Assembly

Due to the compact dimensions, you should assemble the motherboard with cooler before placing it within the chassis. For more compact coolers, lowering it from the top opening is also an option. As you can see, we have prepared the mountings for water-cooling before installing the board.


As the Prodigy can hold radiators, my aim was to include such an element, but still keep the utmost expandability in terms of drive bays and keep all air cooling elements as well. Turning the 120 mm radiator sideways actually gives you just enough clearance to keep using the optical drive bay as well. This will work with thin radiators, but as soon as a thick unit is used, the ODD bay may not be usable anymore, depending on the length of the drive to be installed.

The Prodigy will easily fit any GPU you throw at at, with a length of up to 310 mm if you do not mind removing the top HDD cage. Considering that you are still left with plenty of bays, this is not really an issue as the benefit of a high performance graphics card are just too important.


Adding 3.5 inch drives to the chassis is done just like most other BitFenix case offerings. The trays themselves allow for tool-less installation and do a decent job. The only small downside are the rubber ringed pins, which tend to pop out when squeezing a drive in there if you are not careful. These parts are put back into place easily enough, but make things a tad bit more complicated. Onve in place, simply slide the tray in, until it snaps into place - no tools or screws needed.


To show you where you can install the 2.5 inch variants, I have filled every location within the case and one in the side panel. Unfortunatly, I did not have any more 2.5 inch drives lying around and interestingly enough, the Prodigy sample did not come with enough screws. I had to resort to using two screws on each drive instead of four. Lucky for me, standard screws will fit any of these locations and odds are you should have no issues finding some to mount every unit.


Installing the optical drive is an easy task, but requires that you pull off the front of the chassis first, as the cover is screwed unto this part of the case. Once free, simply slide the drive in and secure it with screws. I used a standard LG DVD drive, which ended up being the perfect length, without colliding with the radiator. you will end up having to use angled connectors in my case, but that still means liquid cooling + maximum air flow.


Installing the PSU is a bit tricky business. While the preparations are easy and routing the cables presents no problem as well, the Tagan branded PSU barely fit with some though love on my part. So it is good that BitFenix is going to offer the extension part in the near future.


With everything in place, the Prodigy makes a really good impression, even though my cable management is pretty basic, those wanting to get the most out of their case should invest in short and possibly even sleeved cables. BitFenix should also include some zip ties, which are sorely missed at this point.

Finished Looks

Putting the side panels back in place, the BitFenix Prodigy makes a really cool chassis, with the black and white contrast extremely well placed. The blue LED on the side is actually quite bright, as you can see it illuminating the wall to the right of the case.


A black ODD is the perfect choice for the case and BitFenix has chosen well by not including a stealth cover in white for the case. In the rear all elements are easily accessible - just as you would expect from much larger cases.


The LED is so bright, that my camera hat a hard time capturing it properly without reducing the exposure time and thus the overall brightness of the picture above. But being placed on the side, the effect is limited properly, so you won't have to worry about something blinding you at a LAN party - just the person to your right ;).