Rosewill Blackhawk-Ultra Super Tower Computer Case
If you are tired of banging your knuckles in that cramped case it might be time to look at a full tower. Rosewill just might be the cure with their latest super tower the Blackhawk Ultra. Room for a SR-2 and 420mm radiator for starters. Check out the rest of the case as Legit takes a closer look.
Rosewill put a lot of thought into the Blackhawk Ultra Super Tower especially for those that want to run on air. With no less than seven fans included and space to mount another seven this has to be one of the highest air flow potential cases we have seen in full tower form factor. Rosewill also made the case silent by using these large fans we could barely hear any audible noise. It is hard to beat 10 + 1 hard drive / SSD mounting spots which should be more than enough for even the largest media collector. Our own uber rig only has 5 HDD and 3 SSD's which would leave three open slots in this beast...
I think I simply love everything about this case except 1 enormously glaring design flaw. That 1 flaw is the filters, if it's anything like other Rosewill cases, the filters will be non-removable, and the front panel/bezel will be a pain in the buttockal area to remove. Thereby making cleaning the filters difficult.
What point is there in including them if your not going to make them convenient to remove? Maybe whoever did the review could comment on that subject. As it could really sway my decision on this vs the $20 cheaper HAF X when I decide to upgrade from my HAF 912.
Are the filters removable? If they are, are they easy to access? If they are not removable, does the front bezel use the plain ol' pain to remove fasteners?
Yes, they are removable, and no they are not a pain to remove other than maybe the filters in the 5.25" bay covers since they are small and there are several of them. Second, the front is held on by very common plastic friction barbs you find on many many cases these days. They simply pop off with a slight tug and snap back in with a gentle press. If I get a chance I'll grab some pics and post them in this thread so you can see for yourself if it makes or breaks the deal for that HAF X.
Yes, they are removable, and no they are not a pain to remove other than maybe the filters in the 5.25" bay covers since they are small and there are several of them. Second, the front is held on by very common plastic friction barbs you find on many many cases these days. They simply pop off with a slight tug and snap back in with a gentle press. If I get a chance I'll grab some pics and post them in this thread so you can see for yourself if it makes or breaks the deal for that HAF X.
Bill
Thanks for the reply Bill,
As you can see in this image from LR, the clips are super easy to use on the 912 (just left and right of the top ODD bay cover)
And was a pleasant surprise when I received mine, it serves in making blowing/washing the filters out a snap. So if the Blackhawk-Ultra has similarly easy to use clips, then I could safely say its an easy choice over the HDD bay limited but still very nice HAF-X.
The screen behind the 5.25" is just held in with tabs. The screen below this area is not as easy to remove as I thought when I looked at it the first time, you have to bend all the tabs back so I would just use an air can on it if I had this case. However the front of the case just pops off as I said and you can see the plastic pegs in this image.
IMG_5143.jpg (119.25 KiB) Viewed 10985 times
The filter on the bottom of the case is just held in with these tabs and it a plastic mesh so you just grab it and it folds up for easy cleaning.
Not sure if this makes or breaks your HAF X desire.
Actually those are the fasteners I was referring to when I mentioned the plain ol' pain in the butt ones. That sucks, it takes me right back to where I was at before, stuck deciding if I want convenience in the filters, or the cooling performance of having more room between my 4 hard drives, 5 once the prices come back down more.
Thanks for answering the question though.
<rant>I feel if they are going to demand a premium price....they should include premium features like real removable filters and more "ease of maintenance" things like hassle free innards. Like Corsair does with the 600T series.</rant>
Look at the Cosmos II, that case has all the goods. You can also check out the NZXT Switch 810 that has all very easy to access filters that just click pop out.
I think part of the problem you are running in to is that ~$200.00 is not a premium price for a full tower case. The premium full towers are in the $350.00 plus range.
the only thing other than the filter issue I'd have with this case is the lack of sleeved fan cables cause the one in this case just look fugly for an Premium case that's just not good enough
Cliffro wrote:Actually those are the fasteners I was referring to when I mentioned the plain ol' pain in the butt ones. That sucks, it takes me right back to where I was at before, stuck deciding if I want convenience in the filters, or the cooling performance of having more room between my 4 hard drives, 5 once the prices come back down more.
Thanks for answering the question though.
<rant>I feel if they are going to demand a premium price....they should include premium features like real removable filters and more "ease of maintenance" things like hassle free innards. Like Corsair does with the 600T series.</rant>
or you could think about an Silverstone RV02 plenty of room good filter system 1 for each 180mm fan and 1 for the PSU all super easy to pull and clean and the V2.0 has USB 3 up front
Asus Crosshair V Formula AMD FX 8320 @ 3700MHz NB/HT @ 2600MHZ 2x 4GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600 C9 1x Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 9550MHz core 1250MHz mem 1x Pioneer DVD-RW DVR212S SATA 2x Samsung HD502IJ 16MB cache 7200rpm raid0 1x Samsung HD502IJ 16MB cache 7200rpm storage 1x WD2500AAJS 8MB cache 7200rpm storage Thermolab Baram1 x 120mm CM R4 90cfm 2000rpm 1x SilverStone 120mm AP 1500rpm 37.5cfm SilverStone ST75F-P 750W PSU Full Modular SilverStone RaVeN RV02B-W
I did look at the RV02, and while it is a nice case, it has just 5 HDD bays(1 less than the HAF X), and it doesn't look Watercooling friendly.
