| #884 - Tagan CS-EL Diablo BM Case |
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| Written by Zach Jeffers | |||||||
| Thursday, 18 October 2007 | |||||||
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Exterior Overview: The Tagan CS-EL Diablo BM mid-tower case has more of a full tower height to it. At 60cm high, the Diablo case is no shorty! The styling of this case is very sharp and aggressively cut. In my opinion, one of the best looking cases in the oversized fan case design group. The accenting from the intake fan to the sides is pleasant and not too distracting. The light brown definitely screams Tagan!   This Tagan case has a solid plastic door covering all the external drive bays and power switches. This door opens from right to left which, again, does not make any sense to me what so ever. Cases featuring side panel windows or grills, like the Tagan Diablo, should have the door open away from that side. This prevents the user from having to reach around the door to access his drive bays. This is the number one complaint from users with cases such as these and I am surprised that the industry has not universally adopted this approach. The front of this door also features the Aplus logo which is illuminated with a Blue LED when the system is in use.   With the door open, you can see that the door only opens ninety degrees exposing the very shiny drive bay covers (Yes I know I am in the picture… I am demonstrating the glossy finish of the bezel). Again, going back to the opening direction of the door, this makes accessing your optical drives a real pain. The entire industry still utilizes the right-to-left approach so I can’t really doc points from Tagan on this, but I would really like to see a high quality manufacturer like Tagan to take this simple step in the right direction. Now with easy access to the drive bays, you can easily remove the covers for drive installation with a simple pull from the recessed side tabs.   Below the drive bays is the included 250mm Blue LED intake fan! This fan has a circular mesh grill preventing your family pet from sticking its paws into this turbine like fan. You will notice that the fan’s hub has a dome fixed to it to create that turbine look. On either side of the fan you will find a power switch and an adjustable control. The controls on the right are for the intake fan controlling power to the fan along with the speed to which you wish to run the fan. On the left you have the same controls, but for the side panel intake fan.    On the left side of the Tagan Diablo case, you can see the large side mesh window. This allows for an enormous amount of air circulation into the case. The grill is secured to the side panel by numerous hex-screws. These can be easily removed to allow replacement of the mesh with acrylic, though it is not included. To aid along with air circulation, you can easily see the mounted 330mm Blue LED intake fan. This controllable fan takes cool air into the case and distributes it to all your expansion cards and CPU coolers. At the bottom you can see the brown accent near the front where the controls are located. The back half circular shape features a clear plastic inlay to which is illuminated with a bright Blue LED when the system is in use.   
 The back of the case features the standard PSU placement at the top followed by the I/O area, the optional 120mm fan mount and seven expansion slots. One thing to mention about the optional 120mm fan mount is that the fan has to be mounted with the included cage and push-pin system as there are no standard mounting holes. This is a bummer as if you happen to break or loose these push-pins, you will have to drill out some mounting holes to reattach your fan. Looking at the PSU mount, you will notice that there is a removable bracket adaptor. This allows users to install a mini-redundant power supply such as the Silverstone Gemini ST46GF. This is a very nice feature and I wish that other high-end computer chassis manufacturers would adopt this feature. Above and below the 120mm rear fan, you will see sets of circular stamp outs. These are to facilitate 1/4" water cooling tubes. These should be rubber grommeted as the push-outs usually leave some kind of pointed remnants. Essentially, if you plan on using an external water cooling system, you will be constricted to 1/4" tubing and you will need to know your way around a file.     The right side panel has no real brow raising features except for the same illuminated inlay that the left side panel features. At the top of the case, there is a plastic flap that flips from front to back and exposes the front I/O area. This includes the Firewire, USB2.0 and audio jacks. This flap is very loose and I normally prefer a push-spring type door but that is just my preference.   At the bottom of the case are four rotating feet. These feet feature soft rubber pads to aid in gripping hard surfaces. The feet can swivel a full 360° and have two different lengths to facilitate almost any installation.    |
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