Tagan EL Diablo Computer Case Review

Case reviews can be a difficult thing to qualify. With a CPU, heatsink, or video card review you can run a benchmark, do a side by side comparison and quickly determine which one is best, which one is 3rd, and which one comes in dead last. None of that applies to a case review. You are simply reading the reviewer's opinion of the case, and their opinion is directly influenced by not only their tastes and personal preferences, but also by the other cases they have had the opportunity to review or own. (What are they using as a reference to compare this case to?) That being said, I will try and let you know the factors that are important to me in a case. Some of these factors you may share with me, others you won't, but keeping them in mind when reading this review may help you make the determination as to wether this case is right for you.

I personally put a very high value on cooling. I enjoy overclocking and an overclockers worst enemy is heat. I also like the case to feel solid, I can't stand a flimsy feeling case. I like the drives to be easy to access with plenty of room for everything. And I don't want to cut myself when working on the case. I am constantly tinkering with the components of my computer so I work inside my case quite a bit and I like that area to be nice. I've never been one to have the flashy cases and although I usually have a nice case it sits beside my desk where only the front is visible. So in a nutshell, a case to me is more about function then it is artistic presentation.

Today Benchmarks Reviews takes a look at one of the newest additions to the Tagan Aplus case product line, the CS-EL Diablo BM Mid Tower ATX Case. Computer cases are no longer just a box to install your parts. Some of today's higher end cases may cost more than a complete entry level computer. They have come to play a crucial role in the cooling of today's high end CPU's and GPU's. And it is not just the how well the case cools, or how many drives it holds, but what it looks like that has become important. To a computer enthusiast the first impression a case makes is no trivial matter. Your case makes a statement about what type of computer user you are, from the small form factor, to the plane Jane vanilla beige cases, all the way up to the brushed aluminum water cooled cases.

To that extent I think the saying "Go Big or Go Home" would be an appropriate statement for the CS-EL Diablo BM case.

Features & Specifications

Tagan's newest addition to the Aplus case product line with enormous blue illuminated side 360mm + huge front 250mm fans. Separate VR fan speed control for excellent system cooling system and tool-free brackets for easy assembly. Aplus EL Diablo, the perfect case for exterme gamers looking for ultimate cooling and design.

Special Features Include:

Huge Front 250mm Blue LED fan with on/off switch fan speed control.
Enormous Side 360mm Blue LED fan with on/off switch fan speed control.
Case open Alert.
Tooless HDD, DVD, Floppy kit.
Tooless removable rear 120mm fan mount bracket.
External Water cooling kit holes. (Rear of Case)
Cool dual side VR blue LED light.
Top audio, firewire, USB ports.
Easy PCI card install flip switch.
Ultra high heat dissipation.
4 X Bottom Leg Stands.
Expansion slots with tooless kit.
External 5.25" beys:5
External 3.5" beys:1
Internal 3.5" beys:7
Dimension: 205 x 520 x 570 mm (8" x 20.5" x 22.5")
Material: 0.8mm SECC
M/B Form Factor: Micro ATX, Standard ATX, Ext ATX (12"x13")

Closer Look: CS-EL Diablo Exterior

This was my first experience with the TAGAN case line. I was looking forward to this review given that the CS-EL Diablo case seemed to focus on cooling. Being the avid overclocker that I am, I love a “cool” case.

Upon opening the box I did note that the case was packaged securely. I know oh so well how often UPS and FEDEX tend to drop things, so I was glad to see a good two inches of foam between the case and the box. The inside components were secured nicely as well.

Upon pulling (should say dumping) the case from the box, my first thought was “This thing is BIG, very very BIG.” My current case is an Antec Nine Hundred and the CS-EL Diablo dwarfs it.

The case is not aluminum so it has some weight to it. But in all fairness, with a case this size, even if it were aluminum, once you get it stuffed full it’s going to be heavy no matter what it’s made of, and this way it keeps the cost down. The case felt solid and the finish was nice.

Then I looked at the part of this case that I had been curious about, the cooling fans. HUGE! They put a 250mm fan in the front and that fan is small compared to the 360mm monster in the side of this case.

Detailed CS-EL Diablo Exterior Features

As you can tell from the photos, the CS-EL Diablo case has a swinging door that covers the five 5 1/4" bays and the one 3 ½" bay. This was my first issue with this case. First, the door only opens to the left and can not be moved to the other side. I personally am right handed and always sit my computer below me and to the right. I can't remember ever having my computer on the left hand side over the past 17 years that I've been using computers. So a door that only swings to the left is an inconvenience for me. Second, not only does the door swing to the left, but it only swings 90 degrees to the left. The photo below is about as far as it will open. Third, the door does not seem to be easily removed or at least it was not intended for it to be removed. And forth, the door won't stay open.

