• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Cougar Introduces the DarkBlader X5 Mid-tower Case

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,230 (7.55/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
Cougar today expanded its DarkBlader line of asymmetric front-panel mid-tower cases with the new DarkBlader X5. This case retains the core design of the older DarkBlader series cases, with a handful changes: firstly, the larger trapezium-shaped half of the front facade is a tinted, translucent (frost finish) plastic surface, instead of a solid slab of metal-finish plastic. The smaller half has three large air intakes for the fans inside. The DarkBlader X5 by default doesn't include front fans, but its slightly pricier DarkBlader X5 RGB variant include three. The RGB variant also includes a 6-channel ARGB lighting controller, and a front-panel switch that lets you toggle between several lighting presets. Both the base- and RGB variants further come in two color-based sub-variants: black and white. These aside, the DarkBlader X5 has identical dimensions and features to the original DarkBlader series. The company didn't reveal pricing.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
5,545 (0.96/day)
System Name Cyberline
Processor Intel Core i7 2600k -> 12600k
Motherboard Asus P8P67 LE Rev 3.0 -> Gigabyte Z690 Auros Elite DDR4
Cooling Tuniq Tower 120 -> Custom Watercoolingloop
Memory Corsair (4x2) 8gb 1600mhz -> Crucial (8x2) 16gb 3600mhz
Video Card(s) AMD RX480 -> RX7800XT
Storage Samsung 750 Evo 250gb SSD + WD 1tb x 2 + WD 2tb -> 2tb MVMe SSD
Display(s) Philips 32inch LPF5605H (television) -> Dell S3220DGF
Case antec 600 -> Thermaltake Tenor HTCP case
Audio Device(s) Focusrite 2i4 (USB)
Power Supply Seasonic 620watt 80+ Platinum
Mouse Elecom EX-G
Keyboard Rapoo V700
Software Windows 10 Pro 64bit
man that leaves like...8% or so for the fans to suck air from? fantastic design!
 
Joined
Dec 31, 2009
Messages
19,371 (3.56/day)
Benchmark Scores Faster than yours... I'd bet on it. :)
I'll also guess that this doesn't seem to breathe very well......

It's so annoying to me that you can't just flip through the images here......... no arrows.... must close then open, close then open...... :(
 
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Messages
14,084 (3.82/day)
Location
Sunshine Coast
System Name H7 Flow 2024
Processor AMD 5800X3D
Motherboard Asus X570 Tough Gaming
Cooling Custom liquid
Memory 32 GB DDR4
Video Card(s) Intel ARC A750
Storage Crucial P5 Plus 2TB.
Display(s) AOC 24" Freesync 1m.s. 75Hz
Mouse Lenovo
Keyboard Eweadn Mechanical
Software W11 Pro 64 bit
Joined
Feb 20, 2019
Messages
8,265 (3.93/day)
System Name Bragging Rights
Processor Atom Z3735F 1.33GHz
Motherboard It has no markings but it's green
Cooling No, it's a 2.2W processor
Memory 2GB DDR3L-1333
Video Card(s) Gen7 Intel HD (4EU @ 311MHz)
Storage 32GB eMMC and 128GB Sandisk Extreme U3
Display(s) 10" IPS 1280x800 60Hz
Case Veddha T2
Audio Device(s) Apparently, yes
Power Supply Samsung 18W 5V fast-charger
Mouse MX Anywhere 2
Keyboard Logitech MX Keys (not Cherry MX at all)
VR HMD Samsung Oddyssey, not that I'd plug it into this though....
Software W10 21H1, barely
Benchmark Scores I once clocked a Celeron-300A to 564MHz on an Abit BE6 and it scored over 9000.
From my limited experience Cougar cases are actually well made and decent quality. It's just a shame that this is another terrible case following the current fad of:
  • Way too large because of support for 3+ simultaneous very large radiators when the average number of radiators in a PC is about 0.2 radiators and more than one is rare.
  • Vertical graphics card mount jammed up against the 'ventilation disaster' tempered glass nonsense.
  • HUGE amount of intake airflow potential (3x140mm) utterly ruined by decorative idiocy in the form of frosted perpex this time....
  • stupid RGBLED lights controller, but no fan controller or even a PWM hub for the eight fans this case is designed for? /facepalm.
Another victim of the RGBLED tempered glass blight....
 
Top