Riotoro is expanding its case lineup with three new models, including a mid-tower chassis with a tempered glass side panel. What's somewhat unique here is that Riotoro is not charging a premium for the tempered glass—its CR500 mid-tower carries an MSRP of $80 in the US, with an introductory price of $70.
The CR500 features a dual-compartment design to isolate heat and streamline airflow. We got to take a look at Riotoro's new cases at Computex, which are still undergoing some tweaking. These are samples, planned for release later this year, so there's still time to make some adjustments. Right now there's a bit of extra space where the fans mount in the front of the case, and Riotoro may push those forward more to mount flush with the grill and give a bit more room in the interior.
If you're into liquid cooling, the CR500 has mounts for 240mm, 140mm, and 120mm radiators. It also has tool-free installation, cable pass-throughs, and cable management tie-downs to make building a clean and clutter-free system easy.
For the RGB crowd and/or folks who need more elbow room, Riotoro also announced the CR1288 Prism, a full-tower chassis with a built-in RGB lighting system. Lighting controls can be found in the front panel, along with six USB ports (some of them are likely USB 2.0). Again, Riotoro's planning to go through some adjustments here. They were experimenting with the look of the wide RGB stripe around the sides of the front panel; the final version may ship with a stripe about half as wide to give it more of a clean pinstripe look.
This one also features separate chambers for the motherboard, power supply, and storage drives to help with thermals. Active cooling is provided by two included 140mm intake fans and a 120mm exhaust fan. Users also have the option of liquid cooling with support for radiators up to 280mm.
A smoked side panel gives onlookers a glimpse of your cable management skills. We assume it's made of plexiglass, as Riotoro did not make a point to say it's tempered glass like it did with the CR500. The MSRP on this one is $160.
The last of the three cases Riotoro introduced at Computex is the CR1088, an ultra-compact tower with a "muscular" exterior. It has a small footprint, measuring just 394mm x 230mm x 360mm.
As with the others, the inside is built around a dual-chamber design. There's room to install a full-size ATX motherboard, along with a standard ATX power supply and full-length graphics cards. Users can also install up to two 3.5-inch drives and up to three 2.5-inch drives.
The CR1088 is my favorite of the three, and its predecessor, the CR1080, is on our list of the best cases for building a PC. It's almost unrivaled in size for an ATX case, and fairly easy to build in. Riotoro's done a bit of a design rework inside the chassis. Previously, the SSD/HDD mounting bracket on the backside of the case would swivel out, but now it's completely removable, as you can see here.
Riotoro pushed the fan mounting points further into the front of the case with this design, giving the interior even more room for long graphics cards. You really can fit a full, no-compromises PC in this thing, and it's wonderfully compact. Like the CR1288, the 1088 is still going through some design tweaking and may end up with a thinner RGB stripe when it ships. I'm hopeful the new interior tweaks also make their way back into the 1080 case, which is a bit cheaper thanks to no RGB LEDs.
This one has an MSRP of $90. All three cases will be available sometime in the third quarter.
