Raidmax Iceberg Case Review

Conclusions

Raidmax Iceberg is an all-aluminum case targeted to the average user. Here is a summary of what we found about this case.

Strong Points

• Excellent cost/benefit ratio, costing only USD 150 (USD 120 after a USD 30 mail-in rebate at Newegg.com), which is a bargain for an all-aluminum case.
• Excellent material (everything is made of aluminum, no steel or hybrid parts). No sharp edges where you could cut yourself while building your PC.
• “Fake face” for optical drive for better aesthetics.
• Four 120 mm fans.
• Toolless design allowing you to build a PC without using a screwdriver: thumbscrews for fastening daughterboards, drives, power supply and motherboard. You will only need a screwdriver to remove the covers located in front of the 5.25” bays if you have more than one optical unit.
• Removable hard disk drive cage can be moved to different positions.

Weak Points

• Quality of some parts could be better. During our review one foot broke and we couldn’t put it back in place. The same happened with one of the pegs that holds the front panel.
• Didn’t come with floppy disk drive adapters.
• No speed control or monitoring for the fans.
• Could have an eSATA port.
• Two USB ports are too close to each other, preventing the installation of two “fat” devices at the same time.
• Holds only up to four hard disk drives, so high-end users will probably want to look for a different product.
• No screwless mechanisms for holding daughterboards, optical drives or hard disk drives.
• No anti-vibration mechanisms for the hard disk drives.
• No manual and lack of information on Raidmax’s website (e.g., weight and dimensions). The manual provided on their website is a generic manual.

In summary, this case provides a terrific cost/benefit ratio for mainstream users looking for an all-aluminum case. Costing USD 150 in the USA it is a bargain for a case manufactured using this noble material. High-end users, however, may want more features, especially fan monitoring and control and more hard disk drive bays. More exigent users will also prefer to have a case that uses better-quality parts that won’t break when building the PC. If you need these features then you should look for another (and more expensive) product. So even though this case provides a great value we can’t recommend a product that will break while you are building your PC.