Introduction
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Besides being a well-known power supply manufacturer, Enermax also manufactures cases. Today we are going to take a look at their latest release, Uber Chakra, a 5-bay case featuring a colossal 250 mm fan on the side panel.
Uber Chakra is available in three colors: black (ECA5001-B, which is the model we are going to show you), black with blue details (ECA5001-BL) and black with silver details (ECA5001-BS).
Even though this is a high-end case, it is still made of zinc-coated steel (a.k.a. SECC) and not aluminum. Using aluminum instead of steel would make this case to be lighter – and more expensive.
Figure 1: Enermax Uber Chakra.
Its huge 250 mm (25 cm) side fan immediately catches our eye and we will talk more about it in the next page. This case also features a 120 mm fan on its front panel and a place for installing another 120 mm fan on the rear (the case does not come with this fan). The two fans that come with the case glows blue when the computer is turned on.
Figure 2: Enermax Uber Chakra.
As you can see in Figure 2, it has five 5 ¼” bays and two 3 ½” bays plus six internal 3 ½” bays. What is really good about this case frontal panel is that it uses a dust filter, as you can see in Figure 3. As the frontal fan works on ventilation mode – i.e., blowing air from outside the case to the inside – this filter prevents dust entering the case and also prevents your frontal fan from being dirty, which happens with cases that don’t feature a dust filter.
Figure 3: Dust filter on the frontal panel.
In Figure 4, you can see the connectors, switch and LEDs that are available on the top of the case: power switch, two USB ports, mic in jack, headphone jack, power LED, HDD LED and an eSATA port. Even though it is great to have an eSATA port on the top of the case for connecting external hard drives as newer high-end motherboards are coming with eSATA support, we think this case could have a FireWire port as well.
Figure 4: Power switch, connectors and LEDs on the top of the case.