Gamertell

Product: Ultra m998 ATX mid-tower PC case
Price: $199.99
Rating: 8/10
Pros: A lot of room to work, very sturdy construction, finished interior and incorporated power plugs.
Cons: Unclear instruction manual and a few crucial difficult-to-reach screws and non-existent “tabs.”
Overall: Great for anyone looking to piece together a rig from scratch and load it up with drives and extra cards.

Gathering the best computer guts means little without a place to put it in. Doesn’t matter if you’re building a word processing PC for your grandmother or a high-end gaming rig, the most important and looked at part of a computer is the case.

If you are putting together a PC and need a few more than the standard two drive bays and three or or for card slots, Ultra has a mid-tower ATX case that might suit your needs.

The m998 ATX PC case not only looks nice sitting on your floor but also offers extra drive bays, a sliding motherboard tray, a hefty and well-supported metal core and three independently removable sides for easy access.

Design – This mid-form case measures 9 3/8 in. wide, 21 13/16 in . deep and 17 13/16 in. tall (18 1/8 in. including rubber feet).

The left side (when looking at the front) has a clear plexi panel that measures 15 in. wide and 14 in. tall set back 2 in. from the back of the case. It has a 3 1/2 in. circular vent (with internal coupler) built in as well as a 4 3/4 by 3 in. rectangular vent.

The core. interior and supports are all finished black metal.  The front has a black plastic facade that can be removed to reveal the upper drive bay fronts. The back has a large shiny silver panel and is pre-cut for two 2 1/2 in. ports (with pop-out metal guards), 8 card slots (covers are internally attached with thumbscrews) and a 6 1/4 x 1 3/4 open slot. The back panel is attached using five thumbscrews and, once unfastened, can be pulled out along with the motherboard tray.

The top and both side panels can be separately removed by unscrewing two thumbscrews for each panel.  In fact, most everything in the system is attached using thumbscrews, with only internal components such as the fans being fastened with flat screws.

The case also ships with two boxes of extras including an extender power supply face plate. The smaller box contained four plastic casters (wheels) with mini brakes and a metal fastening plates. The other included four bags of screws (three of various sized black screws and one with various sized silver screws and a few washers), a silver plate for the back panel (precut and etched for the following ports: mouse, keyboard, ethernet, USB x2, printer, monitor x2, three 3 mm audio and one joystick/auxiliary port) and 13 internal power cables of various lengths and configurations

It also comes with a User Manual with 3 pages in English. Each page has small photos that show how to install drives, the motherboard and a power supply.

Features – There are two built-in 4 1/4 in. fans, one in the back panel and anther in the front panel. The front panel ports are all pre-wired and only need to be plugged into the motherboard. An internal board mounted on the left/motherboard panel includes a raised section with 6 male 4-pin ports and 4 female 6-pin ports. This is helps make managing the power cables quite a bit easier especially if you plan to install a bulk water colling system.

The drive bays include enough room, from top down, 4 long 6 in. drives, 2 short 4 1/4 drives and 4 long 4 1/4 drives. The front system fan is in front of the bottom 4 bays and the rest of the bays have metal pop-out panels so the drive can extend into the plastic facade after removing the standard plastic panels.

The front of the system has a hinged mini cover that swings open to expose 2 USB ports, 1 SATA port, 1 FireWire port and two 3 mm. audio ports. Above the hinged panel are three lights and two switches.

Performance – The only real way to judge a case is how easy it is to take apart and how well stuff fits into it. Since I didn’t have any spare motherboards to fiddle with, I put in a power supply (the 850 watt StarTech WattSmart reviewed earlier) and slid in different size drives in each by to make certain they fit.

The power supply was pretty easy to put in, though it did require the extra silver faceplate included with the case. Removing the top and side panels was the easiest, since it only took removing two thumbscrews per panel.

There were two parts that, according to the manual, should have been incredibly easy to remove but were instead frustratingly difficult. The first is the front facade. The manual simply states, “Gently lift tabs to remove m998 front panel.” The tabs are, however, inside the case and cannot be gently lifted. Instead, you need to remove the right side panel, locate the three tabs and push (with a bit of force) to pop out each one from the left side. Then the face can be tilted so the three tabs on the other side will come out. Unfortunately for me, it took me about 30 minutes to find the tabs and remove the front panel the first time.

The second major obstacle was removing the internal motherboard tray. The case does offer a nice feature that allows the tray that houses the motherboard to be slid out like a shelf from the back of the case. Unfortunately, the manual does not mention the three tiny, hard-to-get-to screws that lock the tray in place. One is a bit easier to see at the top of the tray (near the top of the case). The other two screw are under the lip of the tray and pretty much impossible to see. You’ll need to feel your way to the screws and find a short enough Philip’s head screwdriver to fit into the case and remove the screws. Chalk up another 20-30 minutes of frustration trying to figure out that one.

After you figure those out (and I hope I saved you the hour of cranky searching it took me), removing panels and putting in parts is be a breeze. There are 33 screw holes positions along the motherboard try to accommodate pretty much any size ATX motherboard. All the bays have plenty of screw slots (instead of holes) along the side to fit various drives, although you may want to make sure you have some extra side mounting panels for your drives if they don’t offer side screw holes.

Overall – The manual for this case did not do it justice at all, causing far more frustration than necessary especially for considering the price of the case.

Also, the three screws securing the motherboard tray in place may have been meant to keep things in place during shipping (I assume since they want you to be able to slide out the tray), but it was a wrist-wrenching chore to remove them. Once the face plate is figured out, it takes only a minute to remove.

The three removable panels, many bays, card slots and internal array of power ports helps to make this case great for piecing together a custom rig with lots of extra components. Of course, you’ll need a hefty power supply to make certain everything gets the juice it needs and a few extra lights to make the guts look cool. Sending wheels with it is a nice touch especially since the m998 is a bit larger and heavier than the average PC case.

Editors Note: The categories were weighted in the following manner to reflect the importance of some features over others (in our humble opinion). Design 40%, Features 40%, and Performance 20%.

Product Page [Ultra m998 ATX Mid-Tower PC Case] Also Read [Overclocker Cafe] Also Read [Legit Reviews]

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