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One nice feature is the painted side panels (as well as the top panel). The paint is of car paint quality, though under a special garage light, we did notice a sort of "dusting" over the surface. This is unnoticable under normal light though, so I doubt anyone will bother wet-sanding it any further. As you can see above, the paint is very reflective, and will certainly impress people (who are into these things at least). At this moment, only metalic silver (4 coats) is available, but you can expect a high gloss black (6 coats), as well as an aluminum colour in the near future.
Internal Features
The interior is fairly spacious, and actually does not have the "crammed" feel I got when I was working with our Lian-Li PC65U. The hard drives and optical drives are held in place by screws. I would have personally preferred drive rails, but the screws do the job. The aluminum edges have been sanded down, to prevent scraping yourself, but there is still of an edge to them. I still managed to scuff myself a couple times, so don't just go charging in there when you're setting up your rig.
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Although I did not have any problem installing most of our components, we did stumble on an issue with the Vantec Nexus Fan Controller.
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Due to the fact that the screws on the Nexus are not flush with the unit, it simply will not fit. I ended up scratching up the inside drive bay pretty badly in the end. I'll probably will have to grind the screws off and do some soldering to get it to fit.
Ed Note: I have contacted Vantec about this and it seems that our problem is due to the fact that our Nexus Fan Controller is a pre-production sample. Thankfully, this issue has been corrected with the retail unit. You can take a look at a picture here.
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Although the interior is roomy, the inclusion of a pull out mobo tray can be a life saver. The tray should accomadate most ATX motherboards, and one nice thing I like about it is the use of traditional motherboard, screw-on standoffs. Earlier Cooler Masters, as well as Lian-Li, used clip-on standoffs. Although they look nice, a problem that arose was that they bent very easily, rendering them useless. Considering the amount of times that enthusiasts change mobos, this can be a problem if you've run out of these clip on standoffs.
Another well thought out idea is the mobo tray support. A lot of motherboard trays are simply "L" shaped (tray and back panel), and if you pull it out with a large heatsink and motherboard installed, the weight will flex the mobo tray. This problem in particular is the case with our Lian-Li, though nothing has broken yet. Although the support bracket was always present with past Cooler Masters, as well as other cases, the bracket here is a lot stronger than those you'll normally find.
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Thumbscrews are present throughout the case, including those to secure the PCI cards. A nice touch, and once you've gotten used to thumbscrews, you can never go back to using Phillips screws to secure your peripherals.
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The wiring required to plug into the motherboard run from the right side of the case. The only reason I'm mentioning it is because if you're picky about aesthetics, you'll know that case wiring is something you'll want to keep out of the way as much as possible. The wires here are somewhat hidden behind the 3.5" bays, saving you some of the work in trying to hide them.
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A problem with a lot of aluminum cases (again, an issue with Lian-Li, as well as others from reviews I've read) is it can be troublesome installing power supplies that have more than one fan. Enermax immediately comes to mind, as their secondary fan grill is not flush with the PSU, as well as those PSUs with front mounted fans. In these cases, some modifications to the PSU, or removal of a fan grill during installation is required. Not so with the ATC-201A, as our Enermax slipped right in without any problems.
Cooling
That's some fancy equipment they got there.
Cooler Master originally got their recognition from their heatsinks, so it's natural that the R&D into heat dissapation carried over into their case design. The ATC in its name stands for Active Thermal Convective System. The name is exactly as it implies... the case acts as a giant heatsink. This theory comes from, in part, that the case is made of aluminum, which as we all (should) know, is decent at dissapating heat. The Active Thermal Convective System however, is a bit different, as it represents the design in the case's airflow, air pressure, air resistance, and ventilation. By default, the ATC-201A-SX1 comes with four 80mm fans, as well as the Air Guide, which is a 10cm hole and duct.
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Fan #1 is located in the top of the case. The fan is configured to exhaust air from the top, which in theory, should work pretty well. As hot air rises, the fan will accelerate the air flow out the top. Previously, Cooler Master cut into the top of the case to create the vents for the fan, but now there is a mesh screen, which should allow for more airflow out of the case. Like the front screen we'll be talking bout, there is a foam filter between the fan and screen. I have not figured out a way to remove it yet, so cleaning will be a bit of a chore.
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