The Gungnir gaming case series has a new top model, the 300R Airflow. This 60-litre midi-tower brings, among other things, features that facilitate the installation of components. All in all, we can probably talk about a user experience on a higher level. Whether it lives up to the selling price is up for consideration. The price is set quite high and the innovations that the MSI case brings may not be enough for everyone.
Interior
Larger hardware such as motherboards from Mini-ITX to E-ATX with a maximum width of 305 mm can be fitted inside the case. For better orientation, letters are stamped on the tray to indicate which opening is suitable for which motherboard format. There is also a legend which letter is which format. For the tower-shaped CPU cooler you have a space of 175 mm, so you can install even the largest ones here. With current graphics cards, the case can cope without difficulty, as there is 360 mm available for it.
Under the ceiling you will find three larger holes for threading cables from one side of the tray to the other. Their height of 26 mm ensures easier handling and subsequent plugging in.
The vertical grommet is not limited by the width but by the cable cover. The latter is divided into two lengths from the tray itself. The top half is offset by 40 mm. While this may seem like plenty, there will be stiffer cables you’ll have to contend with. The bottom section is 20mm away from the tray and is more for smaller cable bundles.
It can be removed for easier cable routing. When using an E-ATX motherboard, the cover needs to be moved further to the front of the case where the pre-prepared tabs are located. If you’re wondering why there are two vertical holes on the bottom of the cover, it’s because of the bracket from the accessories. You can mount a single 80 or 120mm fan in this position, which should help with cooling the graphics card but also the bottom half of the motherboard and the components on it.
Directly below the motherboard position are two holes the same size as on the tray under the ceiling. One smaller but large enough for the graphics card power cable. In addition to the standard perforations, you may also notice more prominent holes on the tunnel. You can place two 2.5″ storage devices or two 120 mm fans in them. These get their fresh air supply directly from the perforations on the right side panel. I commend the diverse use of the tunnel ceiling. But its downside is that you need brackets to mount the storage. They can’t be laid down and attached directly to the ceiling.
Visually, the biggest attraction of the case is the sophisticated graphics card holder. It can be rotated by 90 degrees, so it can hold even a vertically mounted graphics card. It can be moved back and forth in the five pre-prepared holes on the side of the tunnel. In the farthest position of the bracket from the front of the case, I was able to mount the graphics card from the test setup. The latter is 242 mm long, so shorter graphics cards can no longer be supported by it. It can also be adapted in depth, where there are ten pre-made positions for all graphics card widths.
The holder has two feet mounted on it, so it can support up to two graphics cards or one from the bottom and one from the top. When the graphics card is mounted vertically, a flexible joint is ready or you can simply hide the leg behind the holder. If you would like to use the holder only as a visual addition to the interior of the case, you can simply remove the feet. The whole holder is the same way. Just unscrew it from the side of the tunnel and remove it if you would prefer not to have it in the case.
The holder is largely made of translucent glass in which a dragon is engraved. This is typical of the MSI brand, so you will certainly not confuse the manufacturer with another. With built-in LED backlighting, the dragon and the ornaments underneath will light up nicely in your preferred color.
At the back of the tray you will find a large number of cables, which are fastened with up to eight Velcro pull-tabs. There is a trough for the main bundle of cables stretching down the centre of the case. It is almost identical to the one that is in the high-end MSI Prospect 700R case. In favour of the tested case is that it is not finished with a 90 degree curve at the bottom. For cable management, you have a space of 27 mm between the tray and the side panel. This space should also be enough to accommodate the larger number of cables that the Gungnir 300R has.
Up to four 2.5″ storage units can be mounted directly on the tray via additional brackets. These are simply attached with one screw.
Under the ceiling of the case there is a hub for fans and backlight controller in one. It is powered via a SATA connector directly from the power supply. All four mounted fans in the case are daisy-chained, so there is only one connector in the hub to control them. Even though you can fit up to 12 fans in the case, you only have four empty 4-pin headers. For backlighting, in addition to the one empty header, those of the fans are also forked. This allows the case to connect up to five additional peripherals with an ARGB connector.
Although MSI specifies the thickness of the sheets at 0.8 mm, but from multiple measurements at different positions I did not get below 0.9 mm. The stiffness of the sheets is somewhere on the borderline between stiff and medium stiff. The tray flexes slightly but it doesn’t narrow down the selection of whatever hardware you’ll be installing on it.
The lower part of the case consists of a tunnel, in which there is a structure for storage. These fit into two plastic drawers in both 2.5″ and 3.5″ formats. The entire structure is set in two rails, along which it can be moved backwards or forwards. There is a screw on the side of the structure for securing and three holes on the ground floor of the case for securing. The spacing is exactly 30 mm. The case is factory set to the middle position, where you have 260 mm of space for the ATX-format power supply with cables. It’s up to you whether this is too little or too much – simply slide the space down to 230 mm or up to 290 mm.
I encountered only one difficulty when installing the hardware into the case. This was nothing more than the metal cover of the vertical grommet. The clearance it offers in its position for ATX format motherboards was not enough. Specifically for the rigid 24-pin cable for the motherboard power supply. For it, I had to move the cover to the position that is intended when installing an E-ATX motherboard. There it already went smoothly even with the rigid cable. The original cable supplied with the power supply is not that stiff and it easily adapted to the 40 mm space to the cover in the position for ATX motherboards.
To my surprise, cable management was very easy, even though additional cables had to be attached to the already full middle trough. With the cables from the fans, where each has two (power and backlight), I didn’t have to do anything or figure out their fixing. They came from the factory perfectly seated.
Anytime I see new case (especially costing that much), I immediately compare it to Fractal’s Define 7/Meshify 2 which I find special ones. Maybe not first ones not having any serious flaws, but first ones not having them when also having just anything enineered that well to the point of competition (or just me trying hard to complain) not having ideas how to do it better or improve it further. They are like pc case benchmark and it’s sad to see that they are already three years old, but for all this time nobody managed to create something that good when it could be that easy as copying all of the tricks. The problem of this MSI case is not even trying when costing the same money.