CM Storm Enforcer

The sub-$200 market for computer cases is a fierce one as vendors try to make their cases as desirable as possible for budget-conscious system builders.

Cooler Master’s Storm Enforcer is an all-black case (inside and out) with an armour-like design on the front panel. Ironically, this “armour” is made out of ABS plastic which gives the Enforcer a slightly cheap look and feel. At least it’s reasonably solid plastic, and the rest of the case apart from a small panel on the top is good old cold-rolled steel.

To appeal to gamers and enthusiasts there’s a large 200mm fan behind the front panel which sports blood-red LED lighting, and the side panel is about 60% window to show off your wares inside. Behind the 200mm fan sits a two-slot fixed hard drive cage and four-slot removable hard drive cage. This is a great feature for those with extra-long graphics cards, as it frees up a few valuable inches in that territory, however you’re then restricted to having only two hard drive bays (real enthusiasts use masking-tape to attach their SSD to the back of the motherboard tray anyway).

Above the hard drive cages you have four 5.25-inch bays all with tool-less locking mechanisms which prove to be quite idiot proof. Above the 5.25-inch bays on the front panel there are two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, headphone/microphone jacks and the power/reset switches. The top panel of the Enforcer has a large grilled area with screw fittings to accommodate a 200mm case fan, two 120mm fans, or even a 240mm radiator.

Moving to the back panel you get a pre-installed 120mm case fan, seven horizontal slots for add-on cards plugged into your motherboard, plus one vertical slot for things like a fan controller. At the bottom you have the space where the power supply goes – the ideal position for weight distribution and air flow in my opinion.

Last but not least, the motherboard tray scores a lot of points for me. The CPU backplane cut-out is massive, allowing for easy installation of aftermarket CPU coolers, and all around the motherboard fittings are more cut-outs to route your cabling. There’s about a centimetre gap between the motherboard tray and the side panel; this is heaps of room for shoving all your spare cabling.

I had no dramas installing my gear into the Enforcer. My ATX motherboard had plenty of space around it, and I didn’t need to remove the larger hard drive cage to fit my Radeon HD 5850 video card in.

This case is deceptively roomy – on the outside it appears like your average mid tower sized case, but the inside is so well laid out that it seems bigger. All the corners and edges are nicely folded back too, so no nasty cuts or scrapes during installation.

Overall Cooler Master have produced a fantastic case. It may not look like an expensive case with its plastic front panel, but it’s solidly constructed, well designed, has great features and looks neither too flashy nor too boring.