MGE Sidewinder: A Look at a Gaming Chassis

Internal Design

Taking a look at the Sidewinder's internals, we are reminded of the design of the drive bays from Enermax's Sea Hawk, which we reviewed in August. Just like the Sea Hawk, the Sidewinder has four 5-1/4" drive bays and a total of six 3-1/2" drive bays, on which there should provide enough space to expand for the average gamer.

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The layout of the Sidewinder, otherwise, is the standard ATX type. There is about 4" of room between the average ATX motherboard and the drive bays and slightly less than 1" of space between the motherboard and power supply.

The back panel features a removable motherboard IO back shield. Some cases feature back shields that require it to be punched out, which could bend it out of shape, but MGE has designed a removable/replaceable plate that can be secured with screws. This allows users to supply their own back shields that support their motherboard's layout. In order for our Chaintech board to fit in place nicely, we had to remove the back plate altogether.

Click to enlarge.

On the back panel of the case towards the left side panel are punched out IO slots for expanding on IO capabilities, for example, to add more serial ports.