A+ El Diablo Advance from Tagan is a full-tower case targeted to users worried about ventilation. It has a big 330-mm side fan (with 300-mm blades), two 180-mm fans on the top (with 160-mm blades) and one 250-mm fan on the front (with 220-mm blades) – all featuring speed controller –, plus a thermometer. Let’s see if this is really a good case.
The new El-Diablo Advance is based on another case from Tagan, El Diablo. The difference between the two is the addition of the thermometer, the addition of one eSATA port and the two top fans on the Advance version.
All fans glow blue when they are turned on and three plastic parts where you can find “A+” written also glow blue when the system is turned on.
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Figure 1: Tagan A+ El Diablo Advance.
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Figure 2: Tagan A+ El Diablo Advance.
Its overall looks is at the same time aggressive (with its Jet-shaped front fan) and conservative (with a very conservative color choice) and should please both gamers and professionals. The feet can be rotated for your choice of exposed or hidden feet (like Figures 1 and 2).
El Diablo Advance features a door, which is hold to the case thru a strong magnetic latch.
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Figure 3: Front door.
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Figure 4: El Diablo Advance with its door opened.
Luckily the jacks and connectors available on this case are installed on the top of the unit, so you don’t need to open its door every time you need to plug in a USB drive or a headset, an error found on several cases on the market. On the other hand the power and reset switches are located behind the door, so you will need to open the door every time you need to turn on your PC.
As you can see this case has five 5 ¼” bays and one external 3 ½” bay, all of them using screwless mechanisms to hold disk drives, as we will talk about later.
The front fan is officially a 250-mm unit, but its blades measure less, 220 mm. We really think manufacturers should disclaim the real size of the fans used, because it is really frustrating to find out that a fan is actually smaller (sometime a lot) than what the manufacturer announces.
You will find an on/off switch and a speed control knob on each side of the front fan. One set is for controlling the front fan, while the other set is to control the side fan.
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Figure 5: On/off switch and speed control knob (there is another set on the other side of the front fan).
