Value and Conclusion
- The Spire Sentor 6004 sells for around 75 Euro. Expect to see a price of around 90 US Dollars.
- Clean looks
- Extended chassis
- Plenty of room for even the largest graphics cards
- Six fans included!
- Small PCBs to connect fans to
- Tool-less trays for the hard drives
- Tool-less system for external drive bays
- Tool-less system for expansion cards
- 5.25 inch to 3.5 inch adapter included
- Solid built frame
- Screws embedded into the case - always at your disposal
- LED fans are extremely noisy
- Side fans block 120 mm tower coolers
- No USB 3.0 connectivity
- No holes for 2.5 inch drives in trays
- Top air vent cannot hold a radiator properly
- Plastic of front cover not as good as other modern cases out there
- Tool-less system for expansion cards and external drives too weak
- No cable management possibilities
- Plastic clips to route cables too weak
- No dust filters in intake areas
- Opening in mainboard tray does not line up with CPU area of boards
The Spire Sentor 6004 looks timeless and may intrigue some with the extended size and total of six fans right out of the box for a reasonable price. Sadly the chassis does not really deliver the user experience one would come to expect from a case in this price segment. Having been launched in December 2010, it can be forgiven that the unit lacks USB 3.0, which will still turn some people away by today's standards. While the fact that Spire includes six fans is great, as these push so much air that you can expect great temperatures within the chassis, the noise level these create is so loud, that working next to such a system will become impossible for extended periods of time.
On top of that, there is no cable management at all and the system Spire employs in form of plastic clips within the interior of the chassis do not really work as well as they should. I could go on and on, but in the end the Spire Sentor 6004 is an understated chassis with pure server/workstation genes but with a noise level inappropriate for either scenario. Those looking for a Spire chassis should look at the Savit 6003 which clocks in at well below 50 Euros and seems to offer a much better set of appropriate features.
Considering the long list of shortcomings, the shortsighted approach to cooling and overall choice of feature implementations, the Sentor 6004 cannot be recommended - especially with that tough competition of cases with a much better feature set at the same price point, while still delivering excellent cooling capabilities at a much quieter operating level.