Enermax Ostrog Advance Case Review

Introduction

Power. Innovation. Design.
Three simple words, yet a powerful mantra that perfectly sums up the spirit of Enermax. Since its inception in 1990, Enermax has grown from designing and producing power supplies and cases, to a worldwide brand with a broad portfolio of products ranging from audio devices to peripherals to advanced air and liquid cooling solutions. Even with all of these categories of products to work on, Enermax still puts the R & D time into its cases, one of which we will be looking at today.

Originally demoed as a prototype at the 2015 Taipei Computex, The Enermax Ostrog Advance chassis kept fans clamoring for a final version until it was finally released more than 6 months later at the 2016 CES Convention in Las Vegas. Sporting a staggering 262 LED’s, two matching Enermax T.B. Vegas fans (included) that work together through 6 different lighting effects, and 3 different matching color interior paint jobs, The Ostrog Advance is sure to turn heads no matter where you are.

Check out a quick Clip from the premier at CES:

We would like to thank Enermax for sending us a sample of this eye catching case to review!

Packaging and Specifications

The Ostrog Advance arrives in full color box showing all 3 currently available color options of this case, and the Ostrog Advance ‘LED Gaming Fortress’ logo front and center of the box.

The back side of the box gives you a detailed run down of all of the features of this case such as the removable drive trays, Liquid cooling support, the onboard fan and lighting controller, and even the various lighting modes this case is capable of right out of the box.

The sides of the box give a quick rundown of the specifications below.
 

• Dimensions: Depth:493mm Width:215mm Height:516mm
• M/B Support: ATX, Micro ATX, Mini ITX
• I/O: USB 3.0 x2, USB 2.0 x2, 3.5mm HD Audio, Fan Controller
• Vegas LED Modes: All on/Dimmed/Flash/Sparkle/Vegas/Off
• LEDs, M/B Tray and PCI Slot Cover Color: Blue (ECA3380AS-BL), Red (ECA3380AS-R), Green (ECA3380AS-GN)
• Drive Bays:
  • 5.25” x3
  • 3.5” x6 (hidden)
  • 2.5” x6 (hidden, converted from 3.5” trays)

• Expansion Slots: 7
• Fan Slots:
  • Front: 2x 120mm, 2x Enermax Vegas LED fans pre-installed
  • Rear: 1x 120mm, 1x Enerflo fan pre-installed
  • Top: 2x 120/140mm
  • Bottom: 1x 120mm
• Liquid Cooling:
  • Top: 240/280mm radiator (60mm max height clearance)
  • Rear: 120mm radiator
• PSU: Standard ATX PS2 (Optional)
• Maximum Compatibility:
  • VGA card length: 414mm
  • CPU Cooler Height: 174mm

Our box came with a rip in the cardboard front and some roughed up edges, but as you can see, the case inside is very well protected for shipping. Wrapped in a heavy plastic bag, and fully enclosed top and bottom in heavy molded Styrofoam, it could have survived much worse than it received with little worry. Even with all of that, it was nice to find the chassis window on the left side was covered in scratch protective film outside AND inside! It’s the little details that count.

Closer Look – Outside

The first thing you will probably notice when taking your Ostrog Advance out of the box is the boldly painted motherboard tray through the window. Our particular sample is a bold red, but blue and green are also available to match your personal preference. The left side panel window also extends out from the case about 2cm like a bay window and has nice beveled edges

Moving around the back of the case, we find the I/O slot covers are a contrasting mesh, painted to perfectly match the interior of the case, it’s kind of a shame we have to remove them to install our expansion cards.  Here we can see the power supply is mounted on the bottom of the case, and has mounting holes so that it can be installed with the fan up or down, depending on your needs.  We also find the 120mm rear fan location, occupied by the included Enerflow fan, the two grommet protected pass through holes for external water cooling gear, and the 6 thumbscrews, 2 for each door, and 2 for the removable top panel cover. We also find a fold out handle for making removing and installing the windowed door a little easier.

The bottom of the case hides the large lower fan filter that protects the Power supply and lower 120mm fan from taking in dust. There are also large non-slip rubber pads on each foot of the case.

The Right side of the case has as smooth, removable panel that is stamped into the same shape as the window, giving the case symmetry.

The Front of the case is where the magic happens. The entire front is a mesh, with the 3x 5.25” drive bay covers coming off easily by squeezing the tabs inward. The front 120mm Enermax TB Vegas LED fans are covered by a filtered mesh panel that can be removed with one press of the two quick-release ‘eject’ buttons. The entire front is ringed with the translucent front lens of the LED lighting effect that gives this chassis its signature look.

