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What makes a good PC case is, in many ways, down to personal preference. Personally I am very picky when it comes to things like cases, as I usually go through at least four or five upgrades in one case and it has to last me for that period of time. My current case has seen five or six different motherboards and a multitude of different bits through the years, but it is still a solid case. It might not be the best looking case around but it is spacious and easy to dig around in.

But things have moved on quite a lot since then with front mounted ports and all kinds of neat features appearing as standard in modern cases. Many new cases are also made from aluminium which is much lighter than the sheet steel that was traditionally used. I was fortunate enough to be sent the new AOpen A600A case to review and my first impression as I took it out of the box was ‘WOW!’

The packaging is a little odd, with pictures of families and the word aluminium adorning the box. However, it’s when you get the case out of the box that you realise that it’s worth spending a few extra pounds on a quality product. The A600A sample I was sent is finished in black with a silver surround at the front, but it is also available in silver.

The A600A it not made entirely from aluminium and AOpen has instead chosen to finish the front in plastic. The advantage here is that it’s much easier to work with when you assemble the case, especially when removing blanking spacers for the drive bays. The disadvantage here is that an aluminium fascia is sturdier.

Internally the A600A is a dream come true for anyone that has more than two hard drives in their PC. There are a total of six spaces for hard drives in addition to the two external 3.5 in drive bays. There are also four external 5.25in drive bays that should cater for most users’ needs. The bottom 5.25in drive bay might not take a full depth drive depending on the size of your motherboard. All the drives are mounted by screwing in the supplied screws first and then sliding the drives in place. This is great as long as your drives have standard mounting holes in the right places, but if you have some more exotic hardware or something like the new MSI drives with interchangeable fascias then this will cause slight misalignment.

The only problem with this system is that if you lose the supplied screws you’ll have problems mounting new drives. At least AOpen has supplied plenty of screws with the case. There is also a polishing cloth (to remove all those nasty finger prints from your new shiny case), a pre fitted 120mm tri-colour fan and a Serial-ATA power adaptor. Not a bad bundle, but AOpen has also included a 350W PSU with a 120mm fan as standard, but a 400W option is also available.

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