Cooler Master's CMStorm Stryker Enclosure Drops By the Lab And Decides To Stick Around - The Box and Goodies

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In the world of computer enclosures things can get boring pretty fast; after all how much can you do with a box? For too many companies the way to differentiate their products is to put in a window and extra LEDs and call it a day. There is little that is new to be perfectly honest with you. However, every now and then something comes out that does stand out from the crowd. We have seen it before with some very unique designs and concepts. One company that has done a fairly good job at keeping things interesting is Cooler Master and in particular their CMStorm line. While at CES this year (2012) we were shown a case that caught our eye and imagination. It was the CMStorm Stryker. We called it the Storm Trooper, not only for its connections to the CMStorm Trooper, but also because it reminded me of the Strom Troopers from Star Wars.  We have one of these in our lab now and well… let’s dive in to see what you get and how well it performs.

The Box and Goodies -
The Stryker’s box is pretty nice looking. The front has a very clean picture of the case on it which gives you are very good idea of what it offers for expansion and shows off the “Storm Trooper” look we talked about. Of course you have probably seen multiple pictures and videos of this case so you know that it looks like, but the inclusion of the picture was a nice touch. The tank in the background is a little odd, but we are guessing that it was intended to show the strength of the case and also relate it to gaming somehow. In the upper right-hand corner there is a sticker that announces support for both USB 3.0 and 2.5-inch SSDs. Cooler Master did this part of the Stryker right as we will show you later in this review.
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The back shows off a three-view diagram of the Stryker, but us a little misleading. Looking at the side and front views you might get the impression that you are getting four 120mm fans, two on the side and two in the front. Unfortunately that is not true. There are only two 120mm for the two 3.25-inch HDD cages. The direction of the fans depends on the way you mount the cages (front or side facing). We will talk more about these cages below.
box02Inside the box the Stryker is relatively safe between to Styrofoam end caps and inside a nice plastic bag. Between these two and the cardboard box they can generate a nice amount of static electricity. Be sure to ground yourself before touching anything important after pulling this out. You can also wait until a friend is close and give them a healthy and fun jolt if you are into that sort of thing.

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Cooler Master has included quite a bit of mounting hardware and accessories with the Stryker. They are stashed away in several places around the  when you first get it open We will talk about some of the more creative hiding spots as we do our case walk around.

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