Evo Labs E-250 Case Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Bundle3. Evo Labs E-250: Exterior4. Evo Labs E-250: Interior and Installation5. Testing Methodology and Performance6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

Today we are going to look at a budget-friendly case for those users who are looking to build a reasonably compact system with limited funds.  Evo Labs is a budget-focused brand from UK based distributor Target Components, which aims to deliver customers more bang-for-buck than better known brands such as Thermaltake and Antec.

There isn't much about the basic feature set of this case which is particularly noteworthy, with the exception of sound proofing.  This is an area which is often neglected on budget cases and can lead to noisy systems.

Considering  the Micro-ATX form factor, we imagine that this case will be popular with those looking to build home servers.  It would also be a good candidate for a HTPC as long as the mid-tower design doesn't put you off.

Specifications

• Form Factor: Micro ATX
• Motherboard Support: Micro ATX
• PSU Support: Standard ATX
• Dimensions: 187mm x 367mm x 395mm (W x H x D)
• Side Panel: Blank with Sound Proofing Material
• External Bays: 2 x 5.25″ External
• 1 x 3.5″ External
• Internal Bays: 5 x 3.5″ Internal
• Drive Bay Notes: Maximum Capacity: Two 3.5″ + Six 2.5″ or Six 3.5″
• Expansion Slots: 5 x Full Size
• Cooling Front: Space for 2 x 12cm Fans (Not Included)
• Cooling Rear: 1 x 12cm Fan
• Anti vibration design for PSU and HDD placed on bracket
• Net Weight (KGs): 5.8 KGs

The E-250 is supplied in a compact brown cardboard box which reflects the size of the case within.  The plain black livery features a large blueprint-style drawing of the case on the front of the box.

Turning the box around reveals an identical design on the reverse of the box, with a few details of the key features of the case listed on the sides.  The included bundle is fairly basic.  It consists of the screws required for installation, a couple of rubber grommets and four SATA cables.

Despite the budget nature of the E-250, the exterior of the case is fairly attractive.  Sure, there isn't anything particularly interesting about the aesthetic design but it isn't visually offensive like many budget offerings.

The case itself is constructed from a combination of plastic and steel.  The front panel of the case is formed entirely out of plastic and has a plain black design.

We find two USB2.0 ports on the front of the case next to the headphone and microphone jacks and the power and reset buttons.  It would be nice to see USB3.0 ports but this can't be expected at this price level.

The top and sides of the case are devoid of vents, but there are two unpopulated fan vents in the front of the case to facilitate airflow.  Turning the case around reveals a 120 mm exhaust fan in the rear of the case alongside five expansion slots.  This means the case fully supports Micro-ATX motherboards with a little extra room to spare.

To access the inside of the case, the thumbscrews securing the side panels in place must first be removed.  The side panels themselves feature some thin noise dampening material which should help reduce the noise level of this case.

When the side panel has been removed, the two hard drive caddies also have to be removed to access the insides.  These are each secured by two thumbscrews, a regular screw and a plastic clip.  We found the plastic clip to be quite flimsy as it snapped off during removal.  This isn't really an issue, though, as the screws are more than enough to hold the caddies into place.

Due to the side-mounted hard drive caddies, there is plenty of room to work with inside the case as the usual space is empty.  This will also facilitate airflow through the chassis.  Evo Labs have opted for a top-mounted power supply bracket which works well with the design of the case. Installing the power supply is quite simple, but we have to first remove a re-enforcing bracket from the case.

Unfortunately, there isn't any room behind the motherboard tray for cable routing.  This can create quite a mess of cables in the chassis if you're not extremely careful when building a system in the case.

Installing a motherboard is very simple as the stand-offs are all pre-installed.  We chose to install a mini-ITX motherboard as we didn't have a micro-ATX model available at the time of review.  With such compact motherboards, you need to be quite selective about which CPU cooler you choose to use as some can prove incompatible with other components.

Evo Labs have thoughtfully included a cut-out section in the motherboard tray to facilitate the installation of a CPU cooler backplate.

It's nice to see Evo Labs including a tool-less mechanism for securing expansion devices in the case, however it's pretty much useless in practice.  We would highly recommend using screws to secure your graphics card into place as the clips wouldn't secure properly with our dual-slot AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics card.

Installing a solid state drive or hard drive is simple.  They need to be screwed down to one of the two caddies which are mounted just inside the side panel.

For our tests we will be using an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro to cool the Intel Core i7 3770K CPU.  Our test system also features an AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics card.  We overclocked the system to 4.4 GHZ for our tests using a voltage of 1.25V.

Test System:

• Processor: Intel Core i7 3770K.
• Motherboard: ASRock Z77E-ITX.
• Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro.
• Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-2.
• Memory: 4GB (2x 2GB) Kingston HyperX Genesis.
• Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7950.
• Power Supply: Corsair GS800.
• System Drive: Kingston HyperX 3K 240 GB.
• Monitor: Viewsonic VX2260WM.

Software:

• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit).
• CPUID Hardware Monitor.
• Prime95 64-bit.
• Furmark V1.9.2.

To test the thermal performance of the Fractal Design Node 304 we loaded our test system for 15 minutes using Prime95 and Furmark and recorded the maximum temperatures reached using CPUID Hardware Monitor.  We then restarted the system and left it for 15 minutes before recording idle temperatures.

Room temperature was maintained at 16 degrees C for the duration of our tests.

The temperatures are a little hotter than usual but this is due to the inclusion of only a single fan in the chassis.

To conduct our noise level tests, we replaced the graphics card in our system with a AMD Radeon HD 5550 Silence which was passively cooled.  We also momentarily disconnected the fans on the CPU cooler so we were only taking into account the noise generated by the fans in the case.

The acoustic performance isn't too bad but the noise dampening material doesn't seem to do too much.  The included fan is an inexpensive model which is fairly noisy.  The case could be quieter if the fan was replaced with a higher quality model. At extra cost, obviously.

Overall we are impressed with the Evo Labs E-250.  It is clear that a lot of thought has been put into the interior design of the case as there are a number of features that are seldom seen on a budget-orientated case.

It's very unusual that manufacturers include noise dampening material on a budget case such as this.  It may not be on the same level as high-end cases like those from Fractal Design but it's nice to see the company making the effort.

Unlike many budget cases, the E-250 is actually quite attractive.  Sure, it's not going to win beauty contests but it's far more attractive than similarly priced models from the likes of Thermaltake.  The understated design is sure to appeal to business users and those who are looking to build a home theatre PC.

At a price of around £38 from More Computers, we think the Evo Labs E-250 offers good value for money.  The installation process is a little trickier than some other models at this price point, but the innovative interior design helps improve cooling performance. Adding a quality fan would help considerably.

Pros:

• Budget friendly.
• Noise dampening.
• Solid build quality.

Cons

• Installation process could be easier.

KitGuru says: An impressive budget oriented case from Evo Labs.

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