I am only considering WC because of my 2 GTX 560 Ti's. Actually, for my top card, as the bottom one runs within reasonable limits and would require more work since its a non-reference PCB. Though since I don't have AC, I may have to remove one for summer. It get ridiculously hot in here in the summer, and heck just the other night it was warmer than normal and the top card hit 80c running Crysis Wars. I think a new bedroom window and window AC unit are on the horizon .
Thanks for the input guys, right now I'm flip flopping between the HAF-X, this Blackhawk and the Corsair 600T and even the Lanboy Air since all seem very watercooling friendly, and not ridiculously expensive.
I have the original RV02 that came with only 1 4 bay HDD rack but I had 6 HDD's so I just bought a nice Lian LI EX-33N 3 bay rack with an 120mm fan on the front which by the way fits nicely behind the front panel with the fan attached and working
which not only keeps my RAID0 array cool but adds a little more airflow to the 2nd HD5770
Asus Crosshair V Formula AMD FX 8320 @ 3700MHz NB/HT @ 2600MHZ 2x 4GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600 C9 1x Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 9550MHz core 1250MHz mem 1x Pioneer DVD-RW DVR212S SATA 2x Samsung HD502IJ 16MB cache 7200rpm raid0 1x Samsung HD502IJ 16MB cache 7200rpm storage 1x WD2500AAJS 8MB cache 7200rpm storage Thermolab Baram1 x 120mm CM R4 90cfm 2000rpm 1x SilverStone 120mm AP 1500rpm 37.5cfm SilverStone ST75F-P 750W PSU Full Modular SilverStone RaVeN RV02B-W
As much as I like this type of case, I still would like to see this case be able to handle two psus and a radiator in the top 200x400 radiator(Phobya, 200mm fan x 2) or 140x420, why? Cause there are motherboards out there that allow for example four GTX590 cards to be mounted and I don't know of any single psu that can handle more then 2 of those cards at a time as they require somewhere between 31A and 50A per card, so a second psu is needed, this would be true for those doing a Boinc Project like Seti@Home or even for those that choose to do Folding@Home, as these number crunching projects do use some video cards(Nvidia and ATi) to do the calculations, also as someone else said I wish I didn't have to drill out any rivets of the lower hdd cage just so I could install a 200mm Radiator and fan there in the front and 4 external 5.25" drive bays would be the minimum, I'd rather see 6-8, My current PC uses a HAF-932 and It has been fitted with magnetic stick on filters(DEMCi) which are magnetic stick on Medical Grade air filters and they can be simply rinsed or washed with liquid dish soap like a dish and then blotted dry, Bonus is they stick to any steel case cause of the magnetic border around the filter material and they do not need screws or tabs that will eventually get lost or break... Oh and the HAF-X has pre made DEMCi air filters already made for it, this Rosewill case does not, nor does the Xigmatek Elysium case, the filters have to be bought separately of course, but then I wouldn't think they'd be included with the case. Me I use the Demci filters as I have a cat and I live in a dusty desert area of California.
So far the only clear choice for Me is the HAF-X, It isn't perfect, as I'll have to figure out how to modify a drive bay for a 1200w psu, I'd love to put in an XSPC dual bay reservoir that I have, 2 DVD drives, a couple 2.5" hdds and a 1200w psu, but that needs 8 bays, plus a 200m Phobya radiator in the front with a fan, would be great, but probably too expensive and yep too big and heavy...
Oh and it was a nice review and You have a nice website too.
Thank you for the compliment. Have you considered looking at Case Labs products? They are arguably one of the best for water cooling and have models as big as a car to handle 4 or more PSU's with tons of radiators and anything else you want. You can check our our review of their "small" version, the Magnum M8 here
Bhench wrote:Thank you for the compliment. Have you considered looking at Case Labs products? They are arguably one of the best for water cooling and have models as big as a car to handle 4 or more PSU's with tons of radiators and anything else you want. You can check our our review of their "small" version, the Magnum M8 here
Nice, but I like the 200x400 and the 200mm radiators Phobya makes, also like I said I like the DEMCi filters as their the best I've ever seen or used and there is a dry lake nearby as that's a major source of wind blown dust out here and We get a lot of wind, plus the HAF-X case has a lower cost as the cheapest M8 is now $399.95 and that would take Me at least 2 months to save up for as I live on a fixed income(SSI) as I'm severely disabled & saving is not easy for Me, I can do $173 to $222 or so for a case, other parts like a motherboard, ram, video cards, psus will all take time and I have lots of that, but some parts are more limited than others, so I have to prioritize, plus I need to work on the car soon which I'll get to as it's not serious or immediate yet, besides I don't have much to do to occupy My mind, besides limited housework and surfing the web or going to town to get My snail mail or to buy food, etc... And I'd rather just not go any farther into this subject than I have already. But thanks for the suggestion.
Thank you for your comments and I understand. If you have not already, go check out www.overclock.net/water-cooling they have all kinds of suggestions on different builds and installs for all budgets. Those filters can be added to any case, I have a few myself on my M8, they are awesome so I know what you mean. Best of luck to you.
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