Riotoro CR1080 Review

  

Conclusion

So what can we say about the Riotoro CR1080?  Well aside from the bulged side window, we quite like the aesthetic.  Yes we understand that it’s been bulged to give a little bit more head room for CPU air coolers, but it does rather ruin the aesthetic somewhat.  We do though love the compact size of the CR1080, which, with vital statistics of only 359x245x394mm (HxWxD), we reckon is probably one of, if not the smallest cases about able to accept a full size ATX motherboard.  Despite its compact dimensions, it can still accept normal ATX PSUs up to 175mm in length, and GPUs up to 300mm long.  Being a dual chamber case, both the PSU and the main storage areas are located on the reverse side.  Back here you’ll find a mount that will take a 3.5″ or 2.5″ drive, and another that will take one of each.  Not only that, but the CR1080 also has provision for a side mounted 5.25″ drive, and although we appreciate the thought, we’re not entirely sure better use couldn’t have been made use of this bit of inter case real estate.

It’s this 5.25″ drive that leads us onto the main issue we have with the CR1080.  Now at this point we should say that the CR1080 isn’t a bad case, far from it, we actually quite like it as it get’s our modding juices dripping, but more of that in a minute.  So what is the issue?  Well it revolves around water cooling, the 5.25″ drive mount and the SATA data ports.  There are also a few issues with the placement of the PSU and the lack of a CPU cut out, but we’ll come to thoselater.  OK, so if you imagine for a minute that the designers at Riotoro decided that the CR1080 didn’t need a 5.25″ bay, then they’d have been able to put a slit into the motherboard tray to enable you to use 90 degree SATA data cable and drop them straight through.  This in turn would have meant that you would have been able to make the most of the 75mm of space available at the front of the case, which means you could have easily dropped in a 40mm thick rad with 25mm thick fans, and still had 10mm of space to play with to turn those cables around in.  Now let’s look at the Issue of the PSU shall we.  With the PSU mounted, as it is at the bottom of the case, and with an inverted motherboard design, there’s no way that you could have a CPU cut out on the motherboard tray.  Well you could, kinda, but it would be right up against the PSU and would cause all manner of problems when it comes to mounting coolers.  A better solution would have been to mount the PSU up at the top of the rear of the case and have the lower area where the swing open door for the 3.5″ and 2.5″ drives live.  By its nature, this swing open door would have allowed access to the rear of what could have been a nice sized CPU cut out.

Then there’s the cable management.  On the face of it, things are good, but as intimated above, there are issues with the SATA data cable, even if you’re not watercooling.  The real issue though is that up at the top of the case lies the area where all the front I/O, USB and Audio cables are brought through.  OK, so there are some small slots up here, but once the motherboard is fitted, these are largely occluded, meaning you’re going to have to think long and hard about which cables are going where before you fit the motherboard.  Get it right and you’re looking at a very nice wiring job, get it wrong and you’re going to have to unplug everything and start again.

In closing, the best we can say about the CR1080 is that it reminds me of my old school reports.  “Shows great potential, but could do better”  With that in mind, if you’re a bit handy with a dremmel then you’ll be able lose the 5.25″ bay, make some holes for the SATA data cables and most likely even swap the bulging side panel for a nice flat one.

After the write up we’ve just given it, it might seem odd to bestow an award, but as we’ve said, the CR1080 isn’t a bad case, it’s just that to get the best out of it will require a bit more work from the owner.  A few changes here and there and you’ve got a cracking case on your hands, and all for just £65. 

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