BitFenix Colossus Review

This is an ideal cabinet for LAN party enthusiasts. The option to change the LED light colours, fan speed and provision for locking the top bay are quite good. The 5 ODD bays, 7 HDD bays and 8 expansion slots are quite enough for your needs. You will need to invest in a rear fan though, as the unit we got did not have one. At Rs. 11250 it is slightly overpriced considering the absence of a rear fan which is kind of expected in such cabinets.

Pros

• External cable management
• Security lock

Cons

• Slightly overpriced
• No rear fan

BitFenix is a relatively new chassis maker and has recently started shipping its products to the Indian market. Abroad it has been around for a while now. We got its flagship chassis – the Colossus in our labs. The packaging has its logo on one side and its features pointed out in brief on the other side. On first glance it does look like a huge chassis and on unpacking we also found it to be quite heavy.

Design and FeaturesThe first thing you will notice as you unwrap the packaging is the wavy lines along the side panels and the front panel. BitFenix Colossus comes with a soft-touch finish which makes it resistant to fingerprints, dust and scratches. The side panels house strings of LED lights which are protected by a white sheet on the inside and the wavy openings on the outside emit the light when the cabinet is powered on. Thanks to the LED assembly on the side panels, there is no provision to add fans there.

The front of the chassis has a continuation with the side panels. But the front panel is is a door that opens to reveal the innards of the Colossus which includes five 5.25-inch bays and an external 3.5-inch bay. On the lower side there is a 230mm front fan.

Coming to the top of the chassis, we see some interesting bits. There are your PWM fan controller, LED light controller and power/reset buttons. Along with these buttons there is a dedicated storage space to put in your hard drives. There are two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and an eSATA port. But to access these buttons and ports, you need to open the top rectangular cap, which can be locked thanks to the secure lock. You also have the option to plug in your external HDD wires into the respective USB ports and then locking the top bay so that no one accidentally pulls out your external HDD. This feature also works great in case of LAN parties where you can lock your storage bay to prevent unwanted access. The other 230 mm fan is located on the ceiling of the chassis.

Coming to the rear side, you will find four rubber grommets for liquid cooling up on top. Power supply unit slot is located at the base and it has eight expansion slots allowing you to connect upto four graphics card on the board. It lacks a rear fan though and you will have to purchase one for yourself.

On opening the cabinet from the side, you will notice the LED connector on the bottom edge which powers the embedded LEDs. Inside you will notice an all black colouring, complementing the black exteriors. The side panels are quite heavy thanks to the LED assembly within and thick metal body. The five 5.25-inch bays have plastic click locks on both the sides, below which you will find the toolless HDD bays. To hold the graphics card in place, there are some sturdily built plastic locks, which are a bit too sharp on their edges. You do not need to screw in the graphic card once the plastic latch is locked, which we found to be quite good. And the four small rubber segments below the PSU prevent absorb any vibrations.

Installation and PerformanceWe installed all our components easily and did not face any issues. There is enough space to maneouvre around after you have installed all the components. We just found the rubber grommets on the base of the motherboard to be a bit too loose, such that when we inserted wires from the power supply unit, they came undone. Putting them back in place is a task. We liked the dedicate USB 3.0 header along with the USB 3.0 ports which have to be attached to the back panel USB 3.0 ports.

Considering it is a closed cabinet (LEDs on the side panels) with no rear fan, things do get slightly hotter as compared to competing cabinets. We got a temperature delta of 55 degrees for the processor and a GPU delta of 58.9 degrees Celcius.

Verdict
At Rs. 11250 it is slightly overpriced considering the absence of a rear fan which is kind of expected in such cabinets. This is an ideal cabinet for LAN party enthusiasts. The option to change the LED light colours, fan speed and provision for locking the top bay are quite good. The 5 ODD bays, 7 HDD bays and 8 expansion slots are quite enough for your needs. You will need to invest in a rear fan though, as the unit we got did not have one. The soft-touch surface is smudge-free which is quite good. External cable management teamed with the security lock is a great feature. It may be priced higher, but very few cabinets on the market offer as many features and bling factors.

Price: Rs. 11,250

Specifications
Form Factor: ATX Full Tower
Drive Bays: 5x5.25-inch, 7x3.5-inch
Fans: 1x230mm front, 1x230mm top
USB 3.0 slots: 2
USB 2.0 slots: 2
eSATA port: 1