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Specifications
Manufacturer
Rosewill
Part #
NIGHTHAWK 117
Type
ATX Full Tower
Color
Black
Power Supply
None
Side Panel
Acrylic
Power Supply Shroud
No
Front Panel USB
- USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
- USB 2.0 Type-A
Motherboard Form Factor
- ATX
- EATX
- Micro ATX
- Mini ITX
Maximum Video Card Length
420 mm / 16.535"
Drive Bays
- 3 x External 5.25"
- 8 x Internal 3.5"
Expansion Slots
10 x Full-Height
Price History
* Amazon pricing is not included in price history graphs.
from completed build Professional Digital Audio Workstation
I purchased this case for Threadripper 3960X build, but only because the case I intended to use was on back order for a few months (Nanoxia Deep Silence 6).
Overall, the case is excellent value for money, especially if you require a case with room for disk storage beyond what is "normal." For my business, I keep many TB of backup, so the more 3.5" HDD bays, the better.
Pros:
-Decent amount of 3.5" HDD Bays
-Decent layout and through holes for cable management, most of which have grommets.
-Good amount of 140mm fan mounting locations.
-Will accept many radiator sizes if your MOBO allows for it.
-Frame is constructed from relatively thick steel.
Cons:
-The PCB used for USB 2.0 headers, front panel audio, and USB 3 pass-through cables is INCREDIBLY cheap. In fact, I disconnected it entirely. The solder joints looked so horrible, I feared it would cause a short.
-The external SATA bay is a nice touch, but after seeing how bad the front panel USB/Audio PCB was, I didn't waste any time in removing it.
-The top panel "exhaust" fins do nothing but constrict airflow since they fall down into the "shut" position very easily. Mercifully, they were easy enough to remove.
-The cheap acrylic window panel is very brittle. In fact, mine arrived in the box cracked at the edges. It is now nothing more than a rattle. Hot glue to the rescue, I guess.
Other:
-It would be incredibly nice if this case had a removable motherboard tray, but for its price, I can't complain.
-Depending on your PSU dimensions, a 140mm fan mounted on the bottom just barely fits, and I mean BARELY.
-Included fans are loud and relatively low quality, but for the price, I can't complain. I opted for Noctua fan replacements.
-Plastic panels are, as expected, pretty brittle. Use care when removing the top and front panels.
-The front panel has a non-removable mesh filter, while the bottom PSU intake vent has a removable mesh filter. Not the best design, especially for the front filter since you have to remove a brittle panel to access and clean it.
-The power on and activity LEDs are very bright. If your computer is powered on 24/7 and it lives where you sleep, you might want to take that into consideration.
Final Thoughts:
Rosewill, overall, did a good job for a sub $75 case. I got mine on sale for well under that, but even for $75, if I was on a tight budget, I'd have been pretty happy. Some of the cons I listed are significant to me, but I'm pretty nit-picky. That USB/Audio PCB was pretty heinous looking, though.
from completed build El Trezavo
Nice an large, to fit my cooler.
I also like the hot-swap SATA drive bay on the top of the case. In the past, I've sometimes needed to attached a SATA drive externally and dislike when it flops around lose outside the case. I expect I'll use this drive bay in the future.
from completed build First Build
Got everything hooked up, turned it on and started a little fire with the fan controller connections on the nighthawk case.
other than that it works fine
from completed build Video Editing Workstation
This thing is huge. It's gigantic. It's almost too big. However, I have since come around to its size. After receiving my GTX 970 in the mail I was glad I went with such a large case. For my first build, the large case made installing everything super easy as well. Cable management in this case is pretty good. Lots of room to hide cables behind the motherboard. It comes with all the screws, stand off pegs and whatnot you'd ever need. The middle cage of 5 HDD slots can be easily removed with thumb screws for airflow/liquid cooling, leaving three HDD slots on the bottom still. The HDD trays are hardwareless, which is really nice. The HDD just pops right in. SSDs will still need to be screwed in to the trays - if you use trays for SSDs. It has three 5.25" bays which are also tooless. I installed a DVD drive in a matter of seconds which was awesome. Just slide it in and slide the lock mechanism closed, done. Comes with 5 fans preinstalled, dual fans with blue LEDs in the front, one exhaust fan in the back and another dual fan on top for exhaust. The top is cool as it has vents you can open and close. It has four USB2 ports on the front, two USB3, and headphone/mic jacks, as well as power and reset switch. It also has two switches for its built in fan control. Call me a noob, but I could not figure out how to utilize the built in fan control. This was one of the reasons I bought this case, so it is disappointing that it's not mentioned at all in the manual that came with the case. As my first build there were many things I ran into where I needed to seek assistance from the Internet, and sadly this build in fan controller has still eluded me. The fans default to 64%, not 100% like I initially believed. The fans are 3 pin, not 4 pin PWM. There are ways to raise the fan speeds with software but for whatever reason I cannot seem to get that to work. This really isn't much of an issue as the airflow in the case is superb and I have yet to run into any heat issues. There are ways to control the fans within my motherboards UEFI, I have yet to see if they work or not. Really wish Rosewill would have explained how to wire up the built in fan controller. I'm taking off a star for no instructions on it, not because I can't figure it out. If there were some basic instructions I'd be able to figure it out. I wouldn't pay more than ~$100 for this case. I bought it for about that much with a mail in rebate. It is super sturdy, being made mostly out of metal/steel. This makes it heavy, but it's not really meant to be portable - it's a full size case! I like that it came with the option to add one more fan in the bottom, and that it came with a dust screen for the PSU fan.
Compatible Parts
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- View Compatible Fan Controllers
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- View Compatible Wireless Network Adapters