The Stacker 83x-series mobo trays are some of the smoothest in the industry, and the Stacker 830 NVIDIA Edition is no exception. This is due to the plastic strips on the edges of the tray, which makes sliding it in and out of the case’s guide rails like gliding on air, as opposed to the metal-to-metal friction, and binding you get with other cases. The mounting holes for the motherboard stand-offs have steel inserts that reduce the risk of stripping them while installing them—and the hassle of them coming loose and unscrewing with the motherboard mounting screws. In addition of course, there are Cooler Master’s high-quality thumbscrews for tool-free installation for your video and other expansion cards. The tray accepts a wide range of industry-standard motherboard form-factors. Cooler Master has even taped a paper template guide to the tray to show you where to install the motherboard stand-offs for different boards, though it would have been better if this information was engraved directly onto the tray itself.

You’ll find the same-black Cooler-Master 120mm exhaust fan with the 4-pin Molex connector that was in the RC-830 and is also used in more than just a few other models of Cooler Master cases. One of those “if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it-deals,” it moves a decent amount of air without murdering your ears. It would be more convenient if Cooler Master installed a fan with a 3-pin motherboard header and an optional 3-to-4-pin Molex adapter to give you a choice on where and how you want to connect it. What is different, is that the exhaust fan on the NV-830 mounts directly to the motherboard tray, rather than the tool-free bracket on the first Stacker 830. This was done to accommodate water cooling kits that require mounting their radiator assemblies directly to the exhaust hole on back of the motherboard tray or backplane—or a rear exhaust fan attached directly to the motherboard tray or backplane.

Converting the motherboard tray from its standard ATX configuration to an inverted ATX or BTX, is as simple as disassembling the tray’s backplane, swapping around the section with the exhaust fan as needed, and installing the tray and the Multi-function bracket on the opposite side of the case. For those of you with BTX motherboards, a kit with the necessary air duct and motherboard SRM is included with the case.

Six of the nine 5.25” bays have the usual tool-free locking mechanisms that work quite well, but can be unsnapped and screws used in their place if you wish. A set of rails and bezel to install a 3.5” floppy drive into one of the 5.25” bays, is included with the Stacker 830 NVIDIA Edition. The 4-in-3 Device Module for your 3.5” hard drives takes up the lower three bays of the case, secured by two screws on each side. The blue Cooler Master 120 x 25mm Neon LED fan attached to the front of the 4-in-3 with pushpins, handles all the air intake chores while keeping any installed hard drives cool (this fan has a 3-pin motherboard connector with a 3-to-4 pin Molex adaptor, by the way).

Although the 4-in-3 holds up to four hard drives, the maximum you’d realistically want to install in there are three. You could shoehorn in four drives. However, they would practically be on top of one another, with little room for decent airflow and cooling. There are a series of ventilated knock-off plates stamped onto the front of the 4-in-3. They can be twisted and broken off to provide additional airflow, but I strongly recommend that you leave the plates at the very top and bottom in place—otherwise you’re going to have a problem keeping the fan clipped on.

One thing I’m glad Cooler Master fixed, is the length of the cables for the I/O ports on the front and the top of the case, which were too short in the first run of Stacker 830s. The cables should be long enough now to connect them to the appropriate headers on just about any motherboard, regardless of layout.

Cooler Master used a very simple but effective “why didn’t they think of that before” approach to the problem of fitting longer EPS power supplies in the case, without losing the benefit of the top exhaust fan—the upper tool-free fan bracket has been shifted forward in the chassis an additional 3.5” to make more room. The fit between the fan bracket (or hard drive rack) and the power supply’s wiring harness might be a little tight (depending on the design of the power supply), but nothing a little creative cable routing and a good set of wire ties can’t handle.

If you don’t want or need to take advantage of the additional topside cooling on the NV-830, you can remove the top fan bracket and replace it with the supplied Hard Disk Rack for Western Digital’s Raptor X Hard Drive with the windowed case. A blue LED wiring harness that plugs into the rack is included for a little extra flash. You should leave the upper 5.25” drive bays free so you can easily install or remove the drive through the front of the case. You may also need a longer SATA cable to connect it to your motherboard.

Assembly

I used the following components in the Stacker 830 NVIDIA Edition:

● Intel Core 2 Extreme 6800 Processor (2.93 GHz, Stepping 6, Revision B2) w/retail CPU cooler.

● Intel D975BX2 “Bad Axe 2” Motherboard (BIOS 2395 12/20/06)

● 2 GB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 RAM (5-5-5-18 2T)

● 768-P2-N31 EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX Video Card (BIOS 60.80.06.00.01)

● Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi “Fatal1ty” Sound Card

● (2) Western Digital WDC WD740GD-32FLA0 74 GB 10,000 RPM Raptor SATA Hard Drives (RAID 0 on Intel 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller)

● (1) Western Digital WDC WD3200KS-00PFB0 300 GB 7,200 RPM Caviar SATA Hard Drive on Intel 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller

● NEC 1.44 MB 3.5” Floppy Drive (black)

● LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1673S DVD Burner (black)

● (4) Cooler Master TLF-S12-EG (green) 120 x 25mm Neon LED Case Fans (42.734 CFM / 1220 R.P.M / 22 dBA)—one intake, one exhaust, two (optional) in side fan tray

● Thermaltake W0117RU Tough Power 750W Power Supply

● Windows XP Professional SP-2/DirectX 9.0c & latest Microsoft Critical Updates

I had no issues whatsoever installing any of the components in the Stacker 830 NVIDIA Edition. Building a system around a case of this caliber is fast, easy and painless. The most time-consuming part is routing wires and cables for good airflow and aesthetics. Stacker 83x-series cases don’t have many places for tucking away wires and cables; but with a little patience and planning, you can prevent the inside of the case from looking like a rat’s nest without too much difficulty. There’s more than enough room for a GeForce 8800 GTX video card or two, with room to spare. While you obviously wouldn’t want to cart around a case like this to a LAN party (even with the wheels installed), what the Stacker 830 NVIDIA Edition gives up in sheer size and weight, it gains in room and cooling capacity.

Another problem with the original Stacker 830 was that more than a few people had problems seating their cards in the expansion slots properly. Some had to bend the brackets on their cards to get them to fit, and some still couldn’t install the cards even then. I personally did not have that issue when I reviewed the RC-830 Stacker last year, and I did not encounter it now during my test build with this case. So I’m assuming and hoping that Cooler Master has finally laid this problem to rest with the revised Stackers.