Today the first half of my order arrived: the case, the mainboard and the fan. As this delivery was somewhat unexpected (the mainboard is a new model, and I had expected it a week later), I now have new hardware I can not use, due to the lack of a CPU. This is a bit embarassing, but cannot be changed right now, so I'll start with what I have.
My apologies for the appaling quality of the pictures, but all I have in the way of digital image capture is the camera in my cell phone.
The Case
The first thing I noticed about the case is how solid it looks and feels. Contrary to the photos I had seen so far the case is not all black, but the sides and the top and bottom are a dark siverish grey. The front, however, is black. I have to say it looks quite good.
Although the front and sides are plastic, there is absolutely nothing cheap about the feeling. This is underlined by the weight of the thing. Even though there is no power supply in it (that is external), and no parts have been mounted yet, the empty case weighs over seven kilograms. Under the plasic outside panels there is a massive metal cage. It really has a no-nonsense feel to it.
The inside is full of pre-routed cables that lead to the front panel, the power distribution plane and the hard disk backplane. The case has a 20+4-pin ATX power connector plus the four pin additional CPU power connector most current boards need. Luckily, all the MSI board requires is the 20-pin ATX connector.
A pleasant surprise (aside from the colour) was that the case has a multi-format card reader already built in. From the manufacturers site I had gathered that this was an optional extra, but my case came with one included.
Also included is a CPU fan, but that is quite specific for a certain mainboard, and will not fit most other boards, so it is useless to me.
What is not included is a manual, at least I have not found any. As all of the cables are clearly labeled this is not much of a problem, though.
The Board
The mainboard comes with the usual assortment of cables (2xSATA, 2xSATA power adaptor, 44-pin IDE) and the rear panel bracket. In addition, it also contains a CPU fan, which surprised me. It also is a Coolermaster model, but not the same I ordered extra. If, as I suspect, the CPU also comes with a fan I'll have quite enough of those things.
The board also had a pleasant surprise, this one on the bottom of the board. MSI put a CF card socket there, which the web site stated as an optional extra. I think I'll use a CF card instead of the notebook hard disk,
as this produces less noise and heat.
The Fan
Well... it's a fan, right? Goes on the CPU, and hopefully does not make too much noise. I can always threaten it with the other fan if it does.