The door wants to swing half closed; I thought at first I must be sitting the case at an angle but that was not the problem. The door just wants to rest half way between open and closed. My wife loves the "idea" behind a door on a case. We had a friend who went through 3 dvd drives before he got a slot loaded drive due to a young child enjoying pulling on the drive drawer. The reason it's only the "idea" of a door that is liked is that with a typical door case, it's not only the dvd drive that gets broken but also the case door. If you are going to put a door on a case, please realize that not everyone likes to sit their case on the left side, please let the door swing (and stay) completely open (180 degrees would be nice) and please put a lock on it.

Love the mesh side. Great ventilation and HUGE fan with blue LED.

Love the fact that the CS-EL Diablo case has fan controls mounted on the outside of the case including the option to turn them entirely off. This was a negative issue for me with the Antec Nine Hundred in that although the speed of the three 120mm and the one 250mm fan all could be adjusted you had to dig through the inside of the case to find the toggle switches. The CS-EL Diablo has kindly put the controls for the fans on the side of the case. Well done Tagan.

The CS-EL Diablo case also has top mounted I/O panel consisting of two USB ports, one Firewire port, and a speaker and Microphone jack. While these I/O panels are for the most part common on all but the cheapest cases and I do prefer them mounted on the top of the case, I really have to wonder what was the reasoning for the chosen location of this panel. The panel is located almost in the center of the top of the case. I guess this would be ok if your case was sitting beside you but mine is located beside my desk. When you figure that the panel is probably 10" back from the front of the case this makes it virtually impossible to plug anything into it without it becoming an ordeal to get to. Add that to the fact that most cases I've seen without a top fan are rarely empty of something sitting on them, be it DVD's, or papers. Tagan would be well served here to take a look at the Antec Nine Hundred or the Cosmos RC-1000 for the right way to do these I/O panels.

On the bottom of the case you will notice four pivoting feet. Nice touch, but honestly a case this size isn't going anywhere.

It is a plus though to have a nice solid foundation.

Closer Look: CS-EL Diablo Interior

Here is a closer look at that HUGE side fan. 360mm (that is over 14") A little concerned about where to find a replacement if it ever fails. I had expected big things from this case given the size of the cooling fans. I ran a temperature test on both the Antec 900 and the El Diablo to see just how well these huge fans worked. I was a little shocked by the results. I loaded the hard drive bays up on both systems and ran both under load with the fans turned off and with the fans turned on. Although I monitored CPU, GPU and hard drive temperatures, my focus is going to be on the hard drives. The large fan on the side did an ok job at reducing the video card temperature. The side fan pulls the hot air out of the case. It spins at a very low speed and is very quite. The large fan at the front of the case blows directly over the hard drives. I really expected this fan to do a good job but was severely let down. The average temperatures of the hard drives under load without the fan came in at 122° F. Cranking the fan to high dropped the temperature down to 113° F under full load and finally settled down at 109° F at idle. I installed the same drives in the Antec drive bays and got the following temperatures: 118° F with no fans, 93° F with the fans on high, and 84° at idle. Granted the front fan on the El Diablo is very quite and the fans on the Antec are very noticeable, but this case just screams "I can cool anything". Seems like it is more show than blow.

Lots of room inside. Five external 5 1/4" bays and one external 3 1/2" bay. Rear of the case has 4 punch out holes for running water cooling lines through, however this makes me think that this option was an after thought. Size of the punch outs and lack of rubber grommets would make me a little leery of using them.

Seven internal hard drive bays. This is another area where I have mixed emotions about this case. On one hand the CS-EL Diablo provides drive rails that allow for easily installing the drives, and it is the first case that I have seen that takes into consideration where you need to store those drive rails that are not in use. On the other hand, I wish the hard drive bays were removable and I wish they had the option of using standard mounting screws along with the rails. (I have a history of losing those rails) Installing drives in this case is very nice given that all the drive rails are srewless. Installing a DVD drive along with 5 hard drives took around 5 minutes. You are not even required to remove the door to install the DVD drives. Nice touch Tagan.

While very roomy inside the case, there is one rather serious problem, power connectors, lots and lots of power connectors. The case requires six of the 4pin molex connectors be used to power the fans and the LED lights for the case. For some reason, Tagan decided not to use the piggyback style connectors which would have at least allowed chaining them together thus reducing the number of required molex connectors. The test build I did required the following: DVD(1), Hard Drives(5), PCI-E(2), Case(6). That is a total of (14) 4pin molex connectors needed to assemble this case. The power supply I used had 8 of the 4pin molex connectors and 2 of the SATA connectors. That still left me 5 short for the components I installed. I had to get a little creative with some old power supply cables to get this setup to even work. I guess Tagan must assume that the average power supply today has 15 or more 4pin connectors. Funny how even their own power supplies only have 7.

