Installation

Installation is straight forward, with no glaring issues. For the 5.25" external bays, you'll need to use the included drive rails for installing your devices, but other than that, there is nothing of note.

Chieftec cases have traditionally been easy to work with, and despite the lack of a removable motherboard tray, there is still plenty of room to work inside.

Cooling

ASUS P5AD2 Premium: Intel P4 560, 2 x 512MB Corsair TWINX PC5400 Pro, ASUS AX600XT, 120GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm.

CPU cooling was provided by the stock Intel cooler that came with our CPU. By default, case cooling is provided by the lone 80mm intake fan on the side panel. You will need to purchase additional 80mm fans should you wish to improve the airflow.

The Dragon uses snap-in fan mounts for the front and rear fans, and can fit 80mm fans that measure no more than 25mm deep. There are two mounts in the rear, and two in the front, and one of those can also be used to cool your hard drive.

For our cooling setup, we used Ultra's 80mm UV reactive fans, four in all.

One of the comparison cases will be the Cooler Master ATC-201A SX2. This case uses four 80mm fans as stock cooling, and all four fans will be used. We'll also be tossing in a Lian Li PC65, with all three stock 80mm fans running at full speed. All three cases are using identical Antec TruePower 550W PSUs. All cases are closed.

To load up the system, we ran Prime95 run for 30 minutes, with Folding @ Home running in the background. Ambient room temperature is maintained at 23°C/74°F.

Temperatures did not take long to stabilize (about eight minutes) at their max temperatures, so at the 10 minute mark, readings were measured at 2 minute intervals, added, then divided by 10 to attain the average temperature for a 30 minute total test time. Temperatures were collected using the Cooler Master Cool Drive 6, and only the full load temperatures will be displayed.

	CPU	Chassis
Dragon MS-Blue	54	34
CM ATC-201A	53.5	34
Lian Li PC65	55.5	37

Final Words

Ultra Products have taken a proven case design, and improved it in a couple of areas. The new paint job is very nice, and certainly lives up to the "Liquid Gloss" name that is given. The large case window will also appeal to the case modder crowd, as will the included side panel fan.

Build quality is generally quite solid, though the fact that the case arrived unlevel and with external bay covers falling off is something I hope was only with our review sample. There was no permanent damage to the case, but it was not a good first impression. Otherwise, the case can probably double as an ottoman as the steel construction makes it quite durable.

Speaking of steel, the metal does make this a very heavy case. When it was fully decked out, I regretted doing the PC building in the dining room as my office is in the basement. Lugging the fully loaded Dragon down two flights of stairs was not a whole lot of fun. I can't fit it on my scale, but I estimate the Dragon weighs about 30lbs fully loaded.

Although no removable motherboard is present, working with the case was quite easy. I'm not really sold on the drive rails, but I'm sure some of you will appreciate them. I've worked with a similar Antec case in the past, so I can say that the Dragon should be large enough to suit most of your needs.

At $89 USD, the price is fairly reasonable for the quality of the case. It is a bit more than I'm sure some people would like to spend, especially since you'll still need to add a power supply and four case fans to the mix. Otherwise, it's a well designed case, as well as being easy to work with, it wouldn't be a bad choice if you're looking to replace that beige box.

Pros: Sweet paint job, big side window, easy to work with.

Cons: No case fans included (only side panel fan), case arrived with some problems, heavy.

Bottom Line: The basic design of the Chieftec case has not changed for over two years, but it still remains one of the nicer looking cases today, at least in our opinion. The Liquid Gloss paint job looks fantastic, and the big case window is something CCFL fans are going to love.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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