The box design is the comon brown box. While some already find this a flaw, I don't care as long as the case is well protected from heavy duty shipping. And anyways it's the inside content that matters.

 

 

The case has a futuristic design. Though it still radiates style and doesn't look like some cheap junk out of a Transformer movie.

 

    

 

Without the sidepanels you easily spot the USB3.0 cables and the big hole behind the CPU socket for dead easy cooler installations.

Pre cut holes, protected by rubber grommets, are foreseen at ideal spots for easy cable routing. The 3222 version got even more precut holes.

 

 

 

The front panel has one eSATA connection, two USB3.0 ports, in and out jack for headset and microphone and the obligatory power and reset button. The included front Vegas fan is controlled in all it's nuttyness by a small button. so the user can select a matching LED light and display scheme. (think theimage below explains more than a thousand words ever could do) The fan speed is also manually adjustable by a turn knob.

 

 

 

The front is very well crafted and leavens no room for imagination. Up to Four 5 1/2 bays are foreseen for your optical delights. The rear has got two holes foreseen for watercooling and the top rubber is to aid the routing of the USB3.0 cables. All the mesh has got a build in dust filter.

 

 

 

Similar to the Coolermaster CM690 II Advanced this Enermax Hoplite version sports a hot swappable docking station for your favourite S-ATA hard drive. Being it 2.5 or 3.5 inch versions. The 3221 version doesn't have this docking station. The top mesh is beautifully executed and gives the case that little extra bling bling.

 

 

 

 

As you can expect in most high end current cases, the Power supply get's a removable dust filter. It jsut easy slides in and out for super easy cleaning/removal.

 

   

 

Specifications :

 

The original case only has two preinstalled fans. Thought there's always room for more : up to two 12/14cm fans on the top and 2 12cm fans on the sidepanel ( limiting your CPU cooler height from 17.8cm to 16cm )

 

 

 

Time to take a closer look on the innards. The 4 5 1/2 inch bays are semi screwless. One one side you can turn the knobs, on the other side if required you can still fix the optical drives via a screw.

 

 

All front plates are easily removable. Their mesh design includes a dust filter to keep the inside components clean.

 

 

 

The rear fan is a no LED version to expel the heat out of the case. Below the fan you can see the two holes to facilitate watercooling hosing.  The black backplates are sadly non screw designs; So once you pop them off there's no way to put them back. A shame really, as if you intend to build in another motherboard that might put your graphics card higher or lower then you got a gaping hole.

 

 

 

There's more than enough room  for your mass storage. Up to 4 Hard drives can be mounted via Enermax's Tool-less design. The hard drives are protected via a quick access door.

 

 

 

Only 4 hard drive capability ? There's more via these two hot swappable drive bays. So in total you got up to 6 Harddrives, that should suit most users. The swappable design is well executed. It's very easy to mount the hard drives via a few screws and via the big lever the removal is childs play.

 

 

 

 Some detailed shots of the green PCB that allows for the hot swappable function of the two drives.

 

 

 

In the front we find the 12cm Vegas duo fan. This fan is based on enermax own patented Twister Bearing technology. A total of 11 modes are selectable to combine some cool light effects with the Blue and Red LED.  The Vegas fan is speed ajustable and this is no luxury as running full blast it creates quite some noise.

My biggest concern is the limited airflow this fan can direct into the case. The hard drive cage seriously hinders the airflow, we wil see on the test page how it all performs.

 

 

 

 

 

The below image nicely sums up the most important features of this case :

 

 

 

Time to mount our test gear into the CM 690 II Advanced case. It comprises off the following parts :

Asus Crosshair IV motherboard

AMD 1090T CPU with Thermalright VenomousX cooler

4Gb Corsair Dominator PC12800C8 ram

Asus 5870 ATI videocard

Corsair Sandforce F60 SSD

NEC 16X Optical DVD drive

Corsair 650 TX PSU

Note : We specially chose this a non modular PSU, So decent cable management is a requirement for a clean build. We swapped the BeQuiet unit for Corsairs 650TX version in this review.

