CM Storm Sniper: Black Edition Review

Exterior

The first thing you will notice is how securely the chassis is packaged. Upon opening the brightly labelled Sniper box, you will see a substantial Styrofoam padding on top. It is also on the bottom of the case, with the chassis itself enveloped in a thick plastic bag.

After removal, the first thing you will probably notice is the sheer size of the case along with the neat mesh bezel along the front panel. The front panel has dust filters all along it and this is especially welcome for the 200mm intake fan at the bottom. For a mid-tower case, it is quite large and suggests a good-sized interior. I’ll get to that in a little bit.

The I/O panel is also quite large and boasts several features. From left to right, there is a small reset button, the power button and the fan speed controller dial with the fan LED on/off button embedded in it. The connection ports are in two rows. At the top you find the eSATA port as well as the two ports to accommodate a microphone and a headphone. Beside those are the very bright LEDs for hard drive activity and power. Below you have an IEEE1394 Firewire port separating the four USB 2.0 ports into two pairs.

Moving to the left side panel, again the mesh is dominant as you would expect from this model. The entire mesh section has a dust filter pre-installed and wonderfully so because of the 200mm intake fan. This fan is situated right where you would have your video card(s) installed and as such will provide some clean, cool air to help cool today’s monsters.

At the back of the chassis on the left, there is the standard cut-out for the motherboard’s I/O shield plate and at the top right there are two holes, with rubber grommets, for water cooling tubes to pass through. Below that is where you will find the pre-installed 120mm exhaust fan; there are no LEDs on this fan. The case allows for a 120mm, a 90mm or an 80mm fan to be installed if preferred.

There are seven expansion slots for cards installed on the motherboard, each with a tool-less design for securing them in place. Along with those, is a special expansion slot that by default houses the CM Storm StormGuard™ accessory. On the floor of the case is where a standard ATX power supply will be installed. There are two soft rubber strips to both protect the PSU itself from scratches as well as to prevent vibration.