Kingwin’s KT-436 cases drew more than just a little attention to the small case company. Since November, we have received dozens of questions regarding this case, and more frequently, when will the next revision unveil itself? Today, we bring you one of the first looks at Kingwin’s next generation Aluminum chassis.

Kingwin’s design has changed significantly from the KT-436. We commended Kingwin on improving upon the Lian Li design in the KT-436, while keeping the cost down.

Without further delay, here is our first look at Kingwin’s newest case line, the KT-424 series.

External Construction

The overall construction of the KT-424 is similar to any other aluminum case on the market right now. Kingwin uses 2.00mm think aluminum-magnesium sheets that are primarily folded. The KT-424 has only one very Lian Li-looking side window, rather than two on the KT-436. The top acrylic window has also been eliminated.

Breakdown
	1	No power supply
	2	Drive Bays x 10 4 x 5.25” External Drive Bays 2 x 3.5” External Drive Bays 4 x 3.5” Internal Drive Bays
	3	80mmx80mmx25mm, 1 x Exhaust
	4	Variable Fan Control
	5	80mmx80mmx25mm, 2 x Intake
	6	up to 2.85V (in 0.1V increments)

This is a more subdued case than the KT-436. Each external bay came with an aluminum face plate, which goes a long way in appearance. These plates are actually screwed in, and must be removed after taking off the face plate. Some might say this is an annoyance, but we think it gives the case an even sturdier look and feel, particularly if you are always fiddling for buttons on your DVD/CD drives.

The horizontal intake has been replaced by a vertical 2-fan intake behind dense metal mesh. In our opinion, this meshed look is identical to the CoolerMaster ATC series intake.

Kingwin took a bit of heat on their last case because the power and reset buttons would get stuck on the acrylic face. Some engineer somewhere must have shook his fist and returned with the most sturdy button design that we have seen. The smooth plastic buttons are inlaid inside the aluminum housing, and do not stick. The whole component is made of a single piece of plastic that requires you to actually break it in order to remove it.

Front Panel

Virtually every new case seems to come with forward USB and Firewire connections. The KT-424 is no different. A small plastic door houses two USB adaptors and a Firewire adaptor. The Firewire connector from the adaptor leads out the back of the case via a dedicated opening, and then plugs into the motherboard or expansion card.

We do commend Kingwin for including an additional opening, rather than just forcing the user to snake the cables through the PCI openings. However, one question has to be asked: where are the forward audio connectors? We realize that the KT-424 is not the same high quality case as the KT-436, but forward inputs are very important. Anyone with headphones (think LAN parties) knows that forward audio adaptors are simple, but extremely useful afterthoughts on a case.

The front bezel pulls off from the bottom to reveal the intake filters. This removable plastic dust filter is an additional precaution, located behind the metallic dust grill on the front bezel. After a few days of running time, we noticed that this filter was, in fact, collecting dust. Kingwin’s implementation of the dust guard is, by far, one of the more effective examples we have seen.

The curious item under the bezel is the adjustable fan control. For whatever reason, Kingwin thought it was unnecessary to provide an opening for this fan control, and only allow operation with the grill off. Perhaps we should not operate the fan control very often, or at least this is what Kingwin thinks. We do like the idea of putting fan controls right on the case (rather than bay units), but Kingwin probably should have given the control an opening.

More on External Construction

Quite often, we overlook the removable panel or door to a case. Usually, we do not need to talk about this. However, once in a while, it slips by us and three months later, someone asks us, "Why did you give such a high rating to a case with a panel that I can’t remove or put back?"

Kingwin went with a very traditional panel door. The insets are oversized and the case does not produce any unnecessary complications to close or open. However, it is unusually heavy. The 8mm acrylic cutout is not flush with the rest of the panel, so the panel is slightly difficult to put back if you do not lay the case on its side.

The largest problem we have had with aluminum is its malleability. Whereas steel cases have sharp edges everywhere, aluminum cases have bent corners and creased paneling. Particularly, the side removable panels like to bend the most. The excessively think acrylic on the left side panel seems to keep the side panel from creasing, but carelessness can and will bend the right panel.

One of the more unusual little items was the carbon fiber insert along the top of the front bezel. This same insert makes itself present on almost every Lian Li case.

All external components on the case were removed with thumbscrews. The resemblance to Lian Li’s budget aluminum line is certainly present, but the inside differs greatly.

Inside the KT-424

Unlike some other aluminum cases that we have reviewed, the aluminum construction continues inside the case throughout every structure. We immediately noticed the rubber mounts for the hard drives. Kingwin placed these rubber stoppers inside the mounting holes for each 3.5” internal bay. As we have noticed in our testing of this case, these stoppers do dampen the noise of the hard drives spinning. This upgrade adds considerably to the performance of the case at almost no cost.

Our only complaint about the hard drive mounting is the absence of any sort of removable bays. Unscrewing the hard drives requires both sides of the tower to be removed. Welcome back to the dark ages.

The KT-424 came with yet another solution for "screw less" bay mounting on the external 3.5” and 5.25” bays. These are similar to the Foxconn clips that pull forward to apply pressure on the sides of the components. As far as we can tell, these clips are durable and work well, but can inhibit your choke of fan controllers or other half length external devices. Removing the clips does not help, since there are no standard sized holes to mount something with screws.

PCI and AGP expansion bays used standard thumbscrews and metal covers. We have seen a lot of different suggestions to this design, but in our opinion, this still might be the best.

An unusual sharp edge exists up at the top, along the power supply mounting. Kingwin does not include plastic runners with the KT-424, so all edges are smoothed or folded over.