 

 

 

Due to the numerous pre cut holes cable management is a breeze. Also the sidepanle with the bulkout help to easily tuck away the numerous cables. The 3220 and 3221 cases supports two videocards up to 315mm length. The 3222 version even one card up to 330mm ( this coz it has a different HD tray with only 3 HDs ). 

 

 

 

We hooked up our test hard drive to the hot swappable slot. Power is received via a 4 pin Molex connector.

The cut out for the Audio cable is present. The power supply dust filter is very effective. Just slide it out , rince it and put it back

 

 

 

It's that easy, just pop in your hard drive, no external devices or cables required ! The acessory box really contains eveything you need.

 

 

 

Tiem to start priming again. Running our Thuban 1090T CPU at 4Ghz at 1.4Vcore. Idle temps were measured after 30 minutes idling, the load temps after an hour of Priming. Temperatures were monitored and logged via AIDA's software

 

 

The Enermax Hoplite performs on par with most medium tower cases we have tested before. It's not a super cooling unit as the front air flow is seriously limited. Keep in mind you still have to choice of adding more fans in the top and side panel.

 

 

Similar outcome for the logged motherboard temps. Up close with Bitfenix's survivor case. Though no match at all for the Coolermaster 690 Advanced II case.

 

 

GPU temps stay well within the safe region. Adding one or two sidepanel fans will improve airflow drastically over the GPU and motherboard. So you still have loads of headroom if you want an uber cooling case. 

 

 

When you throttled down the Vegas fan to +/- 70% it becomes pretty inaudible. Though at full blast it's far too noisy and the performance gain is zero.

Enermax created a nicely crafted case within a reasonable budget. It ain't by no means cheap. Retailing at 110 euros,  it will get stiff competition by some rivals cheaper offerings. But you have to take into consideration that the two hot swappable hard drive bays seriously add up to the cost. The top docking bay is also a big bonus for those that want to shift data without opening the case or without the use of an external device. The used funcky Vegas fan also increases to the street price of the Hoplite case.  But the added bling bling factor make it stand out from the crowd. This ofcourse is purely a personal preference as too much disco fever in the living room might make the neighbours wonder what the hell is going on...

Cable management is very easy in this case. The pre cut holes are well executed and in the right spots. Even routing the top 8 pin connector for the motherboard is painless. Also the bulk out in the sidepanels facilitates hiding all them power cables.

Due to the protrusion on the left sidepanel most big tower air coolers fit nicely inside this case. Even when adding sidepanel fans most coolers will still fit.

 

 

So what's there too less like about this case ? My biggest issue is the limited front air flow (with the included fans) The hard drive bay is totally in the way. Even with the front Vegas fan at full blast, I could hardly feel any air being pumped into the case. If I had to have my way : the hard drive bay would be removed and the holes behind the fan would be made bigger. I hardly use more than 3 Hard drives so I could fit two in the swappable area and position one in the 5 1/2 slots. This design really makes me think of older Coolermaster cases that also had close to zero front airflow. Though the option to add at least 4 more 120mm fans could seriously improve internal airflow big time.

Secondly the rear expansion slots should have been removable ones. Now just popping them out is okay. This if you intend to use the case with one setup. But my hardware changes often and sometimes the graphics cards are positioned differently. Leaving me close to no option then to leave some expansion slots open. A workaround could be that Enermax includes at least two black coated cover slots.

Last but not least the non existing rubber dampers of the power supply are a big miss. Even very cheap cases have got them installed, no idea why the Enermax engineers left them out.

 

Even though it's not the best performer in the cooling department, Enermax created a nice looking case that has got some special features that might make it to be your next case.  The price is pretty justified as the chosen components/features and build quality are at a high level. Though we would like to see the minor flaws corrected in a new revision.

 

 

Pros :

Two hot removable Hard Drive bays

Two USB 3.0 slots on the top cover.

Top S-ATA docking station

Very easy cable management

Loads of headroom to improve cooling

 

Cons :

Limited air flow from the front fan

Missing rubber dampers for the PSU

No ability to mount eg a floppy or card reader

 

 

I wish to thank following persons :

 

Benjamin from Enermax for the Hoplite review sample

Rogier and Milan from Asus

 

Tones webshop for the continous support for Madshrimps