive Bay: 3.5" x 6, 2.5" x 1
Top I/O eSATA x 2, USB 3.0 x 2, USB 2.0 x 2, IEEE 1394A x 1, HD/AC'97 Audio
I/O Expansion Slots PCI-E/PCI/AGP Expansion Slot x 8
Thermal Solution 1. 12cm Front Fan x 1
2. 12cm Rear Fan x 1
3. 12cm Top Fan x 1 (can install up to two 12cm Fans)
4. 22cm LED Side Fan with switch x 1 (can swap to six 12cm Fans) for Left Side Panel
5. 12cm LED Side Fan with switch x 1 for Right Side Panel
6. Water-Cooling hole ready Safety: RoHS, CE and FCC Class B Requirement

 

 


Packaging

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I’ll tell you this – the marketing department gets an “A” on this one. The box seems as flashy as the case with its nify graphics, well done description of the case features, and manages to provide images of both sides of the case.

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The case as well protected in the usual foam caps, bag, and the box wasn’t too bashed around on shipping. What we are interested in though is on the next page. Let’s take a look at the exterior features of the In Win Dragon Rider.

 


Exterior Design

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My first thought on unwrapping it was “wow – it is attention getting.” I had feared this would be in a bad way with the stark likes and “busy” front, but one element seems to draw your attention to the next. Over the past couple of years the mesh motif has become more and more common and it has grown on me. Let’s take a look at each side to gain a better understanding of the outside of this case.

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First and foremost you see is the In Win logo on the front of the case. It looks to be a safe bet that this will light up once the case is powered up. You can clearly see the plethora of external bays.   Turning to the side you can see the primary cooling fan. This 220mm left side fan will move plenty of air, though it can be swapped out for up to six 120mm fans. I don’t think I would take this option myself as six 120mm fans would likely increase the noise level. However, if you were trying to highly focus the incoming airflow, the option is there.

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Spinning around to the back we see this is a bottom mount PSU case, which fortunately has pretty much become the standard. Above that we have eight expansion slots, the I/O panel, and a 120mm rear exhaust fan. Above that we have four openings for water cooling support.

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The right side panel got me to pause. There is an L shaped raised portion, one would assume to facilitate cable routing. Also included is a meshed area that encloses a 120mm fan positioned right behind the CPU backplate. Well that’s new… haven’t seen that one before. I have seen other cases include extra room behind the mainboard tray, as this one clearly is, but not adding a fan right behind the CPU backplate. The closest I have seen is an additional fan in the drive bay area. I like it.

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The bottom of the case is pretty typical of larger cases with fold out feet and an opening for the PSU fan. The folded out feet provide extra stability, though really the stance is wide enough that it isn’t strictly needed.

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The top of the case has one 120mm fan, though there are openings for two. There is certainly enough room to allow for water cooling support. The front control panel is pretty basic. We have our audio jacks, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, Firewire, and two eSATA ports. Below these ports the power and reset buttons can be found along with the name “Dragon Rider.”

Now we will crack open the case and take a look at the inside.

 


Interior Design

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Normally I would skip the inside of the side panel, but In Win has paid a little extra attention worth mentioning here. There is a switch for the fan and sound dampening material. Not sure the sound dampening material is really needed with the mesh side, but it’s a nice touch which demonstrates attention to detail. The other side is that interesting fan I mentioned along with the bump that follows the cable routing channels of the case.

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Taking a look at the case with both sides off I noticed how open it is. There are quite a few cutouts found on the mainboard tray. Where ever possible room was left to allow for cable routing and interior flexibility. Cables are passed down from the front panel including internal USB headers.

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Taking a look at the expansion slots the tool free expansion card retention system is interesting. I have had mixed results with these in the past, particularly with dual-slot cards, so it will be interesting to see how well it actually works.   I am actually quite a fan of how they raised the top to allow for the water-cooling support. While I don’t utilize water-cooling myself, the additional room above the mainboard (once installed) makes things much easier to work with. In some cases it is darn near impossible to work that portion of a board once a CPU cooler is installed.

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I like it when part of the case is used to store extra things like drive rails. In Win has included a little tray stored in the 5.25” bay to hold the additional drive rails. You simply pull out enough for the drives you are going to install and place the tray back into the case.

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The back side of the case is pretty normal. The one feature many seem to want is some sort of rubber grommet with the openings, but that really wouldn’t be needed here. With the large openings on both top and bottom, it wouldn’t control airflow so would just be extra material. Except for the mainboard standoffs, it looks like everything is pretty much of a tool free design. Now let’s try adding some hardware to the case and see how it goes.

 


Installation

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The case of course came with the usual bag of hardware, but also included an extension cable for the CPU power plug. There are also a few power adapters and plenty of additions to help clean up the cable routing.

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Popping the front of the case off we can see the LED light plate for the front of the case and the front 120mm intake fan. We needed to take the front off to add in the 3.5” USB 3.0 bay adapter. The mainboard we are installing in this case came with two internal USB 3.0 headers, so we went ahead and installed this here. The 3.5” trays clip right in, and also have screw holes to support 2.5” drives. DVD drives might look a bit odd here due to the curved nature of the front.

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The mainboard and all of the parts installed in smoothly. The retention clips actually seem to work and held the card in firmly. Due to the large CPU cooler used in this instance, the extra room above the board just made things easier during the install. The large openings provided plenty of flexibility in how and where cables were routed. A bit more time could have been spent cleaning this up, but we just didn’t have the time available to do so.

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Taking a quick look behind the mainboard tray, we can see that extension cable came in handy. It is cleaner to run the power cable behind the mainboard, but almost always never will reach in a full tower case if routed behind the board. A little effort could be spent with the cable ties to make sure the cables sit perfectly into that L shaped cavity on the side panel. The large CPU cutout should be sufficient to allow for most backplate options on aftermarket CPU coolers.

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Putting the front and sides back on, it’s a good time to review how your fans are positioned and give yourself a moment to re-check the airflow direction and make sure it will work. In the picture of the side where you can see the 220mm side fan and the large CPU cooler fan, it would make the most sense to have both blowing air towards the mainboard. Then make sure both the rear and top fan are venting air out of the case. (In fact most occasions I prefer that configuration.)

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Powering the case on we can see the lighting is present, particularly with the large lit front logo, but not to the point of distraction. I missed it until this point, but the switch on the side was to turn on the LED that is part of the 220mm side fan, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to include a picture of that. However, since I leave my case on my desk, I would likely leave that off in usual day to day use anyways. Now let us roll all of this together and conclude this review.

 

 


 

Conclusions

 

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I really wasn’t sure about this case when I looked it up. The styling seemed neat, but I wasn’t sure how that would translate to actually seeing it in action. I was actually pleasantly surprised. Not only did the styling grow on me more than I had anticipated, but all of the functionality worked well. For a full tower case it had a lot of features that I really look for, the most important being the flexibility of cable routing. Room above, below, and behind makes installs a lot easier. I am really curious as to how much of a difference having a fan blowing on the CPU backplate makes, but thermal testing wasn’t something we were set up for on this review. I suspect though that it will help at least a little bit.

Normally I can pick out at least a couple of elements that bothered me, but I struggled more than I thought I would with this case. The traditional mainboard standoffs I wasn’t a fan of, but they are still the standard in the vast majority of cases. With all of the different potential mainboard sizes this case can accommodate, I don’t really see an alternative to them. Rolling all of that together I am happy to award the In Win Dragon Rider a LanOC Recommended rating!

dr-fv2recomended

Author Bio
Author: Jake Barnard

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