Rosewill Throne Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on August 2, 2013 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Rosewill
- ATX
- XL-ATX
Where I think Rosewill has made major progress from the Thor v2, and to a lesser extent the Blackhawk Ultra, is in the aesthetics of the Throne. The Thor v2 is an incredibly powerful case with a fairly goofy look to it; the worst I can say about the Throne is that it reminds me of the Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The front of the Throne is actually pretty slick in my opinion. While Rosewill cuts costs using a plastic fascia for the front and top panels, it doesn't look terrible. There are two large vents that allow the front intake fans to breathe, and then a door hides the reset button, the toggle for the red LED lights in the two front fans, and the three 5.25" drive bays. The door opens to the right by default but can actually be removed and rotated, a welcome addition.
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Get to the top of the case and you see the Throne's bread and butter: a flat tray indented into the panel holds the six generously spaced USB ports (two 3.0 and four 2.0) along with the hotswap drive bay, audio jacks, power button, and sliding fan controllers. There's also a sliding vent mechanism similar to what we saw on the Thor v2.
The right side panel is solid steel while the left side panel includes plenty of ventilation and a beefy 230mm intake fan, which blows pretty much directly over the expansion slots. Note that this fan is thick; the power leads for the video cards I installed cleared it, but only just. If you're using an unusually tall enthusiast card (think EVGA Classified or ASUS Mars) you may very well run into problems with the intake.
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Removing the side panels is easy; they're both held into place by two thumbscrews, and they're hinged. When you get inside the Throne, everything is pretty business as usual. This is an extremely standard ATX enclosure design. With no swappable drive cages, the ten drive trays will undoubtedly feel at least a little excessive, but the Throne is designed to hold just about everything. I think it's interesting how much 5.25" drive bays have been deprecated; there are only three, all with toolless clamps. Meanwhile, space behind the motherboard tray isn't copious but it's acceptable, and the hinged side panels ensure it never becomes a serious issue.
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What I appreciate about the Rosewill Throne is its clarity of purpose. The cooling design isn't especially elegant but I don't get the feeling it was ever intended to be; this is a design that's about getting as much air into and through the case as humanly possible. Similar to the Thor v2 and Blackhawk Ultra, we're again dealing with a brute force approach to cooling. I'm still not entirely sold on the fit and finish and build quality, but you don't buy Rosewill cases for aluminum front panels, you buy them because you need a lot of cooling power at a good price.
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DanNeely - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
A case like this makes tri-SLI on an ATX board easier too; it's not just EATX builds that benefit. If you get a board with x16 slots at positions 1, 4, and 7, you've got an empty slot between each pair of cards to improve airflow and cooling. While there are atx cases with an 8th slot cover to let you do the same, most of them will push the bottom card up against the PSU obstructing it.I don't think this case is in play for significant water cooling at all. There doesn't appear to be enough clearance between the mobo and the top fans to fit a radiator, without dremeling out the 3.5" cage, you're not going to fit one in the front, and a larger PSU would obstruct the bottom fan mount. The giant door fan should help a lot if you're running multiple air cooled cards; which I think is where this is being targetted.
mwildtech - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Doesn't look much different from the Thor, not bad overall.WhitneyLand - Saturday, August 3, 2013 - link
Are these giant case articles less popular on AT nowadays? They seem so irrelevant and anachronistic.@Dustin: Love your writing and articles. This is not a criticism of an author.
I know some people still want to read these, but what’s the big picture trend here with the AT audience?
ShieTar - Thursday, August 22, 2013 - link
Personally, I tend to be most interested in the two extreme options: The Mini-ITX on the one hand, for Media-Player solutions or just On-the-Desk-Systems for friends who need very little computing power. And on the other hand the very big towers, for my own gaming system which just sits next to my desk and gets opened up and fed with new hardware about once a year.So, from an enthusiast point of view, there is nothing anachronistic about giant cases. They give you plenty of options for your build, and as show in this review, once you put an overclocking/SLI setup together, they can quickly become the most silent option too.
random2 - Saturday, August 3, 2013 - link
TIL; Dustin has no taste in cases. :Pbeepboy - Monday, August 5, 2013 - link
On future case reviews, can you include the weight as part of the specs on the first page? It would help me at the very least. Thanks!alex110 - Monday, August 5, 2013 - link
is looking weird.http://mnrparts.co.uk/index.php?route=product/cate...
sulu1977 - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
Just out of curiosity, I want to know what your ideal, perfect case would be given a budget of let's say $500 million.J_E_D_70 - Friday, August 9, 2013 - link
I can see it now: I'm playing a game, friend calls and asks what I'm doing, and I reply, "I'm on the throne."warpuck - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
Looks good, that is until you try to install 280 radiator in it. Put it in the top? Nope. Put in the front ? Nope. HDD cage is riveted. OK lets see inside the cage then, maybe. Nope. Outside cage? Sell my 690s and get something shorter? Nope fake 3mm screws. OK then a thin 240 in the top maybe if you can live without heat spreaders on your memory. Looked good up to the point after I put the extreme 9 in. OK time for the Dremel tool, saber saw and drill. So the only thing that fits in there handily is a 140 radiator on the exhaust.