A little while back I had the pleasure of reviewing Enermax’s cs-10181 entry-level server/workstation case for The Tech Zone. I thought it to be an excellent product worthy of the highest praises. When Maxpoint asked me to take a look at one of Enermax’s new cases again, the CS-5281X-Br I was thrilled to see it. Sure enough within a few days I had the desk sitting in my home office waiting to get unpacked and stuffed full of goodies.

I knew, from reading up on the case, that this would not be a workstation case, and it is clearly geared for the DIY gamer and enthusiast market, even for some LAN party goers. I unpacked the box and found the case to be extremely light. It’s an aluminum construction, with an acrylic window through which to peer onto the motherboard.

The front of the mid-tower mimics the popular Dragon series of cases from Chieftec that has been OEM-ed all over the PC world. Enermax’s flavor of that design is the FS-710 and FS-7101 server towers. However, the plastic is of a much lighter material, supposedly to keep down the weight of the unit overall, which I don’t mind telling you again is really feather light. I’m used to honking heavy steel enclosures for my workstations, so this was a nice treat.

The drive bays are covers by a swinging door with a striking red and black panel with a silver X. The center of the X sports a clear plastic light behind it, held in place by a special two-unit drive bezel. The top slot in the door is conveniently left open for an optical drive, so you don’t have to always open the door to access you CD or DVD drive. This I liked very much about the CS-10181 case, and like very much about this case as well. Oh did I mention the case was very light?