For some months now I’ve got a new PC. I’m quite satisfied with the performance: the Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB solid state disk is really fast, it starts Fedora Linux within a few seconds. The be quiet! Straight Power E9 450 Watt power supply powers the Nvidia GeForce 770 GTX video card without problems when I run demanding video games, even though Nvidia itself says a 600 Watt power supply is the minimum. They probably take low quality power supplies into account. The maximum power consumption I’ve measured is 265 Watt, so I’m fine.
The enclosure is controversial for me however. Originally I ordered a Cooler Master Silencio 352 enclosure which can only accommodate smaller micro-ATX motherboards. The webstore were I bought my hardware fouled up and sent me a ATX-motherboard instead of a micro-ATX motherboard, so I decided to return that enclosure and buy a larger ATX enclosure. I was in a hurry and quickly ordered the Bitfenix Raider because I knew it was a good choice in this category. It’s not a bad choice, but I think I would have preferred one of Cooler Master’s larger Silencio enclosures which can house ATX motherboards.
The Bitfenix Raider has good looks, offers enough room for cable management and a large video card like the GTX 770. But my main complaint with it is that it doesn’t have an option to cover the top intake opening. You could optionally place a fan there, but I don’t need it. Without a cover, dust will easily enter the enclosure, defeating the purpose of the dust filters for the power supply intake fan on the bottom and the fans on the front. I solved this by fixing a piece of black cardboard over the hole with adhesive tape, but I think an appropriate cover should have been shipped with the Raider. Cooler Master does include covers.
My other complaint is the manual. It describes the screws included with the Raider on the first page, but it turns out two pairs of screws look very much alike, even though they are used for different purposes. I confused some of these different screws, which could have been avoided if the manual had images of the screws to help me distinguish them. For example the black thumb screws used externally for the side panels of the Raider, and the black thumb screws which are used internally for fixing disk drives.
