Bitfenix Prodigy M micro-ATX case

Installation

We did unfortunately not have a m-ATX motherboard available when doing this review so we used the same mini-ITX-motherboard as in our Bitfenix Phenom M-review: the MSi Z87I Gaming AC motherboard.

• MSi Z87I Gaming AC motherboard + 8 GB DDR3
• Core i5-4440 3.1 GHz
• Stock PSU-cooler
• Fractal Design INtegral R2 650W
• Gigabyte GTX770 Windforce GPU
• OCZ Vertex 2 90 GB + Seagate 1 GB HDD (3.5″)

There is a lot of room in the case even for a m-ATX motherboard. Since the power supply is far from the motherboard you can make sure to have the cables out of range when you install the motherboard or even wait with installing the power supply until the motherboard is screwed tight to the case. A word of warning though. Even though there is a lot of room there can be sharp edges and we did actually scratch ourselves pretty deep when installing everything.

The power supply is fastened to a kind of “harness” which then will be attached to the case and hold tight with a regular thumbscrew.

This is the thumbscrew that holds the power supply.

The case comes with a small power cable that is used to bridge the power so you can hook up the power in the back of the case. One thing to note is that it will be hard or at least inconvenient to use the on/off-button of the power supply.

There are two space for 3.5″-drives in the bottom. As we mentioned earlier though you need to remove the fan to fit both of them and if you use the heat shield it will make sure the drives get no air over them.

The vertical section we saw then we opened the case can be screwed off. It can hold two 3.5″ drives or tree 2.5″ drives. Note – in this picture we actually managed to turn the drives the wrong way. You should have the connectors to the other side. When we tried two old SSD-drives we did notice however is that the drives are sitting in the middle of the piece of metal and that we had some serious issues to connect the power cable to each drive. It depends on how the cable and connector looks from the power supply but in our case we simply could not get it to connect well.

On the side of the case we have 2 more spaces for 2.5″-drives. These are screwed on but it takes a bit of skill to get the old SSD-drives we tested to fit as they are a bit thinner than the space and thus are hard to reach with the screw. It works though with a little work.

There is ample space for a long graphics card. In this photo you can see how the motherboard is inverted so that the graphics card is in the top instead of being at the bottom. It takes a bit getting used to. This photo also actually shows another minor issue we have. If you not are using a modular power supply you will end up with lots of cables not being used. If you still have the fan at the bottom you do risk having one of the cables interfering. This means working on cable management is extremely important, at least if the fan is still there. The case also can hold pretty tall CPU-coolers, up to 160mm height.

Expansion cards and graphics cards are not screwed to the back plate. Instead the little slider has small pins sticking down which locks the card to the case. It works well although you have to make sure not to lose the thumbscrew.

Here is another photo showing the issue with the cables when you have a non-modular power supply. You need to pack the cables behind the motherboard, above the power supply or to the side of the power supply if you have a fan in the bottom. Otherwise you risk a cable interfering with the fan.

There are some space on this side of the power supply so you can put cables there. As you can see there is huge opening behind the motherboard so you can get access to the back of the CPU-socket and change cooler without having to remove the motherboard.