Motherboard Tray

One lone 80mm exhaust fan sits on the removable motherboard tray. The KT-436 had a very stable and practical removable tray, and the KT-424 is no different. Four thumbscrews keep the tray in place; but when removed, the tray moves very fluidly along the two aluminum rails. The tray does not wobble or stick when removing.

This motherboard tray has a plethora of hard points. Almost fifty precut slots allow you to insert the included metal risers. The motherboard is screwed into these risers. We are not quite sure how many of these hard points are usable, but kudos to Kingwin for providing so many anyway.

One feature really stuck out to us. Have you ever removed your motherboard tray and had to disconnect each and every LED lead? The KT-424 includes a disconnecting lead bundle, which allows you to connect one side to the motherboard at all times. If you wish to pull the motherboard out, the bundle disconnects, rather than reseating the entire battery of tiny little pins and connectors. Again, this is one of those 10-cent solutions that end up performing their share of convenience, hundreds of times over.

The interchangeable motherboard EMI shield remains the same steel item that is included with most motherboards anyway. We hate these things. Not only because they remain the last Bastille of Pain on a case (sharp edges), but also because they are a pain to remove and put back. Although it may be a pipe dream, our hats go off to the manufacturer who can figure out how to get rid of these EMI shields.

Installation

When we visited Kingwin a few months ago, one of the things we mentioned to them was the need for an installation guide. Granted, most system builders don’t need anything of the sort, but for first timers, the installation manual means everything. Unfortunately, the manual is riddled with spelling and grammatical mistakes, and even more curious, all four pages were out of order (the manual reads from right to left).

Hopefully, Kingwin has a sense of humor. Their fan control directions read:

"Change the front cooling fans speed By rotating switch turn switch clockwise for high speed turn anti-clockwise for slow down cooling fans running speed also can less the cooling fans running noise."

Nevertheless, the pictures and general gist of the manual is easily understood, and Kingwin gets an "A" for effort when it comes to their "aliminum" case manual.

Installation took about ten minutes for our normal test rig. Removal of all the components took a little less time, around five minutes. There was plenty of room to work in the case, and enough leeway on all sides of the motherboard tray. The largest advantage to installation is the motherboard tray itself.

Benchmark

We have a few heat and sound intensive tests lined up for the Kingwin KT-424. The Heatsink reading is actually the temperature inside the heatsink. CPU temperature is recorded as a separate measurement. All temperature is recorded in degrees Celsius. The heat tests were each performed inside the closed case with the external temperature of 23.0 degrees Celsius, during a full system load. The fan speeds on the front rheobus was placed on high. Our test bed consists of:

Thermometer Positions
	Gigabyte GA-7VRX
	AMD Athlon MP 2100+
	2 x 128 DDR Corsair XMS 2400
	ThermalTake Volcano 7
	Seagate Cheetah 10000RPM
	Inno3D GeForce4 Ti 4200
	PCP&C 475W Turbo Cool

The thermal readings for the different components during operation were as follows:

Kingwin KT-424-WM
	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	50.7	35.7	35.1	26.3	29.1	27.1
After 30 minutes	51.0	36.3	36.2	27.1	30.0	27.5

ThermalTake Xaser III
	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	51.2	34.8	36.4	25.4	24.1	29.1
After 30 minutes	51.7	36.9	37.7	26.2	24.7	30.4

Kingwin KT-436-WM
	CPU	Video	Heatsink	Mobo 1	Mobo 2	HD
After 10 minutes	54.0	32.5	38.0	25.0	28.5	27.2
After 30 minutes	54.5	33.3	38.9	26.1	29.0	28.6

Sound is recorded in decibels, 12" away from the closed case in order to replicate a production system most accurately. Ambient noise ran about 21dBA, and the power supply fan was disabled.

	dBA
Kingwin KT-424 Aluminum	48
ThermalTake Xaser III Aluminum Fan High	55
ThermalTake Xaser III Aluminum Fan Low	52
Cooler Master ATC-201A Aluminum	53
Kingwin KT-436-BK-WM Aluminum	50

Cooling tests pretty much confirmed what we already knew. The two intakes above the hard drives provide enough airflow to keep the case reasonably cool, but not quite as well as the larger Xaser III or the KT-436. Keep in mind, the older KT-436 has more fans and also a much higher price tag. The lower hard drive speeds are most likely attributed to the vertical stacking of the hard drives, whereas the KT-436 has stacked them horizontally.

The reduced exhaust (1x80mm fan) lowered the noise level slightly. Using some higher quality fans would reduce the noise level significantly, but our loudest item in the case is the Volcano 7 (which we will probably phase out for future reviews). Overall performance was about part for this case. Feel free to check the statistics of some of our older case reviews.

Final Thoughts

Performance of this case is not spectacular, but you do get a lot for under $100. When stacked up against the expensive ThermalTake Xaser III or the pricier Kingwin KT-436, the KT-424 does pretty well. We continue to keep a close eye on Kingwin, as they definitely are a worthy adversary to ThermalTake and Lian Li.

The little touches on this case are what made it a much better case than it should have been. The rubber hard drive mounts, tool-less bay clips, removable tray and detachable motherboard leads were the 50-cent additions that made the case worthy enough for our recommendation. Of course, we would like to see this case hit the sub $70 range. But give them time, and we are confident that Kingwin can bring themselves to that point. The manual does need some work, especially if Kingwin wants to compete with ThermalTake’s excellent documentation.

Overall, the KT-424 is a well designed, aftermarket case. The price is right and the features are good. Congratulations to Kingwin on another excellent attempt in the consumer enclosure market.