Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
Removing the glass from the sides is quite simple, especially with the four thumbscrews on each side. On an aside, it is a bit of a misnomer to call them thumbscrews, as the threaded extended bit actually extends from the case. These would be more like thumbnuts, but I changing terms would be more of a hassle than it is worth. Either way, these tool-less implementations are easy to remove, and reveals more attention to detail by In Win. Each screw holding it is wrapped by rubber, so the glass does not scratch or vibrate against each screw. Inside the case, everything is coated in a matte black finish, which looks great again. The first thing you might notice is how large the hole is behind the motherboard. This is found on many cases; both budget and high-end. It allows users to install an aftermarket CPU cooler much easier, as they can access both sides without having to remove the motherboard from the chassis. As mentioned prior, the In Win 904 Plus is a mid-tower ATX case, but it can support mATX motherboards too. The riser mounting holes are pre-installed with an ATX motherboard in mind, but these can be easily swapped later on. The rest of the layout is generally traditional, but each part is also a bit different in its own way.
First of all, pictured above is where the power supply sits. As denoted by the caution sticker, the power supply should sit upside down, with the fan facing into the case, rather than outside. As I have said before, there are no holes at the bottom of the case, since this is where the optical drive is located. Thus, you will be blowing hot air into your case. This is not an ideal situation, as it increases the internal temperature of the chassis. Another thing to note is the lack of rubber or foam risers to place your power supply. Ideally, there would be some sort of padding to reduce the vibration between the power supply and the case. However, this kind of solution is missing in action in the In Win 904 Plus. This is somewhat disappointing, especially considering the In Win 904 Plus is such a high-end case. In terms of spacing for the power supply, the In Win 904 Plus now boasts a power supply space of up to 268mm. Of course, you should not actually place a power supply of this length into your case, since there would be no room for cabling. For reference's sake though, installing the Cooler Master V1000 was straightforward and without issues for fitting or cabling.
Moving to the top right hand side, we can get a glimpse of the disk drive trays integrated into the In Win 904 Plus. This tray area is one of the few areas were we see plastic in the 904 Plus, but there is no real reason why it should be anything other than plastic. The trays open up by unhinging the clip at the top. Then you can easily slide it out and install your drives. Each of these trays can fit either a 3.5" or 2.5" hard drive or solid state drive. In Win has promised tool-less installation for 3.5" drives, but we will see if this holds true during our installation. To do so, they have placed four rubber-wrapped holders to hold the hard drive in place. The rubber also reduces the vibration often found in drives with moving parts. Otherwise, a nice thing they have done is how they have placed a plug at the back integrating the SATA and power cable together. This is quite useful, as it would be very tight to put your own cables through on the other side. This integrated solution actually works quite well, while keeping the cables relatively tidy. The cables are braided to keep them durable and flexible while bending around the case. There are also two more metal plates underneath the drive bay, where you can attach more 2.5" drives via screws. As more and more people are moving away from the traditional spinning disk, adding more mounting areas for solid state drives is a solid idea -- no pun intended. The overall placement of the drive bay is quite handy, as it will not get in the way of most components like graphics cards. Since the optical drive bay is located elsewhere, In Win has taken full advantage of what would be a void space.
Where the drive bay would traditionally be, we find one of the fan filter areas. Unfortunately, while there is a filter and a place for a fan to fit, there is no fan to be found. I looked around in the shipping container and the resealable bag to see if they had just not installed it, but they were just not there. For a case of this class and price range, I would have expected at least one, if not two cooling fans, but neither are present. This is just a filtered area where you can put a 120mm or 140mm cooling fan. An additional area for a 92mm fan is located at the back for the exhaust. I would have hoped for a larger exhaust fan space, especially since the standard today is either a 120mm or 140mm exhaust. Not to mention, this case does not have a lot of open ventilation either. The filter itself is quite well made, and can be removed, since it is held by magnets. While we are on the topic of cooling, there also is support for an all-in-one water cooling unit, but it is limited to a 120mm or a 140mm radiator. The case can also fit a CPU cooler with a rated maximum height of 145mm. Otherwise, you can see the input and output cables are located here and are braided, which is nice to see. As I have explained before, braided cables should be more flexible and durable, so this is good to see.
Turning the In Win 904 Plus to the other side, and we can see the back of the motherboard tray. Generally, the back is used for hiding cables and wires just to keep the front area cleaner. The In Win 904 Plus offers an ample amount of moving room at close to 25mm. There are some wiring holes in a few places around the back, but there are a few problems to note about them. For one, none of these openings are fitted with rubber grommets, and so there might be more bend and stress on the wires. Rubber grommets also help clean up the look of the installation, as it only opens as wide as it needs to be to hide the cables behind the case better. While this is unfortunate, it is accentuated even more when as none of the edges are smoothed out. Instead, the edges are sharp and can dig into the power cables. If they did not want to include rubber grommets, In Win should have at least smoothed out each edge, so users would not have to worry about stripped cables. Secondly, as you will see soon enough, a lot of the cabling holes are located where a full sized ATX motherboard would cover, rendering them quite useless. Both of these problems are a bit of a let down from their premium class, as it can easily be avoided. It makes me wonder if In Win spent more of their time on the external looks than the internal conveniences. But I will save my judgement for it when we actually what it is like to use this case.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
