Enermax ECA3052-BS Case Is The Best Of The Best

Nov. 13, 2006

Looking for the best of the best of the best? The Enermax ECA3052-BS is what the Men in Black were after and it fits their style and yours.

William G. Wong

I am rarely impressed with a case but this one blew me away. It is literally the best case I have ever worked with and I have used hundreds of different cases. The mid-tower ECA3052-BS case (Fig. 1) from Enermax is available in basic black as well as other color trim versions. Stick with the all black version. It is really slick.

It is designed to work the Enermax Galaxy 1000W power supply (add link to that article). Like the power supply, this case sports a number of firsts including an external SATA port on the front (actually top) panel (Fig. 2). The flip up lid reveals the USB and audio connections as well as the power and reset buttons. The case will handle ATX and Micro ATX motherboards.

This case has five openings for 5.25-in. drives and a floppy drive if you still use one. The top two drive bays (Fig. 3) are designed to work with tray loading optical drives like the HP940i. Unlike the other three openings, the covers on the top two are designed to remain in place when a drive is installed. They flip down and the power of an optical drive's tray is sufficient to open the cover. In addition, there is a simple mechanical mechanism that links a matching pair of buttons on the side so the eject button on the drive is pressed. The effect is to eject or close the drive using the external buttons. It is very simple and very smooth.

The drive bays are almost tool free in terms of operation. Plastics sliders lock a drive in place. Side attached sliders are provided for 3.5-in. disk drives. These slip nicely into a side mount bay (Fig. 4) that makes adding drives a snap even with a fully equipped motherboard and adapter complement.

There are 7 expansion slots. The slot covers have a snap on holder that makes installation simple but reliable.

The case excels in cooling. There is a massive 25-cm side panel fan that is very quiet (17 dBA). The switch is mount on the outside of the fan for easy access. There is space for additional fans on the front and rear.

This case is an impressive complement to the all black 27-in. Viewsonic N2761w widescreen HDTV and Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard and MX Revolution mouse. It would make Darth Vader jealous. I know everyone around here is.

Related Links Enermax
www.enermax.com

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.