BitFenix Pandora ATX Review

Interior

While not much appears to have gone on outside except for the case gaining larger dimensions, the inside is much more grown up. For starters, there's a one-piece PSU cover that stretches the entire length of the case but does have a cable routing hole underneath the motherboard. Behind the motherboard tray is a handy amount of space for routing cables too - you'll have no problem with chunky 24-pin ATX cables, for example.


Drive mounts are dotted everywhere and it actually took quite a while to work out the various combinations that are on offer. In short, there are four mounts - three in the base and one on top of the PSU cover than can cater for single hard disks or SSDs. In addition to this there are four dedicated SSD mounts held in place by thumb screws - two behind the motherboard tray and two on the front side. You can ditch two of these and relocate one of the 3.5in mounts there instead and all the mounts are removable too. Finally, there's a plate than can sit in the roof fan mounts that offers a further two 2.5in mounts, bringing the total SSD mounts to 10 (four from the dedicated bays, another four from stealing from the 3.5in/2.5in mounts in the base and PSU cover plus the two in the roof)


For cooling you get two fans as standard - a single 140mm in the front and a rear 120mm fan. The front section sports space for three 120mm or two 140mm fans, as does the roof. Thankfully, water-cooling support is much improved for the most part, although we did hit upon a couple of snags. Firstly, the motherboard sits incredibly close to the roof fan mounts - so much so that it was a real squeeze with our Maximus VI Formula motherboard.


This also means that the roof section is limited to half-height radiators and a single row of fans. In addition, using an Alphacool dual 140mm fan radiator didn't see the fan mounting holes line up properly. However, if you have the fans mounted to the case, and the radiator mounted to the fans above the motherboard then you should be fine.


The front section offers a bit more space as it can house up to 45mm thick radiators - again, either a triple 120mm or double 140mm fan model with a single row of fans. However, if you're willing to part with the front dust filter, you can have a second row of either 140mm or 120mm fans here too, sitting beneath the glossy front panel that pops off. Again, we had an issue with radiator alignment, but with a bit of brute force our chunky Alphacool dual 140mm radiator did line up correctly, although you will lose both of the 2.5in mounts adjacent to it plus the further forward of the 3.5in/2.5in mounts under the PSU cover.


It might not look like it from the front, but the glossy panel also sports some large vents, which should allow any fans here to breathe. Continuing on the theme of water-cooling, BitFenix is clearly gunning for the H2O factor as it also includes a pump mount plus the top 2.5in drive plate can play host to a reservoir, although this could interfere with any tall heatsinks on your motherboard.