Assembly

The mainboard is installed with the use of traditional spacers and screws. I have routed the I/O cables below the mainboard tray and secured them with a few of the included zip ties. There is very little space around the CPU area, but thanks to the opening in the ceiling, you should be fine even with 120 mm top blow coolers.


Installing the drives is very easy. Just place the appropriate plastic rails unto the hard drive and slide it into place until it snaps to a halt. No screws or any other tools are needed.


The same goes for the optical drive, with the only extra step being the removal of the case front before sliding it into place. The color coding makes it easy for the user to select the right rails. As you can see, the ones for the hard drive are red, while the ones for the ODDs are blue. Both sets hold surprisingly well and I do not see much reason to use additional screws to secure the drives further.


Installing the PSU is done with the use of four traditional case screws. There is nothing out of the ordinary here and you should be able to use longer units as well without running into any issues.


Once everything is installed and some time is spent routing and hiding the cables, this is the result I was able to achieve. As you can see, I hid the unused PSU cables below the hard drive cage and routed most of the cables through the openings in the mainboard tray. The result is very good and those who spend more time planning and connecting everything should be very happy with the cleanliness of the interior.

Finished Looks

Once turned on, I was very impressed by the overall looks of the chassis. There are very few cases out there which go into this amount of detail. While Cooler Master has two viable alternatives - the HAF and Scout series - the GMC H-80 goes for a well rounded approach instead of edgy lines and corners. Very cool indeed. The simple temperature display is very bright and the two LEDs for power and hard drive access are part of the panel. You should be able to read the temperature from any angle.


As you can see, all the lighting aspects look great in the H-80. GMC has done a good job in finding a well lit compromise with two LED equipped fans (the front and side) and a pair of traditional black ones (rear and top). It has been a while since I nodded in approval when seeing the overall design, look & feel of a chassis in action and the H-80 does not disappoint.