Assembly

Installing the mainboard is done with the traditional method of spacers and screws. As you can see the full size ATX unit fits perfectly fine and there is more than enough space around and above the CPU cooler, giving you free choice in that regard. There is also plenty of space for long cards, even when using two or three in SLI or Crossfire.


Installing the internal hard drives is dead simple. Just slide them into place, throw the door shut and you are done. All the connectors point toward the mainboard tray so you should be able to keep everything looking nice and clean.


Utilizing the hot-swap bays is straight forward as well, but requires the use of a screw driver to secure the drive within the tray. Once done, just slide the tray back into the bay and push the lever shut. It will lock in place with a quiet snap and holds perfectly well thanks to the PCB on the other end.


Even installing an optical drive is a real breeze here. Just take off any of the covers, push the drive in and secure it with the mechanism in place. No taking off the entire front cover, no worrying about the drive not holding in place well. The Hoplite is extremely easy to work with in terms of assembly.


Last but not least, you do need to use a screw driver to secure the PSU within the case. If Enermax would have supplied thumb screws, then this part could have been achieved without such a tool as well. Regardless, it holds in place well.


Once everything is installed and connected, the Hoplite makes a surprisingly good impression. The interior is fairly clean overall, but I still see issues when really filling the chassis to the rim. You can only hide so many cables somewhere.

Finished Looks

Applying the side panel behind the mainboard tray was a real pain as there is simply very little space. With some tough love, I did manage to put it back on without re-routing any cables inside. The case makes a really cool impression once turned on. As you can see, the multi-colored fan really adds to the overall look and feel.


One can nock on the simple and fragile implementation of the HDD dock all day, but the fact that the Hoplite has such a feature, which is still usable may be more important to most. As you can see, the 2.5 inch drive fits perfectly fine, so does a 3.5 inch one. In the rear one can clearly see the blue USB 3.0 cables running out the top hole above the fan. They are long enough that you could actually use an expansion card instead of the mainboard connectors.