Rosewill Blackhawk Ultra Case Review: Were It Not For Competition
by Dustin Sklavos on March 28, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Rosewill
- HPTX
- ATX
- XL-ATX
Assembling the Rosewill Blackhawk Ultra
One of the nicest things about working with a case the size of the Blackhawk Ultra is that it's huge: you very seldom find your hands getting cramped into uncomfortably narrow gaps, and so getting everything installed an in place can be a lot easier. One of the worst things about working with a case the size of the Blackhawk Ultra is that it's huge: whenever you have to move the case itself, it's unwieldy, and it's heavy. This case is 36.6 pounds before anything is even installed in it; our full fat testbed can bring the system weight to roughly sixty pounds, or a little under half of my body weight.
Rosewill ships the Blackhawk Ultra with motherboard standoffs installed for an XL-ATX board, and it's a consideration that's appreciated. I had to move three standoffs to get our ATX board installed, which is still a lot better than having to install each one by hand. Users who do opt for a standard ATX board in this case will be treated to a lot of clearance and healthy cable routing options surrounding the tray itself.
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Installing 3.5" drives involves screwing them into the bottom of the fairly rigid metal drive trays; 3.5" drives benefit from rubber grommets for dampening noise. 2.5" drives are also screwed into the bottom of the trays. Meanwhile, installing a 5.25" drive can be more problematic. The size of the front fascia makes it a bit difficult to remove, but with the proper application of force to the bottom it comes off, and you must remove it to remove the bay shields. The blu-ray drive we use for our testbed ran into a clearance issue with one of the 230mm fans, though; it fits, but it's pressed snugly against the fan. The toolless mechanism Rosewill uses at least feels secure, though I have to wonder if at least a little bit of that stems from the drive simply not having anywhere else to go.
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Getting our video cards and power supply into the Blackhawk Ultra was also basically a breeze, though it's worth noting that side-oriented SATA ports can put undue pressure on cables when you try to route them, and this seems to be a common problem. Case designers place a routing hole next to where the SATA ports will be, and that's good, but the hole is narrow and doesn't really take into account the way one might have to bend the cables if the motherboard orients them facing outward as our test board and indeed most enthusiast boards do.
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Where things start to go awry with the Blackhawk Ultra is where I said they would, and where they usually do. In the Blackhawk Ultra it's a little more egregious, though: this is a case designed to accommodate a boatload of hardware, and boatloads of hardware demand a lot of power leads, so why are the routing holes next to the power supply bays so small? Cabling everything should've gone at least a little easier than this, but I found myself having to really work the modular leads through the holes and I'm not looking forward to when I have to tear down this build to do the next case review. The fan hubs also use traditional 4-pin molex connectors, and honestly I'd really like that standard to just die in favor of SATA power leads. Closing up also proved to be a bit of a challenge, but that stemmed more from the notched side panels coupled with the sheer mass of the Blackhawk Ultra.
It's not that assembling a system in the Blackhawk Ultra was difficult so much as that it could've been much, much easier. I can forgive the fan clearance issue with the optical drive; our blu-ray drive is actually a bit deeper than optical drives typically are. Rosewill also does a lot right by nipping fan cable management in the bud. Yet the power cables proved to be a real sore spot, and notched panels just don't belong on a case this size.
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lwatcdr - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
You see I feel the opposite. I would like to see more cases with just optical drive bays. It is easy enough to put in adaptors for any drive you want. What I really want is an ITX or mATX case with just 4 optical bays. I can get two 2to3 hotswap bays and make a NAS then. I would take six bays as well as then I could use two 3x5 bays and build a 10 drive NAS. In a way I do agree that we need more extreme cases. I would like to see some with no optical bays, some with only optical bays, and some with a mix of bays.lwatcdr - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - link
I do not think that the Blackhawk competes with the Phantom 630 but with the 820, the Switch 810, and other cases that support E-ATX and larger motherboards. The 630 is a great case but is a good bit smaller. If you want to do a build a really complex water cooler loop system, or run a quad SLI system then you need a case like the Blackhawk. The 630 is a great case but not really in the same class as the Blackhawk. The Switch is and frankly maybe the better case for a lot of builds.The one place that Blackhawk and it's twin the Xigmatek Elysium really shine is if you want a dual CPU workstation. They have the cutouts to support dual CPUs. That is also probably why they have such conservative looks. If you are going to build a dual 2011 system with a Quadro card and maybe a Tesla card or two then you really don't want it to look like a transformer. Lots of space and cooling for a really large system for a really low price.
SunLord - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - link
I have this case which I'm setting up to run a water cooled Dual Opteron server. This case is perfect for crazy large water cooled builds. As you can easily run 1 200MM on top, 1 3x140mm on bottom, and 1 140mm radiator on the rear with little trouble. You also can in theory fit in a 2x140MM radiator on the side of the hard drive cage but it's a bit of a pain as the case isn't meant mount one there. You also have the option given all the hose holes to use external radiators.JonnyDough - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
Honestly, two big fans directing air through filtration from bottom to top is all you really need to properly cool a case. I still think that the modern redesign of the old layout has a long way to go. How these companies situation the goods inside the case could use some re-evaluation.It would be best served towards the front bottom of the case, below the drives for cable routing. The PSU needs to be a source of filtered cool air INTAKE. The out other intake needs to be filtered air through the bottom rear of the case flowing directly into the video card. If you want, an optional third intake can be window mounted with direct ducting to the CPU cooler.
The top of the case needs one giant quiet fan in the middle to expel hot air. Hot air rises, so it will rise to the top naturally and be expelled from the case by the fan. Positive air pressure is not necessary as long as the rest of the case is sealed up and the only intake possible is through the filters.
lwatcdr - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
I think you underestimate the value of positive case pressure.1. It is pretty impractical to seal a case so it can only intake air from filtered sources. USB ports, side panels, and other ports and connections are almost never air tight.
2. Higher air pressure means that you have denser air which means more mass to carry away the heat. Of course just to make life hard when you compress a fluid like air you heat it. Light positive pressure supplied from filtered intakes.
sulu1977 - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
What I want to see is a case with a filter so that no dust or insects can get inside. Also most of USB ports should be at bottom of front panel, behind a simple hinged cover.Ammohunt - Thursday, April 4, 2013 - link
I would like to see this case built with every fan position filled.