Intro

One of the most used and abused cases to ever hit the modding community and extreme performance circuit was the Chenming 601 series computer case (or call it the Chieftec Dragon, or Antec SX1040, whichever you prefer). The 601 is big, well built, and allows a lot of opportunities for customizing. Not one to rest on their laurels, Chenming improved upon their original design and came up with the Chenming 602A Computer Case. Although there are a couple of shortcomings I'll point out during this review, the Chenming 602A is the finest computer case I've had the pleasure of working with for a long time.

The Package

I heard the UPS truck pull up and looked out the window to see the driver walk this big box up the steps and leave it by the front door. I thought to myself, "Man, those dudes must get pretty strong carrying those boxes around.", because he was holding it with just one arm and had the box leaning against his shoulder. When I went out to retrieve the package, I firmly grasped the box, and heaved it up like I normally do. However, this time I was surprised because it felt like there was nothing in the box and I almost lost my balance. It felt like there was nothing in there except packing peanuts! When I took the box down to my lair and opened it I saw that sure enough, there was a computer case in there. But damn, is it light! I knew it was supposed to be aluminum, and I've had aluminum cases before, but they were a lot heavier than this. When I pulled it from the box and got the packaging off of it, the first thing I did was set it on a scale to see how much it actually weighed. This large case weighs in at only 16 pounds without a PSU. You can see by the box that it was packed in that Chenming doesn't feel they need to waste dollars and time by making the shipping container flashy. The only thing protecting the case inside were two styrofoam inserts and a plastic bag. Luckily, the box was in pretty good shape so I guess no weight sets were stacked on it during shipment and the case arrived unscathed.

The 602 is available in either steel or aluminum flavor, the "A" behind the model number merely denotes that this case is aluminum. The 602A I received arrived sans power supply and front 80mm fans. There wasn't much that was included with it, a bag o' screws and a single page of picture instructions. A nice touch was that inside the larger bag of screws, there were sorted individual bags that were labeled as to what they contain. Of course, you also receive the keys to open the front panel and side door locks.