Nice touch with the storage rack for the drive rails. Maybe this will prevent people like me from always losing them.

Detailed CS-EL Diablo Interior Features

It is hard to portray just how large the CS-EL Diablo is without showing you a comparison. The shots below show this beast next to the rather large Antec Nine Hundred, and a standard Dell Vostro 200. This roomy interior made for a very easy install of the motherboard and drives.

Here is the side view of the CS-EL Diablo and the Antec Nine Hundred. The back of both cases were lined up.

Here is a similar shot with the CS-EL Diablo compared to the Dell Vostro 200. Keep in mind this is the standard Dell Vostro not the slim version.

This could be looked at as a plus or a minus, I personally love the large size.

Final Thoughts: Tagan CS EL Diablo

I look forward to some really good cases from this company. They have demonstrated with their power supply line that they are concerned with putting out a top notch product. I love the sheer size of some of their cases. I think they still have few bugs to work out with this one, but with a few minor revisions this could be one great case.

Conclusion

Presentation was very good here. Retail boxing was informative and packaged securely. I wish the company's website had a few more photos of the CS-EL Diablo and that t those photos could be enlarged. Really a shame given that they have built a very nice looking case.

Appearance of the CS-EL Diablo case is going to be entirely a personal preference call. I personally found the case to be a good looking case. The finish was good and it definitely had the WOW factor. My wife on the other hand, had a much different feeling about this case. (But she's not the one writing this review so I'm still giving it a high Appearance rating)

I'm a little mixed about the construction value of this case. On one hand it is a very large, very solid case with good cooling, but on the other hand there has been some pretty important design flaws that force me to reduce my rating.

Here is the big one, functionality. I personally couldn't get over the problem with the swinging door on this case and the fact the fans only do an average job of cooling. While it looks nice it needs a redesign in the worst way. First, the doors only opening 90 degrees and not staying open at that is just not acceptable to me. I would also like to see the case have the option to be used comfortably by right handed people. Second, a case with fans this large should be able to cool anything. The problem is they don't spin fast enough. I realize the faster they spin the louder they will get but let the user decide how loud is to loud. Don't get me wrong, the fans do a decent job of cooling things off. The side fan did exhaust quite a bit of hot air and did so in a very quite manner. And Third, six independent 4pin molex connectors required to power this case is just to many. Even if you do have enough of them available to plug into the case, the wire management is a nightmare. If Tagan were to revise this case to fix the door issue, crank up the fan speed, do something with the number of 4pin molex required, and the move the I/O port towards the front, I would have no problem giving this case a 9 on functionality.

Ok, value, is the case worth the $119.99 that NewEgg wants for it? If you are looking for the WOW factor in your case then YES this case is a worth the money without a doubt. If you are looking for a great all around case, we have a slight problem. This case is priced about the same as the Antec 900, and honestly the Antec 900 case doesn't have the problems that this case does yet still has excellent cooling. With a few slight revisions this case could be a toss up with the Antec though.

This is a case you really want to like. It makes a great statement, and I'm sure would get the "WOW" factor from your friends the first time they see it. Cooling is good as would be expected. Part of the "WOW" factor is the large side fan. Not so sure cooling would have been better accomplished with multiple 120mm fans but then you wouldn't have the "WOW". This case may blow the Antec Nine Hundred away in terms of the "WOW" factor but for function I have to favor the Antec.

Pros:

+ BIG, Roomy.
+ Solid feeling with nice exterior finish
+ Good cooling and ventilation
+ WOW Factor
+ Adjustable fan speed on outside of case
+ Lots of drive bays inside
+ Drive rails for easy install and removal of drives
+ Great storage of unused drive rails
+ Packed well

Cons:

- Front door. Won’t stay open, can switch sides, and only opens to 90 degrees.
- Location of top I/O panel
- Holes for water cooling look like an after thought
- Drive bays do not slide out.
- No rear 120mm fan included. (Really doesn’t need it but should be included)

Ratings:

• Presentation: 9.0
• Appearance: 9.0
• Construction: 8.0
• Functionality: 6.0
• Value: 7.5

Final Score: 7.9 out of 10.

Questions? Comments? Benchmark Reviews really wants your feedback. We invite you to leave your remarks in our Discussion Forum.

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