Rosewill Throne Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on August 2, 2013 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Rosewill
- ATX
- XL-ATX
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Rosewill's higher end enclosures seem to traditionally occupy a unique and special niche among their competitors: while their build quality may not quite be up to the level of competing cases, thermal performance tends to, if you'll pardon the expression, blow right past them. There are definitely tradeoffs to be made in the process, but beasts like the Thor v2 and Blackhawk Ultra provide borderline unparalleled thermals in their respective markets. If you're looking to build a beastly machine but want to save a few bucks on the case, there's a good chance Rosewill will have what you need.
That trend continues with the release of the Throne. First glimpsed at CES 2013, Rosewill's Throne comes with a tremendous amount of bells and whistles and like its predecessors, a price tag to match. We're still well into enthusiast case territory here and end users looking to save more scratch will probably want to keep sticking with the Thor v2, but at $159 (though currently out of stock at NewEgg), the Throne may be a case to shortlist for your next build.
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Unfortunately, this review does need to come with an advance warning. My case is a preproduction unit that doesn't have quite the fit and finish of units that are available in retail; alignment of optical drive bays with the fascia was off by about 2mm (you'll see later), and there was a short in the power button lead that created some problems during testing. Rosewill's reps confirmed the preproduction nature of my review case and none of their retail cases in-house had the same issues, and reviews of the case on NewEgg do corroborate their claims. If I were buying the Throne from NewEgg I might have a raised eyebrow, but honestly I'm confident those specific issues I ran into are going to be unique to this unit.
| Rosewill Throne Specifications | ||
| Motherboard Form Factor | Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, SSI CEB, SSI EEB, XL-ATX, E-ATX | |
| Drive Bays | External | 3x 5.25" (includes one 5.25" to 3.5" converter) |
| Internal | 10x 2.5"/3.5" | |
| Cooling | Front | 2x 140mm intake fans (supports additional 2x 120mm/140mm fans internally behind drive cage) |
| Rear | 1x 140mm exhaust fan | |
| Top | 2x 140mm exhaust fans (supports 2x 120mm) | |
| Side | 1x 230mm intake fan (supports 4x 120mm) | |
| Bottom | 1x 120mm/140mm fan mount | |
| Expansion Slots | 10 | |
| I/O Port | 2x USB 3.0, 4x USB 2.0, 1x Headphone, 1x Mic, 1x 2.5"/3.5" hotswap bay | |
| Power Supply Size | ATX | |
| Clearances | HSF | 180mm |
| PSU | 330mm | |
| GPU | 330mm | |
| Dimensions |
9.14" x 22.84" x 21.89" 232mm x 580mm x 556mm |
|
| Special Features |
Supports 280mm radiator in top Dual 3-channel fan controllers Hotswap drive bay Toggleable red LED lighting for front fans Open-and-close top vent |
|
| Price | $159 | |
As far as features go, pretty much all the Throne is missing is an SD card reader, though I take some issue with the lack of filters on any of the fans but the bottom (where the only fan in most builds is going to be the one in the power supply). This isn't uncommon for Rosewill's cases but it's something that does need to be addressed; over time a Thor v2 will build up a tremendous amount of dust, and it stands to reason the same may happen with the Throne.
The Throne continues Rosewill's brute force approach to cooling, but the sliding fan controllers can at least take some of the edge off. Specific to Rosewill's beefier designs is the inclusion of a 230mm intake fan on the side panel; while I've sometimes waffled on the value of side intakes, it's pretty hard to ignore the positive impact one this massive can have.
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DanNeely - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
A case like this makes tri-SLI on an ATX board easier too; it's not just EATX builds that benefit. If you get a board with x16 slots at positions 1, 4, and 7, you've got an empty slot between each pair of cards to improve airflow and cooling. While there are atx cases with an 8th slot cover to let you do the same, most of them will push the bottom card up against the PSU obstructing it.I don't think this case is in play for significant water cooling at all. There doesn't appear to be enough clearance between the mobo and the top fans to fit a radiator, without dremeling out the 3.5" cage, you're not going to fit one in the front, and a larger PSU would obstruct the bottom fan mount. The giant door fan should help a lot if you're running multiple air cooled cards; which I think is where this is being targetted.
mwildtech - Friday, August 2, 2013 - link
Doesn't look much different from the Thor, not bad overall.WhitneyLand - Saturday, August 3, 2013 - link
Are these giant case articles less popular on AT nowadays? They seem so irrelevant and anachronistic.@Dustin: Love your writing and articles. This is not a criticism of an author.
I know some people still want to read these, but what’s the big picture trend here with the AT audience?
ShieTar - Thursday, August 22, 2013 - link
Personally, I tend to be most interested in the two extreme options: The Mini-ITX on the one hand, for Media-Player solutions or just On-the-Desk-Systems for friends who need very little computing power. And on the other hand the very big towers, for my own gaming system which just sits next to my desk and gets opened up and fed with new hardware about once a year.So, from an enthusiast point of view, there is nothing anachronistic about giant cases. They give you plenty of options for your build, and as show in this review, once you put an overclocking/SLI setup together, they can quickly become the most silent option too.
random2 - Saturday, August 3, 2013 - link
TIL; Dustin has no taste in cases. :Pbeepboy - Monday, August 5, 2013 - link
On future case reviews, can you include the weight as part of the specs on the first page? It would help me at the very least. Thanks!alex110 - Monday, August 5, 2013 - link
is looking weird.http://mnrparts.co.uk/index.php?route=product/cate...
sulu1977 - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - link
Just out of curiosity, I want to know what your ideal, perfect case would be given a budget of let's say $500 million.J_E_D_70 - Friday, August 9, 2013 - link
I can see it now: I'm playing a game, friend calls and asks what I'm doing, and I reply, "I'm on the throne."warpuck - Thursday, December 18, 2014 - link
Looks good, that is until you try to install 280 radiator in it. Put it in the top? Nope. Put in the front ? Nope. HDD cage is riveted. OK lets see inside the cage then, maybe. Nope. Outside cage? Sell my 690s and get something shorter? Nope fake 3mm screws. OK then a thin 240 in the top maybe if you can live without heat spreaders on your memory. Looked good up to the point after I put the extreme 9 in. OK time for the Dremel tool, saber saw and drill. So the only thing that fits in there handily is a 140 radiator on the exhaust.