Raijintek Ophion Review

Written by Antony Leather

December 14, 2018 | 17:00

Tags: #case #chassis #mini-itx #small-form-factor

Companies: #raijintek

Interior

With the graphics card area stretching the length of the case, the PSU shares the same chamber as the motherboard and this can pose issues with cable tidying, as there isn't really anywhere to stow them except around the PSU itself. We also found the easiest and most aesthetically pleasing route for the PCIe power cables was to feed them over the top of the motherboard tray, but this meant they kept fouling the fans we'd installed to gauge space. There's 90mm of CPU cooler clearance, and with no way to mount an AIO liquid cooler in the standard Ophion, you'll need to make the most of that, especially if you'll be overclocking.

It's a shame a small U-shaped cut out couldn't have been made above the perforations in the motherboard tray, as this would have solved the issue at a stroke.The PCIe riser cable is threaded underneath the motherboard to the other side of the case, with the mount for the graphics card located low enough to allow monster-wide cards to be installed with the mount itself acting as a support for the card along with the expansion slots. 

There's a small gap under the motherboard tray for routing cables, so this is probably the best way to avoid fouling any roof fans you install - if your cables are long enough that is. The roof is one location you can install fans, but you do get an additional 120mm mount in the base of the case - that's two more than the Metis, and with the larger Ophion Evo there's enough clearance above the motherboard tray to house a 240mm AIO liquid cooler, so plenty of scope in terms of cooling for housing a high-end overclocked PC.

The logical fan setup would be blowing air through the radiator and out of the case, with the base fan acting as an intake. Achieving positive air pressure could be tricky, though, with the PSU acting as an exhaust too. Storage mounts are dotted around all over the place, with a single 2.5" mount in the front of the case, revealed if you pop off the front panel, and the base beneath the motherboard housing either a pair of SSDs or single 3.5" hard disk at the expense of the fan mount. If you need additional storage space, the larger Ophion Evo can house two 2.5" SSDs in the front, with space for a second drive above the first thanks to the extra height.

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