Cooler Master Storm Enforcer Review

Manufacturer: Cooler Master Ltd., Inc.
Product Name: Storm Enforcer
Model Number: SGC-1000-KWN1
Price As Tested: $89.99 (Newegg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article was provided by Cooler Master.

Cooler Master cases have garnered a well-earned reputation for quality and design innovation. Their Cosmos and H.A.F. series have won praise from enthusiasts around the world, and their "Storm" series of cases has shown that "budget" doesn't have to mean "cheap". The Cooler Master Storm Enforcer is the newest member of the Storm line, bringing internal USB 3.0 support and a configurable interior to the game. Benchmark Reviews checks out this new chassis in this review.

Every computer needs a case, and the market these days offer the enthusiast more choices than ever, ranging from no-name pot metal cases for $30 or less to crafted aluminum and carbon fiber marvels costing hundreds of dollars.

Cooler Master made their reputation in the case market, starting with high-end all-aluminum cases and gradually introducing less-expensive but still impressive cases such as their acclaimed "HAF" (High Air Flow" series. Benchmark Reviews has reviewed a number of Cooler Master cases over the years and have found them to be solid, often exceptional products.

Cooler Master's "Storm" series of chassis is aimed at "enthusiasts and budget-conscious gamers", according to Cooler Master. The Enforcer joins the existing Storm Sniper, Storm Sniper Black, and Storm Scout as the newest member of the Storm mid-tower line, and brings some new features to the game as well.

Storm Enforcer Features

• Futuristic design with clean lines and aggressive styling
• Excellent hear dissipation with meshed front, top, and bottom
• Dust-filtered air intakes
• Modular interior
• Liquid cooling ready
• Internal USB 3.0 connector
• Storm Guard anti-theft system
• Cable management features

SGC-1000-KWN1 Specifications

Let's take a look at this new Storm case in the next section.

Closer Look: Exterior

The Cooler Master Storm Enforcer makes a bold styling statement. The front is sculpted, with the ridges in the magnetically secured 5.25" device door mirrored in the air intake below.

The left side panel has a raised area with a clear window secured by plastic pushpins. In front of the window are four decorative embossed areas, but they're not vents. Two easily removed steel thumbscrews secure this panel.

At the rear of the case are the three grommetted holes for water cooling hosts, a 120mm exhaust fan, seven card slots plus one "extra" slot for the Storm Guard or accessory plate, and the power supply area.

The right side of the case is a plain black steel panel. While the left side panel is secured with thumbscrews, the right side panel uses regular screws.

The accessories bundle includes a manual (not shown), zip ties, a small speaker, mounting rails for 3.5" drives, a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter, the "Storm Guard" cable securer, a 3.5" device adapter for the bottom 5.25" bay, a bag of screws (including the long screws necessary to mount a 200mm fan at the top of the case), and a nice motherboard standoff socket (enlarged view shown) that allows you to use a Philips-head screwdriver to easily mount the standoffs.

I'll take a more detailed look at the outside of this case in the next section.

Detailed Exterior Features

The top of the case has a mounting area that supports 2x120mm fans, a single 200mm fan, or a 240mm radiator. A recessed area at the front is handy for small items, but it would have been nice to see a SATA dock here.

At the top front of the case are the power button, power and disk activity lights, and the I/O panel. Aside from microphone and headphone ports, there are two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports.

Opening the magnetically secured 5.25" bay door reveals the four 5.25" device bays; the lowest bay can (with the included adapter) be used for a 3.5" device like a card reader or fan controller. Opening the bay door also reveals the reset switch just to the left of the power button. Hiding this switch under the door prevents accidental pressing.

The front bezel snaps off easily for access to the 5.25" bays and the front 200mm fan. The red LED-lit fan appears to be a Cooler Master Megaflow 200. Cooler Master rates this 700RPM sleeve-bearing fan at 110 cubic feet per minute with a low 19dBa noise rating. In operation the fan is almost inaudible. The front bezel contains a removable air filter for the front fan, but it's just a thin piece of rather coarse perforated plastic and doesn't seem as if it would capture much dust..

At the bottom of the case we see four plastic feet with rubber inserts, and the air intake area for the power supply. As with the front fan, a coarse removable air filter is present. The recessed area in the middle of the bottom marks the mounting space for the 2.5" drive bays.

