Rosewill had a subtle offering at CES 2016. The case & power manufacturer brought along its recently released full-tower, the Nighthawk 117, and announced the release of a new mid-tower case, the Gungnir. There were also a few minor updates with fans and power supplies that we'll mention at the end of the post.
Released 12/14, the Nighthawk 117 ($115) is the full-tower hybrid of the Throne and the Thor v2. The prominent, adjustable ventilation on those two cases is carried over to the Nighthawk 117. On this new case, Rosewill chose to go with two “click-type,” integrated fan controllers versus the rheostat-types after listening to user input. Other measureables include a top-mounted hot-swap drive bay, 4 x 5.25" drive bays, and 8 x 3.5" drive bays. All of the the 3.5" bays are oriented left-to-right for easy access. The top five 3.5" drive bays can be removed via two thumb screws to increase air flow. The Nighthawk 117 fits any ATX form factor motherboard and has the standard bottom-mounted PSU location. For cooling, the Nighthawk comes with 5 x 140mm fans: 2 blue LED fans in the front, 2 non-LED fans in the top, and 1 non-LED in the rear.
The Gungnir is the newest addition to the Rosewill case family. This mid-tower has lots of clearance on the inside and an industrial look, thanks to a separating PSU shroud like the fixed shroud introduced by NZXT in the H440. Due to the shroud, the power supply must be installed from the back-side. Also found within the back-side of the case are SSD mounting points and 2 x 3.5" drive bays.
For dust management, the Gungnir uses the standard, bottom PSU filter and the increasingly trendy magnetic top dust filter. Going back to the front-side, there are 2 x 5.25" optical drive bays which are directly accessible from the front of the case. Cooling consists of two non-LED 120mm fans in the front and a 140mm red LED fan in the rear.
The first of the minor updates comes to the high-current Hercules 1600W PSU. The power supply's internal components were reworked, allowing it to upgrade its 80 Plus rating from Bronze to Silver. The other minor update is the introduction of a new line of cooling fans called the Seal series. There are two 120mm models (a standard 25mm thick and a slim 15mm thick) and a 140mm model.
Check back soon for more information on the Gungnir. GamersNexus will be testing it in the lab and providing a detailed analysis as soon as the case is available.
- Patrick “Mocalcium” Stone.