Enermax Uber Chakra

Enter a New Enlightened Era of serene karma product names.

A chakra is one of seven centres of spiritual energy in the human body, according to yoga philosophy. How this name associates with cases, we aren’t sure.

Nonetheless, we took the opportunity to look at the new Uber Chakra from Enermax, as if it were somehow better than any chakra us paltry meatbags could offer.

The Uber Chakra has a bold style and confronting size. Measuring 216mm x 552mm x 550mm (W x H x D), the case slots into the ATX full tower category, with its largeness allowing for five external 5.25” bays, two external 3.5” bays and six internal 3.5” bays for all of your storage needs.

The fascia is a combination of a plastic frame, with metal mesh covers over the external bay as well as a mesh opening for front-mounted 120mm fan.

While on the matter of fans, the Uber Chakra offers a multitude of cooling bits. At stock, the case contains a front intake 120mm fan and a 250mm fan mounted on the side panel. Both fans have built-in blue LED lights for some subtle glowing effects. In addition to these fans, there is a provision for mounting a fan in the rear of the case. This mounting allows for either 80mm, 92mm or 120mm fans to be secured for rear exhaust.

The case offers some interesting features and tweaks to some generally ordinary features. For example, the side 250mm fan has three cycle modes. The first is an off position, the next is to spin the fan to push air into the case and the third position sets it to extract air. This switch is easily accessible from the exterior of the side panel as it is built into the bezel of the side mesh window. Another feature of this large side-mounted fan is the ability to turn the LED lighting within the fan on and off. This allows for further preferences made by the user and the ability to turn off the glittering bling of the LEDs if a situation calls for it.

Also of interest is the inclusion of an eSATA port on the front exterior IO area with the traditional USB, mic and speaker ports. We’re happy to see innovations such as this and the inclusion of an easily accessible port that is quickly becoming the preferred interface for external devices, particularly portable hard drives.

To allow for easy PSU installation, the PSU retention bracket is removable, thus creating a large enough hole with which to slide a PSU into.

On the flip-side of easy installation, is the removal of the of the external drive bay covers in order to install a drive. A word to the wise: We found this extremely difficult and the process is not for those without a strong will to succeed. Once removed however, the installation of devices into the now-empty bays is quite easy. Adopting a tool-less design, as found on many cases in the market today, it’s a welcomed simplicity after the initial battle with the mesh drive covers.

The internal construction is generally quite good with edges either filed or rolled to reduce any risk of cutting one’s self while tinkering within. There are some minor sharp edges, though they’re not generally within the areas brushed by during your average building or tweaking session and it’s unlike you’ll spill any of your precious virgin blood.

A singular or pair of long GPUs, such as an 8800 GTX or Ultra, fit comfortably within the enclosure with plenty of room to spare.

Overall the Enermax Uber Chakra is a competent enclosure capable of effectively housing anything from a basic system configuration to a dual-GPU, multiple-HDD or other space-hungry setup.