Test System

Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done by traditional means, with the use of included spacers and screws. There is plenty of space on all three sides of the board, so you should have no issues with routing the cables nicely. BitFenix does not mention a maximum height for CPU coolers, but considering the 120 mm be quiet! tower fits perfectly, you should be able to fit anything of up to 160 mm in height.


Adding a 3.5" drive is completely tool-less. Simply clip on the rails and slide the storage unit into place until the plastic snaps down onto the metal frame. I am glad BitFenix is no longer using plastic trays as those tend not to work all that well most of the time.


Adding an SSD requires you to use screws and a screwdriver. Once you have taken the mounting plate out of the chassis, you will have to secure the drive with traditional screws. Placing the filled plate back into the chassis is a tool-less process itself since the thumb screw holds the whole thing down.


As there is no shroud to cover the PSU bay, you can easily place such a unit within the chassis after everything has been installed.


With everything in place, the interior of the BitFenix Aurora looks nice and clean. The openings for the cables are a bit far away for an ATX motherboard, but this is simply due to the fact that the chassis may hold an E-ATX variant as well. In the rear, all the cables run along the main channel and are held in place nicely due to well-placed hooks to attach zip ties to.

Finished Looks

Once everything is finished, putting the glass side panels back into place is quite straightforward, but I did have the issue of there not being enough room to put the main panel back until I pulled off the front panel first. This seems to be an issue because there is not a lot of room for variability in manufacturing. As this process is not an exact science, it would have been good had BitFenix allowed for an additional 1-2 mm between the front panel and the glass panel's edge by making the panel ever so slightly smaller.


The rear looks quite traditional, and looking at the main, clear glass panel, you can see all the parts within. The SSD Chroma gives the chassis a little bit of an extra glow, though its glow should also be much stronger in a darker environment than mine.

SSD LED Colors

That said, you can cycle through the colors by pressing the button on the top of the chassis. However, I was missing a bright yellow or orange. Instead, I got a deep and light blue as well as three different shades of green with my sample.