Cooling

Does the Sidewinder come with sufficient cooling? Yes, and plenty of it! The Sidewinder comes with three 80mm fans, all with a bright blue light. They spin pretty fast, and yet are rather quiet. They are pre-mounted so that saves you time when you are setting up your system.

Side views

The side fans pull air into the case while the front and the back fans blow the hot air out. At first, I was sceptical of this arrangement, but as it turns out, this cooling method is quite effective at keeping my system cool.

After overclocking my NVIDIA graphics card, I was pleased to see that the temperatures barely rose at all. The ventilation is really good - the fans continuously kept the internal temperature close to that of ambient temperature.

The fans come with pass-through cables so that you can connect them to your power cables without losing power connectors for your peripherals.

Side panel fans

I have the Sidewinder propped up on my table, right next to me, and I can hardly hear the fans. Considering the fact that there are three fans running simultaneously, it's surprising how quiet the whole rig is.

For those who need more cooling, there is still room for a 120mm or 80mm fan at the back of the case. So the case's cooling potential doesn't stop with the included gear.

The included fans seem sturdy and well-built. They spin rather quickly and are bright enough to light up a whole corner of my room. With these fans, there isn't much need for more internal lighting. Of course, you can still change these fans at any time, but I don't see much reason to do that.

Fans in the dark

Fans may seem like a minor issue to the casual computer user, but when fan noise prevents you from enjoying your time at your computer, you will wish you had high-quality fans that don't scream like a jet engine.

Incidentally, the fans are all protected by metal grills. So, your pinkies should be quite safe from the spinning blades!