BitFenix announces the Prodigy M case - a Prodigy for mATX
by Ian Cutress on August 14, 2013 5:41 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- bitfenix
- Prodigy
- Prodigy M
One of my most used cases of last year is the Bitfenix Prodigy (my family own three between us), and Dustin gave it an Editor's Choice award back in June last year. It offered a slightly larger mini-ITX case with space for several storage drives and a large GPU. The Prodigy got enough of a following that requests were funnelled back to BitFenix to release a version, either the same size or slightly bigger for micro-ATX motherboards and dual GPU functionality. I saw some of the design factors that Bitfenix were working on during Computex, but today they are officially announcing the BitFenix Prodigy M, the same size as the Prodigy but enough to fit a micro-ATX motherboard inside.
As you can see, it is all a tight squeeze to fit a 5-bay mATX board inside. The Power Supply insert requires a unique cable (provided) to route the PSU to the front of the case, and both 120mm and slim 240mm water cooling radiators are supported. The Prodigy M comes with the same SofTouch surface treatment as the Prodigy as well as FyberFlex handles. By fitting the storage into the side panels and on the bottom of the case, BitFenix are claiming support for four 3.5" bays or five 2.5" bays, though I'd imagine that comes at the expense of certain other features. For example, it would seem that users have the choice of a second long GPU or an ODD.
We are told that the Prodigy M will be available in October, and UK retailers currently have it on pre-order for just under £70 (inc. tax), which would put it at the US$90 mark (without tax), although official pricing from BitFenix is an MSRP of $99. It would seem that intially the case will be available in white or black, although I would imagine we will see a more diverse color range as the orginial Prodigy has today.
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DanNeely - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - link
Looking at the gallery, the prodigy M only has room for 2x 3.5" drives (and 3x 2.5); and the space where the 3'4" drives can go can also be used as a pair of fan mounts. All it's costing you is a few cents to drill more holes.The ITX version's 5 3.5" bays only makes sense as a NAS enclosure; but it's much larger than the Chenbro case I mentioned above (and even that could be made significantly smaller with an SFF PSU and reorienting the drive bays).
Guspaz - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - link
As an owner of a Shuttle SZ77R5, which is about as physically compact as an mITX case supporting a full-length GPU with 2x3.5" and 1x5.25" can possibly get (because there's little empty volume remaining inside, even if the mobo is a custom form factor slightly bigger than mITX), the Prodigy seems enormous...I would like to see a revised mITX prodigy with the following changes:
- Remove bottom handles, since they take up space and make the Prodigy unstable (wobble). Replace them with raised feet, since the case still needs to be elevated a bit for airflow
- Reduce the number of 3.5" drive bays to one or two; the 2.5" drives can mount randomly around the case as they do now, that's fine for SSDs
- Attach the sidepanel ports/buttons to the main chassis (rather than the sidepanel), with a cutout from the sidepanel that fits over or around it
- Remove the space used for a few of the fan mounts. Airflow is good, but 4x120mm in an mITX case is excessive.
- Revise the top handles. Handles are a great idea (moving around computer cases is always annoying), but they could be a bit lower profile while still allowing easy carrying points.
mITX cases don't have to be as insanely tightly packed as my Shuttle, but the Prodigy could still be made a bunch smaller if less space was wasted on things most people won't need (like extra fans, extra 3.5" drives) or don't want (like bottom handles).
HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - link
Amusing. So you say the ITX version was for a case that was a "slightly larger mini-ITX case", but when they went to make a mATX version, they didn't have to change the size... at all? That is, a mATX board fit in that case no problem.And you think the ITX version was only slightly larger? This just highlights my problem with this case all along. It should have been mATX from the get-go and there's no point to ITX in this case. If you're going with this case, then get a mATX motherboard. The ITX version was always irrelevant because it was always too big. Waaaay too big.
The whole point of ITX is to be as small as possible, not big enough to fit mATX and SLI in. If you're going that big, just go mATX instead.
xbournex - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - link
With the same concept as having ATX cases large enough to fit XL or EATX boards, the ITX version has more compatibility with watercooling - there's no rule to tell anyone how big a ITX case should be. While mATX does fit, you reduce your ability to place such components so our ITX is indeed slightly larger to have more flexibility.Laststop311 - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - link
I doubt this case will be very popular. They compromised the cooling abilities, the room for hdd's, the space for the psu, the odd. They should not of forced the matx into the same exact size as the mitx version. The m-itx version will continue to sell like hotcakes though.Rupan3 - Friday, August 16, 2013 - link
I've built a couple of the mITX machines. They are in high demand stylistically for Hackintoshes. I found them a joy to work with. Prodigy does a nice job of innovating on space constraints with mounting the HDD's elsewhere, wherever that could be.These are great for small servers too, though I would like a non handle variant with big thick feet to substitute for that very option. They support a decent number of drives on the mITX case.