Now let's take a look at the inside of this case.

Closer Look: Interior

The Cooler Master Storm Enforcer sports a fully painted interior, a feature once reserved for more expensive cases. The motherboard tray's CPU cooler cutout is as large as possible, coming within millimeters of the four standoff mounting points at its edges. This view also shows the many cable management pass-through holes and tie down points. In this picture you'll see that the 3.5" drive bays are separated into two sections: an upper four-drive section and a lower two-drive section.

The motherboard tray isn't removable, but the large CPU cooler cutout and many cable management options make this less of a drawback than you'd expect.

At the bottom of the case is the ventilated power supply area. Four small rubber pads support the power supply. In front of the power supply is a removable mounting bracket for two 2.5" SSDs or laptop hard drives. While a standard ATX power supply easily fits, you'd need to remove the 2.5" drive bays to install a longer power supply.

The mounting area at the top of the case supports several cooling options: twin 120mm fans, a single 200mm fan, or a 240mm radiator. The accessory pack contains all the screws you'd need for any of these cooling solutions. Unlike many other cases in this price range, the Storm Enforcer has enough clearance above the motherboard area to mount both a radiator and standard 25mm thick fans inside the case.

Let's take a closer look at some of the interior features of this case in the next section.

Detailed Interior Features

The 5.25" drive bays offer enough room for dual optical drives and a two-bay reservoir for liquid-cooling setups. There's enough space above the top 5.25" device to run the cables and store unused cables.

The upper set of 3.5" drive bays can be removed from the case. Why? To make room for really long video cards.

The Storm Enforcer is the first case I've seen with a "native" SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) header. This is a much nicer solution than running cables out of the back of the case to plug into the external USB 3 ports, but it's only workable on motherboards that actually have a USB 3.0 connector. If your motherboard doesn't, there's no way for you to use the front-mounted USB 3.0 ports.

The 5.25" device locks are the standard Cooler Master fare. They seem easier to use and more reliable than the "slide to lock" type other cases use: just flip the stubby center lever to lock or unlock. Also, it's easy to pop them off the chassis should you prefer to use screws; alternatively, if you have fewer than four devices, you can switch the unused locks to the other side of the occupied bays to secure your devices from both sides.

I measured 5/8" of space behind the motherboard tray. This is just barely adequate for cable management; the main ATX power cable on the power supply I used is exactly this thick, which meant I couldn't cross any other cables over or under it and still fit the side panel on neatly.

In the next section, I'll build a system in the Storm Enforcer case.

Building a System

Although this Cooler Master Storm Enforcer is a mid-tower case without a removable motherboard tray, it's still pretty easy to build a system in. Removing the upper 3.5" drive bay section opens up enough room to fit even a Radeon 6990 video card, perhaps the longest video card ever made at 305mm (just over 12"). The ATX-sized ASUS Crosshair III Extreme motherboard fits easily and there's plenty of room to route cables.

An Antec TruePower 650 power supply slots easily into the bottom of the case. In this build I have a 128G SSD mounted in the 2.5" drive cage, and a single 3.5" drive mounted in the remaining 3.5" bays. With the upper 3.5" bays removed to provide space for the Radeon 6990, there are spaces for two 3.5" drives and two 2.5" drives, not counting any leftover space in the 5.25" drive bays. This should be plenty for most builds. If I needed to use a longer power supply, the 2.5" drive bays can be removed from the floor of the chassis and relocated to the top of the 3.5" drive bays.

At the top of the case, Cooler Master thoughtfully provides a space to route the EPS-12V power cable in from behind the motherboard tray. Since this is a mid-tower case, no EPS-12V extension is provided, or needed. A lot of mid-tower cases in this price range force you to run the EPS-12V cable along the back of the motherboard, and it's refreshing to see that Cooler Master has added the extra space at the top of the case to make this unnecessary.

And we're off and running! This was a particularly easy build. Most the components I used (other than the video card) were from the Fast Enough Computer, which had originally been built on an open-air test bed chassis.

