On the top part of the case you can find a panel containing two USB ports, a FireWire port and mic in and headphone jacks. Unfortunately the USB ports are too close to each other, preventing you from installing two “fat” USB devices at the same time, like USB drives. We also think that this case could have an eSATA port here.

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Figure 6: Connectors found on the top panel.

The air intake located on the top panel can be seen in Figure 7. Below this part this case has one 120 mm fan and space for installing a second one. We will show this later.

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Figure 7: Air intake.

Finally we have the rear panel in Figure 8. On this case the power supply is installed on the lower section of the case. What is different on this case is that it comes with a handle for you to attach to your power supply, and the power supply enters the case sliding on top of two wheels that we will show in the next page. This case also has a 120 mm fan on its rear panel (no word on speed, airflow or noise level) and two holes for hoses from water cooling devices. These holes use a rubber cover, so you won’t need to break anything on your case to have them available. Also notice how all slot covers are meshed (an improvement over the original GS1000) and how there is a mesh right above the slots, helping to improve the internal airflow.

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Figure 8: Rear panel.

The side panels are attached to the case through thumbscrews, which is great. Zalman added plastic washers to each thumbscrew, as shown in Figure 9. This shows how the manufacturer cares that you won’t have the side panels scratched around the thumbscrews.

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Figure 9: Plastic washer.

Let’s see how GS1000 SE looks like inside.