A Closer Look - Outside

The Helios 910 is made of steel, while its front is constructed of plastic with steel mesh drive bay covers. It makes a fairly sturdy impression at this point. The large side fan may cause problems with large CPU coolers, but we will take a look at that in a few pages.


Taking a closer look at the front, it consists of nothing but nine drive bays. Thus the name Helios 910. Turning the chassis around, it becomes clear that the interior is black as well. This is a feature which a lot of manufacturers in this price segment are going for these days. While it is certainly nice and wanted, finding a case with black guts does not really hamper your choices nowadays.


The one side of the Azza case holds a large, 230 mm intake fan. While that is a good way of pushing fresh, outside air all over the mainboard, history has shown, that it will most likely restrict the user in their choice of CPU fan. The other side panel is solid and does not have any openings, fans or air vents.


There is an additional 140 mm fan in the ceiling, right above the CPU area. This replaces the air flow usually provided by a power supply in this spot. Azza has equipped the Helios 910 with four, well spaced USB 2.0 ports along with the standard pair of audio I/O. You will also find the power and reset buttons right above the front I/O. Before we continue, let us take a quick look at the underside of the Helios 910. The case has four large, hard rubber feet and two openings of equal size. The one to the left is intended to give the PSU access to outside air, while the second is a simple opening to install an additional cooling fan. The latter is pretty useless for the normal user and the PSU opening does not have a dust filter, which may spell doom for your power supply if you happen to use the computer in a dusty environment.


Turning our focus to the rear of the chassis, the bottom is intended for the PSU, while you will find the mainboard expansion slots right where you would expect them. There are seven of them and Azza has placed individual metal covers with air vents on each one. To the right of those are a pair of rubber covered holes to route water cooling tubes to the exterior of the chassis. Moving on up, we do not find anything out of the ordinary either. The opening for the mainboard backplate along with a 120 mm exhaust fan are both pretty standard features for modern mid-range cases.