Last, but certainly not least stop on the exterior tour is the top of the case. Housing all of the front panel I/O, 2x USB 3.0 Type-A ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports, 3.5mm headphone and Microphone jacks, power and reset buttons, it also has the lighting controls and 3 speed fan controller.

Closer Look – Interior

One of the hardest things about building in mid tower cases is finding room to just work and build. A fully loaded system with multiple GPU’s, a pile of storage drives, and high end cooling systems can fill up a case in a hurry, but Enermax has you covered, you can almost entirely disassemble this case with nothing more than your bare hands, giving you easy access to anything and everything. The 5.25” drive bays have tool free mounting mechanisms, which are great, but often don’t work well for things besides optical drives. No worries here, you can still use good old fashioned screws for those tricky bay reservoirs and front panel audio/VR devices if needed.

The six 3.5/2.5” drive sleds can be pulled right out of the cages with no tools, and if you have large video cards, you can pull half of the drive cage completely out of the case with 3 thumb screws to make more room. While not officially supported, those of you with hybrid cooled cards will be happy to note that this also gives you an additional 120mm space to mount a radiator if needed if you have too large of a power supply to use the lower 120mm mount.  If the quick release covers are not enough access for you, the top cover pops right off after removing two thumb screws from the rear of the case, and the entire front can be removed with a firm pull from the bottom. The usual motherboard standoff’s are preinstalled, and are removable if not needed. Extras are included as well.

Inside we also find a small brown box with the manual in a hand full of languages, a baggie of extra standoffs and screws as well as speaker for beep codes if your motherboard doesn’t already have one, zip-ties, and some nice, matching reusable cable wraps.

With the amount of lighting, fans and front panel I/O ports, it’s no surprise we find a large bundle of wiring on the back side of the motherboard tray. There are rubber cable glands in convenient areas for easy cable routing to the front, plenty of access to the rear side of the hard drive sleds, and a large area cut out of the motherboard tray for access to the back of the motherboard behind the CPU socket for cooler mounting. There are also several points built into the motherboard tray to secure wiring for good cable management.

The Front Panel Wiring consists of the usual USB 2.0 and 3.0 headers, Audio header cable, power and reset switches, and power and activity LED connetions. You can also find 2 Sata power connections, one for the LED lighting system, and one for the fan controller, as well as connections for the front fans, and an extra 3 pin fan conncection for the included rear fan. Sadly, there does not appear to be any way to expand the Vegas lighting beyond what is already included with the case if you already have more Enermax TB Vegas Fans.

System Build

Components used in this build:
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690k
Ram: Corsair Dominator GT 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3-2133Mhz
SSD’s:  Corsair Force GT 240GB x 2
GPUs: EVGA GTX 980 SC x3

PSU: Corsair RM1000
Fittings: assorted Monsoon
Pump: EK D5 Vario in Monsoon MMRS housing.

This case was entertaining to build in, being able to nearly fully disassemble it quickly made it much easier to build in than it would have been otherwise.  The motherboard I used is just slightly wider than standard ATX by about a 1 centimeter, it ended up blocking a good portion of the right side cable grommets so I had to run the 24 pin power cable and SATA cables through before I mounted the motherboard.

With a full system with triple video cards, I had a huge pile of wiring to deal with and I ended up stuffing most of the extra into the lowest hard drive tray. I was initially worried about the seemingly small space behind the motherboard tray to hide cables, but after I got done, I had forgotten the door on this side has the stamped area that matches the bay window on the other side, it provides quite a bit of room actually, so my fears were unfounded. I used zip ties here, choosing to keep the bundled Velcro style wraps for use on the cables to the back of the machine. They will fit through the stamped cable management points in the motherboard tray if you choose to use them inside, they are far too nice to hide behind the motherboard tray though.

Just out of curiosity, I tried a few different combinations of radiators in the Ostrog Adv. While not officially supported, I was able to place a single 120mm radiator in the front of the case in place of the removable hard drive cage. I was also able to place a thin/low profile 360mm radiator in the top of the case without modding, however, I was unable to place a fan on the bottom of the front most slot due to the ‘roof’ of the 5.25” bay, so this would provide little benefit without active air flow. If you don’t use much in the way of 5.25 bay devices and are a handy modder, this could be a possibility.