MSI Barricade Case Review

MSI Barricade Overview
The backside panel of the case is extended to allow better cable management. This is something that is pretty much standard.

MSI Barricade Case

The front of the case has 3x 5.25″ bays that must be pushed out from inside the case. Also in the front there are 2x preinstalled 120 mm fans. These fans are not particularly strong as they do not move the air very fast.

MSI Barricade Case MSI Barricade Case

The back of the case has 7 expansion slots and 2 small water cooling holes. The grommets for these holes are very stiff so you probably will be taking them out if your going to run tubes through them. There is also a preinstalled 120 mm blue fan that matches the rest of the blue accents in the case. You can see the single USB 3.0 cable that runs out of the back of the case.

MSI Barricade Case

Moving to the bottom of the case you can see 2 fan filters. One is for the PSU fan and one is for an optional 120 mm fan. There is a third 120 mm fan hole but the HDD bays are blocking it. Each foot has 2 small rubber pads which are extremely cheap. Once I finished this review I noticed 2 of them had already fallen off.

MSI Barricade Case

The top of the case is very clean and simple. It features 2 holes for 120 mm fans, a case handle and the IO panel. One thing this case has that I have never seen before is a “Digital Cradle”. Sounds fancy but all it is is a SD Card reader.

MSI Barricade Case MSI Barricade Case

The top mesh can be removed by just simply pressing it like an eject button and it pops up. Once its removed you can see the mounting holes for the 2x 120 mm fans.

MSI Barricade Case

One of the downsides of the top fans is that they are not the standard 15 mm spacing for a radiator. On the plus side, the space for the fans is nearly 35 mm tall so you can fit a larger fan in there and really move a lot of air out of the case.

MSI Barricade Case MSI Barricade Case

The front I/0 panel is pretty much the industry standard but instead of a knob for a fan control (not really standard but seen on many cases), they have sliding switches. One way for high, the other way for low and the center is off. Between the two sliders is the large power button. Moving down to the front and going left to right there is the Reset button, the power LED and HDD activity LED, 1x USB 2.0, Mic and Headphone jacks, another USB 2.0 and finally a single USB 3.0. Something that I like is that the USB ports have a rubber dust guard in them.

MSI Barricade Case MSI Barricade Case MSI Barricade Case

Next we will take a closer look inside the case.