In-Win Allure mATX Case Review

Installation

When installing hardware, it is recommended to do so in the following order due to space constraints: power supply, external 3.5” devices, motherboard, and then optical and hard drives. The vortex air duct made it extremely hard to install hardware into this case, but it was easily removed. Overall, installing hardware into the Allure was easy thanks to well-illustrated instructions but the case is a bit cramped.


The instruction manual was very easy to follow and outlined the steps necessary to open the case, add a PCI/AGP card and install the motherboard, hard drive, external drives, and rear fan. It did not, however, outline the necessary step to open the second back panel to screw in the power supply. In order to do this, I had to pull up on two white tabs at the bottom of the case near the rear. To put this piece back in, push the bottom white tabs in first then snap the top back in place.


Once all the hardware had been put in its place, all the cables reached where they needed to without any modding and all excess cable length was neatly tucked away near the front of the case. I had good access to the front panel connectors with the motherboard used. After securing the back panels back on, I found that I only had to punch out one of the mesh pieces as the rest of the wires, including the power cable, came neatly out the bottom.

The tool-less features were easy to use, adequate and held hardware securely; however, the option to use screws is available if someone felt like using them. There were no sharp edges when working inside the Allure, which speaks a bit of its build quality. It is prudent, however, to be careful with laying the case down on its side to work on it because of all of the Swarovski crystals. I guess this is why they included extras.

It was slightly annoying trying to install an expansion card because all of the expansion covers fell out when the latch was flicked open. The included fan was not particularly loud but also not particularly good at moving air out of the case either. Also, there was not much in terms of extra screws which is fine because it keeps things simple.


The hardware configuration used is as follows:

- Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 (stock all aluminum cooler)
- 2 x 256MB Crucial PC2-4200
- Gigabyte S-Series GA-G31MX-S2
- Old 40GB IDE Hard Drive
- Antec Smart Power 2.0 450W Power Supply (pulled from Sonata II)
- Pioneer IDE DVD Burner
- On board video was used
- Windows XP


Cooling Performance

Overall, the cooling performance of the Allure seems to be good but it is really nothing to write home about since it comes with only a single 92mm fan installed. The vortex air duct does a good job of bringing fresh air to the CPU. The CPU temperature under load (using core temperatures from Prime 95) when the system is set up inside the case is only a couple degrees (2°C) higher on each core than when the system is set up on an open test bed.

There are vents on the side and back panels of the chassis plus the single generic 92mm exhaust fan which all seems to be sufficient to cool off lower-end components. The hard drives (as well as the rest of the front of the case) do not have direct air flow and adding a high end video card may be a mistake as it probably would not be adequately cooled.

For my purposes and with the hardware that I have installed, which is both value oriented and entry level, the Allure cools everything just fine.