CM Stacker 830 Evolution Case 10.04.
About a year ago i was building a new systems and needed a very, very large case. After a few weeks of research i found myself choosing between the Lian Li V2000 and the CM Stacker 830 Evolution. I after a good week of thinking on it put in the order for the CM Stacker. The Stacker has always gotten great reviews and the whole Stacker line is just a great product. I also chose the Stacker because i haven’t been to fond of Lian Li products. There has always been soemhting about there cases that, just didn’t seem like they was worth the money you paid.
About a week later my case arrived and having never seen one in person i was amazed by the size of the box it came in. Thinking it was all just padding and parts i just figured that the case would indeed be a lot smaller… it wasn’t. There is no getting around it, this case is massive. It is in fact one of the widest cases i have ever seen. With a width of almost 10 inches (9.8) this is a very wide case. Even just seeing the numbers you don’t really understand how big it is till you open it up and look at all the room inside of it. It has room for 9 120mm fans and a very nifty rail systems for the hard drives and cd drives. All together it has 9 5.25 external bays with a hard drive bay that sides into any 3 5.25 slots which holds 4 hard drives. Something else i love about this case is its atx and btx conversions.
It accepts both formats but if you get the need to be a little different you can turn the mother board tray over and make your atx motherboard look like a btx being as it will all be on the left side. The motherboard tray is another marvel with this case, since the motherboard trey is also the back panel so its a lot easier to get out than most. The front panel will adjust to open from the right side or the left side which comes in handy depending on your desk setup. The power supply bay may be adjusted to mount your power supply upwards or downwards for better airflow.
It claims to be screw less but its not really, to get the hard drive adapter and move it up or down the 5.25 rails you have to unscrew it.
The side panels seem to be cheaply made with the very thin metal and can be a pain to get back on. Some of the plastic parts are very cheaply made, but overall the case is very well made and very sturdy. The optimal wheels that come with it are very nice to have since this is not a light case. the case will be quite heavy by the time you get everything in it, so i wouldn’t recommend putting it on top of your desk which you would have to have a very large desk to put it there.
Overall i am very happy with this case. When i build a computer the case is one of my most important things since i love it to look great but perform very well to. This case far exceeded my expectation… but i wouldn’t buy another one if i was buying one for space. For space you still cant beat the V2000 from Lian Li. but for enjoyment and modifying i would go back with this case.