Interior

On the inside we have a traditional motherboard layout which can support ATX, micro-ATX and baby AT. On the bottom left hand corner there are two predrilled grommet holes for water tubing. The position of the rear 120 mm fan means the case is already set up for many comment radiators so you won't have to run very far to reach your water blocks. Add-in cards are held in place with a snap lock system that feels fairly secure, even with the Radeon X1800 running at 100%. The drive bays use screwless click locks that also work really well to hold in all your drives, and there was no rattling heard during our testing.

At the very bottom of the drive bays, there is a hard drive cage which features a completely screwless rail system that can hold up to four hard drives. Adding or removing hard drives is fairly simple and only takes a matter of seconds to accomplish. Included with the Guardian is a little black pouch that contains all the screws, bay covers, rails, and other little trinkets you will need to setup your system. Also included in this pouch are little adhesive clips that you can use to help route wires to keep them out of your way, ensuring proper airflow throughout your entire case.

System Setup

AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition Stock

AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition @ 3.05Ghz

Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5

OCZ Reaper 2x4GB PC8500 5-5-5 DDR2 RAM

ATI Radeon X1800

Western Digital 300GB SATAII

Lite-On LH-20A1S DVDRW

Raytek Mini-Temp Thermal Temperature Gun

Extech 407732 Sound Level Meter

For testing, we decided to not only test the thermal and audible properties of the guardian, but also the accuracy of the front panel LCD. Temperatures were monitored using a Raytek Mini-Temp Thermometer gun and audio levels were read using an Extech 407732 sound level meter.