In the last section, I'll present my final thoughts and conclusion on the Storm Enforcer case.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In many ways, a computer case is one of the least important parts of your system. Potential cooling issues with high-end components aside, your rig will operate the same whether it's in a $30 no-name case or the $800 Thermaltake Level 10. But if you're an enthusiast, there are other considerations to keep in mind when choosing a case, especially one as expensive as this:

• Is the case built well?
• Does its design make it easy to build a system, and replace components in an existing system?
• Does it offer enough expansion capability for your future hardware acquisitions such as additional hard drives and video cards?
• Does it provide enough airflow to keep your components cool?
• Is it a good-looking case?

The Cooler Master Storm Enforcer's $89.99 MSRP puts it in the busiest and most competitive part of the enthusiast case market, up against well-known competitors like the Antec Three Hundred and NZXT Lexa S. At this level, balancing features against price is a delicate act, and you can see the penny-pinching in the Storm Enforcer in its use of thumbscrews for only one of the side panels, the inclusion of only two fans, and the coarse air filters. The top of the case cries out for a SATA docking feature like the one Cooler Master uses in the similarly-priced CM 690-II case.

On the other hand, the Storm Enforcer offers a greater degree of configuration that other cases in this price range. The ability to remove the middle 3.5" device bays opens up space and cooling for large graphics cards, and the relocatable 2.5" drive bays add an extra bit of versatility for those using large power supplies. The extra 0.6" of width as compared to the CM 690 series makes it more compatible with the giant CPU coolers that are popular these days. And the rubber-damped magnetically-latched drive bay door is a nice touch. All in all, I think this case is very competitive in its market space.

My complaints about this case are few: it would have been nice had Cooler Master included a 200mm top fan, and some sort of adapter cable to enable the use of the USB 3.0 ports for the majority of motherboards that don't yet have internal SuperSpeed USB connectors. And a few more millimeters of space behind the motherboard tray would have made cable management easier.

Cooler Master SGC-1000-KWN1 Conclusion

Although we strive for objectivity here at Benchmark Reviews, please remember that each author perceives these points differently, and our conclusions and recommendations will necessarily differ from others. Also, prices can fluctuate and designs change after publication, so that the product we review might not have the same price and specifications of a product that's available later. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary of each of the areas that we rate.

The performance of the case was very good. Ventilation with only the two included fans would probably be marginal for multi-GPU systems, though.

Appearance is the most subject part of evaluating computer cases. The Storm Enforcer's styling is almost restrained compared to some of the cases out there, but it's still distinctive enough to stand out among the Dells. The fully painted interior is another feature that's often missing in cases at this price level, and it makes a dramatic difference in the "perceived quality" of the case, especially through the side window. The front of the case could be more interesting; with the door closed, it's fairly bland, although the red-lit intake fan helps.

The construction of the case is up to Cooler Master's typically high standards. In some sub-$100 cases, I've seen what can best be described as "casual" panel fits and sharp metal edges; the Enforcer's panel fit is as good as any $400 case and all metal edges are rolled.

The functionality of this case is excellent. Innovative features like the removable drive bays make the case more versatile than its peers, and the inclusion of 2.5" drive bays and native SuperSpeed USB ports mean that it can easily accomodate the very latest motherboards and hardware. I would like to have seen at least the option for a side panel fan to cool hot multi-card SLI and CrossFireX setups.

The Cooler Master Storm Enforcer represents an excellent value in the case market. As of February 2012, Enforcer costs $89.99 (Newegg). It's inexpensive but definitely not cheap; you can build a very nice system in this case without feeling that you've compromised anything.

I'd recommend this case for almost anyone.

Pros:

+ Fully painted interior
+ Removable 3.5" drives bays and relocatable 2.5" bays
+ One of the only mid-tower cases that can handle the longest graphics cards
+ Native SuperSpeed USB support
+ Excellent cable management features
+ Excellent value for price

Cons:

- No adapter cable for motherboards without USB 3.0 sockets
- Top 200mm fan not included
- Space behind the motherboard tray is a little tight
- Coarse air filters won't trap much dust

Ratings:

• Performance: 8.50
• Appearance: 8.00
• Construction: 9.50
• Functionality: 9.25
• Value: 9.50

Final Score: 8.95 out of 10.

Quality Recognition: Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer Award.

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