The air filters are a nice touch. I got a similar Cooler Master case with air filters for around $30, no complaints.

I have the older version for around $30- Great budget case. But for $40- you can basically get from Amazon for $39.24 ( daily price) free shipping - NO TAX if you were in California.

The filters are definitely better than having none, but a bit of a hassle compared to some since you don't just pull off the front bezel and have a proper panel with a frame around a single large filter, instead have to take out little plastic inserts in the back of the bezel to access several separate, and more fragile, individual pieces of foam.

Otherwise, pretty standard case in the below $60 price range, nothing terribly wrong with it and nice unobtrusive styling, but nothing to get excited about either. Does the job nicely though cools better if you cut the fan grills out and take off the side panel snorkel and cover that hole so you have more front intake through the HDD bay. Otherwise air coming in the snorkel/duct only travels a few inches before blown out the rear wasting it's potential to flow through the front cooling the drives, chipset.

Lower side grill at least helps flow a bit past a video card, but ideally there'd be a front intake fan so with drives in the bay they guide the airflow back under the video card too.

I'm with #3 on why do case manufacture's still see the need to add the CPU side vent on cases like they do? I mean back in the day when Pentium 4's where scorching hot and most often ran OEM coolers there was a reason, but those days are a distant past. If the build is a lowly budget configuration you don't need it, while if somewhat more of übber build you're not going to want to disrupt the air flow front to back. I don't so much mind the VGA vent as long as it's not super big.

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Oh yeah, if you don't either block both side panel vent areas or put a fan in ithe front, the exhaust fans will pull a lot of dusty air in through the side partially defeating the point of having filter panels. Even with a typical quiet/low-rpm fan in the front, you'll probably still have negative case pressurization and pull air in the sides if they aren't blocked off.

One possible alternative (at least on a similar but different model coolermaster I have) is to just take a large piece of black cardboard/etc, put it on the panel with magnetic to block it, OR the left and right side panels on mine are interchangable so if you put the panel with holes behind the motherboard tray it'll constrict airflow around the tray back enough to limit air intake more.

I guess if you wanted to get really fancy you could just put a piece of filter material on those too, so long as you have a front panel fan so the HDDs and chipset retain a good flow rate.

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