A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the Midgard, simply remove the black thumb screws which hold the side panels in place. I had to pry off both panels with an unusual amount of force, as the panels clamp down so hard, that the screws are a mere security measure. The entire interior of the case is painted black, which is certainly not something you can expect to see in many other enclosures of this price point. The general layout does not seem to be anything out of the ordinary at first, but let's take a closer look.


The front of the chassis holds five hard drive trays. These trays make for easy installation of the storage devices and also act as an anti-vibration system. Each tray can actually take a 3.5 or 2.5 inch drive and has an excellent construction quality. This means you won't have to worry about wearing anything out over time. Moving up, we have the five external drive bays. Each of them has a plastic sliding lock in place. Xigmatek has chosen to equip both sides of each bay with these locks. It will be interesting to see how well these hold the drives in place.


Turning to the rear of the case, the power supply bay is actually covered with foam lining to kill any vibration from the PSU. This is another feature I have yet to see in a case for this price segment. The rear expansion slots on the other hand are nothing out of the ordinary. While it is positive that Xigmatek has chosen to use seperate covers to close the gaps, so that you may reuse them at a later point, the locking mechanism feels fairly flimsy and is made completely out of plastic. I have seen these in cases of this price class before and none of them managed to hold a card in place as good as a traditional screw, so I do not have high hopes here.


There are a few other features, which one may not be used to seeing in a case this affordable. The bottom has an opening for a 120 or 140 mm fan, while the top can hold two additional such units. This means that you can fill the Midgard with five additional fans if you wish - well above average.


The I/O and internal case cables are nothing out of the ordinary. Their length is definitely adequate, so you should not have any problems routing them fairly clean through the chassis.


To install any external drives, you will need to pull of the entire front of the case. The construction quality of this part is not too great but acceptable for a case like this. All drive bay covers and the metal mesh air vent are covered with dust filters. This means that all active intake areas of the Xigmatek have such filters, which just leaves us with the side panel openings to worry about.