Chieftec Dragon CH-07 Review

Interior

With modern hardware generating so much more heat than old school kit, the most obvious update for Chieftec to make for the new Dragon is in the cooling department. The old Dragon cooled its fiery internals with 80mm fans but the new Dragon has four 120mm fans and one large 220mm side panel fan, all of which can connect via either 3-pin fan connectors or Molex connectors.

Two of the 120mm fans are fitted in the roof to exhaust air, while the large side-panel fan is fitted as an intake. As the PSU attaches to the roof of the Dragon, however, even a standard 150mm-long PSU obscures half of the rear roof fan, while a longer PSU renders the second roof fan all but useless.

The final two 120mm fans are placed at the font and rear of the case in a pull-push configuration, with the intake being covered by a dust filter which is screwed directly into the fan so when the time comes to get the hoover out, you'll need to pop the fascia before being able to clean the filter. The side 220mm intake fan is also fitted with a dust filter.

Individually, the fans are neither loud nor particularly quiet but because there’s a total of five fans, the case makes a bit of a racket. With so many fitted as standard, a fan controller would be a worthwhile addition to a PC built in this case.


Unfortunately, despite the twin 120mm fans in the roof, there's no room to install even a thin dual-120mm radiator without enlisting the help of a trusty Dremel. What's more, despite there being two rubber grommet-covered holes at the rear allow for an external radiator but the Dragon is best viewed as a case for air-cooling rather than water-cooling.

A large gap above the motherboard tray allows you to direct excess cables from the PSU in the ample cavity between the back of the motherboard tray and the side panel. This is all well and good, but there are no holes for cable routing in the lower sections of the motherboard tray, so you're forced to route cables through the main chamber which is harder to keep looking neat and is obstructive to airflow.


In contrast, the Antec Nine Hundred Two allows you to route cables unobtrusively behind the motherboard tray and back into the main chamber through holes scattered liberally around the case.

The Dragon has a very simple and effective metal retention clip system for up to four external 5.25in devices and a neat little box for bits, which slots into an empty 3.5in bay. There's one external 3.5in bay and a further five internal 3.5in bays, all of which use a tool-less retention mechanism.


What's more, the Dragon¹s main cavity is easily big enough to accommodate two full-length 10.5in graphics cards, and with its numerous fans, it has the cooling to cope with a powerful, hot-running PC. The large internal cavity made building a PC in the Dragon relaitvely easy, even though it lacks the cable management gubbins to make it easy to keep things looking super tidy.