Conclusion
The Verdict
It's very obvious to see that Ultra have done an excellent job with their Aluminus case. It's a bigger than normal mid-tower case with plenty of room inside to work, it looks great with it's glossy finish and has huge modding potential which mostly thanks to the full size window in the side panel. It looks a whole lot better than the garish case designs I see all the time these days! The front power LED is a bright blue colour, and if you were to match that colour throughout the rest of the case, utilising cathodes and LED fans, it would look fantastic. Next to that you have the fact that it's of an Aluminium construction (though the front bezel is plastic). What this means is that the build quality is still superb, yet it weighs very little for a case of this size, and that is of course great news because nobody likes a heavy case, particularly if you need to move it around often. Aluminium also has great cooling properties. There are also absolutely no sharp edges to worry about, something that seperates the good cases from the poor. Also worthy of a mention are some of the features Ultra have built into this case. You have the quick release 3.5" bays, the screwless 5.25" bays which use drive rails, the rotated drive racks for easy access, and the Ultra branded aluminium sheet over the bays to hide your cables. You also have a vent in the window for your graphics card, and a very secure mount for your PSU. Ultra have included a device that fits either into a 3.5" or 5.25" bay and offers the user the ability to hook up USB, firewire, microphone and headphones to the front of their case for easy access. Finally, with the two 120mm fans and 80mm side intake & duct, the case cooling is very good and noise levels can be kept low.
Of course, nothing is perfect, so there are a few things I feel could have been improved upon. They are all minor points though. Firstly a suggestion. I think the vent could have possibly been turned into a fan mount to allow the user to place a fan blowing directly over their video card. Just a thought, as the case my main rig resides in has a 120mm blowing directly over the video card and it works well. As for improvements, well the side panels can be a little tough to remove as there is nothing to grip onto when you want to slide them off. A little indention for your hand would've been useful here. The metal at the back of the case flexes very easily, particularly when inserting inserting the I/O shield. The I/O shield also doesn't fit quite right, so the ports on the motherboard don't line up exactly. Maybe this is isolated though, just like the clip for the front bezel which isn't quite strong enough and allows the bezel to swing open easily. It should be firmly shut and require a bit of force to open. As mentioned earlier in the review, I'm not a huge fan of the HDD rack, but I can see why people would be. It allows easy access to your drives without removing your video card, but at the cost of blocking airflow from the front intake and increasing noise. The duct for the side intake won't be of use to anyone with a third party cooler that is even remotely tall as it is too long and interferes with the cooler. You wouldn't be able to get the side panel on. Lastly and perhaps most annoyingly, the front fan mount needs to be redrilled to take standard case fan screws as the holes were simply too small.
Aside from the case itself, the instructions could have been a little more detailed to avoid confusion during certain installation phases, but with that said they are more detailed than any other case intructions I have seen. Also no case fans are included, which as I have said before is both a plus and a minus points. A plus because the user can choose their own to suite their individual needs be it maximum airflow, quietness, or a balance of the two. A minus because you can't realistically use a case full of modern gaming components without airflow, (it's asking for trouble) so you will need to go out and buy some case fans if you don't have some lying around already before you can use the system.
One final thing I'd like to mention is the price. The Ultra website states $150 USD, but the Guru3D Price Grabber says $90! That's a great price if you bear in mind this a completely aluminium mid-tower case and compared to a Lian-Li it offers excellent value for money given the material used for weight and cooling properties.
Unfortunately the positives paragraph is smaller than the negatives, but don't let that put you off at all. Quite honestly I am very very fussy and not a whole lot gets past me. If I find anything I remotely disapprove of I will mention it, and why not? It gives you, the reader, a more in depth look. Some of the negatives may be isolated problems which are purely just on the test sample we were sent, and some may seem very insignificant and not worth worrying about all. Overall though, this is an excellent case for sure.
The bottom line is essentially this: If you're looking for a new case, the Ultra Aluminus should definitely be on your shortlist because it simply has everything a good case should have.
For more info go here: ultraproducts.com
Many thanks to Ultra for sending us this product for review.
Written by Dave "WildStyle" Crewe.
