Enermax Ostrog ECA3250-BW Series Midi Chassis Review

The case we are looking at today is part of the ECA3250 series of cases by Enermax. There are 3 models in this series; one in black, one in White/Black (predominantly White) and the one we are looking at in Black/White (predominantly Black). Enermax are mostly known as a chassis manufacturer, but they do also produce power supplies, CPU coolers, fans and other peripherals. The Enermax Ostrog ECA3250-BW is heralded as the 'Fortress for your hardware', according to the company website. They say the design is 'plain and timeless' - we will take a look at this later in the review. Specifications Model ECA3250-BW Colour black / white Interior black coated Type ATX Midi Tower Dimensions (D x W x H) 480mm x 200mm x 460mm Material SGCC/SECC Drive bays 5,25" 4 Drive Bays 3,5" 1x external / 5x internal M/B ATX, mATX I/O on top 1x USB 3.0, 3x USB 2.0, HD/AC'97 Audio Air Cooling - Front optional: 1x 12cm fan Air Cooling - Side optional: 2x 12/14cm fans Air Cooling - Top optional: 2x 12/14cm fans Air Cooling - Bottom optional: 1x 12cm fan Air Cooling - Rear pre-installed: 1x 12cm fan Max. Length Graphics Cards 413 mm (286 mm with HDD cage) Max. CPU Cooler Height 174 mm (150 mm with side fans) Expansion Slots 7x Liquid Cooling Holes 2x The Enermax Ostrog ECA3250 Midi Chassis comes packaged in a brown box featuring only the product name on either side. The Chassis has been protected with two large Styrofoam blocks to protect the top and bottom of the chassis. Also included is a User's Manual, some Velcro cable ties, several trays for installing HDD's and a bag of screws. There is also a replacement 'mesh' PCI slot cover. The front of the Enermax Ostrog ECA3250-BW chassis is very attractive, due to the grey/white strip running around the outside. There are 4 x 5.25" and 1 x 3.5" bays accessible from the front. All the I/O ports have been placed on top of the chassis. These include, 1 x USB 3.0 port and 3 x USB 2.0 ports. A headphone and microphone socket, as well as a power button and a reset button. There are also two led's for power and HDD activity. The top of the chassis is a slightly unusual design with it being an inch or two higher at the front than the back. The rear of the chassis is fairly standard, with 1 x 120mm exhaust fan fitted, and 7 PCI slots. The left-hand side of the chassis features space for 2 x 120mm/140mm fans. Great for keeping your components cool. From the top of the chassis we can see there is space for an additional 2 x 120mm/140mm fans, The bottom of the chassis features a PSU fan-intake dust cover, and space for another 120mm fan. The interior of the chassis looks like many others on the market currently. It features 4 x 5.25" bays, 1 x external 3.5" bay and 5 x internal 3.5" bay. At the rear of the chassis is a 120mm fan set-up to exhaust air out of the chassis and 7 PCI- slots. There are several holes for cable routing, but no rubber grommets. The chassis features a cut-out in the motherboard tray, allowing you to change the motherboard back plate and replace your cooler without unscrewing your motherboard. Removing the front of the chassis we can see there is space for a 120mm fan to be fitted. We firstly installed our test-system PSU; a Seasonic Platinum Rated 1000W Fully Modular power supply. Installing 3.5" HDD's is just a case of pushing two trays into place on each side, and then sliding the HDD into the desired bay. Installing a 2,5" drive is not quite as simple, and only 1 can be installed in this chassis using a 5.25" to 2,.5" adapter. You have to screw the 2.5" drive into place, and then slide into the desired 5.25" bay. We then installed and secured our motherboard and CPU bundle in place. There is little room at the top and bottom of the chassis, but some spare space on the right-hand side. We then installed an XFX Radeon graphics card. There is clearly plenty of space for larger, high-end graphics cards up to a length of 286mm or, 413mm if you remove the HDD cage. We then connected all of our components and found that was enough space in the chassis to keep cabling tidy. Today’s test system will give us a good idea of how well this case works in terms of thermal and acoustical performance. Processor: AMD FX-4170 Quad Core @ 4.6 GHz. Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970-UD3 Cooler: Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler Memory: 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1800MHz Graphics Cards: XFX Radeon 5450 HD (GPU @ 700 MHZ, Memory Clock @ 650 MHz) Power Supply: Seasonic 1000W Platinum Full Modular Boot Drive: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit Pyle Digital Sound Level Meter PSPL25 Ambient room temperature was maintained at 18c throughout testing. This thermal performance looks on par with cases of a similar design. The CPU temperature, although overclocked did not exceed 37 degrees, mainly due to the orientation of the Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler. The fans of the cooler are throwing heat straight out the top of the chassis. That said, motherboard temperature did increase quite significantly, something we don't like to see. In fact, normally, we only see a few degrees temperature rise for a motherboard, so clearly there is some stagnant hot air which is not being sucked out of the chassis. This could of course be improved by adding another chassis fan. Today, to test this chassis we have set our Sound Level Meter one meter away from the case. We then temporarily turned the two Akasa Venom Voodoo fans off, which leaves us with only the included case fan and very little noise from the power supply fan. As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA – High Quality Computer fan 40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA - Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA - MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA - Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA - Threshold of Pain 140dBA - Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA - Instant Perforation of eardrum This is a decent result however the chassis only comes with a single fan and is therefore not really a wonderful result. With two or more similar fans installed its easily going to increase beyond the 40 dB mark. We would advise the removal of this fan and using multiple higher grade silent models from the likes of Corsair, Noctua or BeQuiet!. The Enermax Ostrog ECA3250 range of cases have been marketed by the company as 'The fortress for your hardware', with a professional level cooling system and all the features you would expect from a mid-level chassis. The design is clean and simple while being solid and well-built. There are plenty of great features; including a USB 3.0 port on the front, and space for a total of 7 fans and 6 x 3.5" drives. The thermal performance of this chassis is good, holding an overclocked CPU at just 37 degrees C. That said, we did find the motherboard temperature increased quite considerably and as such we really did feel the case needs another fan or two to improve the overall airflow from front to back. The acoustical performance is acceptable; the out of the box configuration of just 1 x 120mm fan doesn't generate a lot of noise, but there are certainly quieter models available today which would reduce noise emissions. We suggest a replacement of the supplied fan, and possibly adding in two more fans to improve airflow. Models from Corsair, BeQuiet! and Noctua come to mind. The Enermax Ostrog ECA-3250-BW retails for just £31.92 from Scan.co.uk, which is a remarkably low price for a chassis that offers so much. It might not be the best performing case on the market right now, but it is a solid design with plenty of features. A great case for anyone on a tight budget. Pros Solid, well built chassis. Lots of features. Price won't break the bank. Cons Acoustical Performance could be better. Only 1 x USB 3.0. Fittings for only a single solid state drive. Kitguru says: Very competitive pricing and certainly worth considering.