Review: MSI MPG Sekira 100R

Introduction

MSI may be best known for its motherboards and graphics cards, but success in those fields has allowed the Taiwanese manufacturer to branch out considerably. These days, it's possible to kit out a high-end gaming setup with all sorts of MSI gear, ranging from keyboards and mice to monitors and even gaming chairs.

A lesser-known category is PC chassis, in which MSI has over a dozen models to choose from. One of the latest additions is the MPG Sekira 100R, priced at £120 and in for review today.

It is quite clear that Sekira 100R is intended as a visual complement to your other MSI hardware, and the firm isn't shy in stating the MPG series "brings out the best in gamers by allowing full expression in colour with advanced RGB lighting control and synchronization." We're too old and weathered to read into such hyperbole, but while RGB illumination isn't anywhere near the top of our list of chassis priorities, we will admit the mid-tower box is easy on the eye.

Dimensions of 420mm (D) x 215mm (W) x 475mm (H) are reasonably petite by modern standards, and most of the aesthetic flourishes work well. The split front panel, in particular, has a neat, almost retro feel about it, with the aluminium brush-effect section contrasting nicely with the transparent area below. A strip separating the two is, of course, lined with RGB lighting, while the company logo illuminates to complete the effect, and though the bezels on the both the front and side panels are a little thick, MSI's tinted windows do a fine job of showcasing the interior.

It's a good-looking piece of kit and build quality is decent, too. There are few visible seams, everything fits together snug, and an 8kg total weight feels reassuring. Better still, MSI hasn't skimped on the top I/O panel, which lines the front edge and includes a large power button, reset, USB-C, two USB Type-A, a pair of audio jacks and a button to cycle through the preset lighting effects. Just about everything you'd expect, and it's good to see the number of USB ports hasn't been sacrificed for the sake of the newer Type-C.

Going purely by the spec sheet, Sekira 100R has plenty going for it. In addition to looking the part and being well-stocked in the I/O department, there are seven expansion slots, two 3.5in hard-disk bays in a cage at the end of the shrouded PSU compartment, two 2.5in SSD trays (one atop the PSU shroud, another behind the motherboard tray), and more rubber-grommeted cable-routing holes than you're ever likely to need.

Clearance is defined as 340mm for graphics cards and 170mm for CPU cooler height; mini-, micro-, regular- and extended-ATX motherboards are supported, and cooling really shouldn't be a problem seeing as there are four pre-installed 120mm aRGB fans (three front intakes and a rear exhaust). Choose to expand on that with a radiator and you'll find the top of the chassis can house a pair of offset 120s or 140s, while the three 120s at the front can be swapped for two 140s if you prefer. Ample room for expansion, and we like the fact that the supplied fans and front-panel lighting are hooked-up to a control board around back, allowing all the illuminated elements to connect to a single aRGB header on your motherboard.

Creating an eye-catching rig is all but guaranteed, particularly if you're heavily invested in MSI's Mystic Light ecosystem, but the build process itself could be made more user-friendly. Most bemusing, the side panels can't be removed without taking off the mesh top panel first. Two thumbscrews allow the top section to come away, and only then can you slide the sides up and off their rails. A strange arrangement that we've not seen before, and while it does result in side panels that are free of unsightly thumb screws or fixings, it feels odd having to remove both the top and side just to get into the case.

As with most RGB-illuminated enclosures, cabling can be somewhat messy. Each of the four fans is pre-plumbed to the control board for synchronised lighting, but additional three-pin cables need to be attached to the motherboard. Fortunately, given that there are four fans as standard, MSI includes a three-way splitter, allowing for four fans via two motherboard headers. Still, a couple more tie-down points wouldn't go amiss, and if your power supply is as large as our Dark Power Pro, we suspect you'll want to remove the hard disk cage for a little extra wiggle room.

Elsewhere, filtration is decent throughout. There's a magnetic filter sandwiched between the roof of the case and the mesh top panel, a full-height filter behind the removable front panel, and a small piece inserted in tabs directly beneath the PSU. The mesh sections to the side of the front panel are also reasonably wide, suggesting that airflow won't be entirely restricted, but let's run the benchmarks to see exactly what's what.

Notes

Our test platform is based around an all-AMD combination of Ryzen 7 1800X and Radeon RX 580. AMD's eight-core, 16-thread processor is stock clocked and installed beneath a Fractal Design Celsius S24 liquid cooler.

The CPU is joined by 16GB of G.Skill Flare X DDR4 memory operating at 2,400MHz, while the Radeon RX 580 GPU is provided by Sapphire in Nitro+ Limited Edition guise. Power for the entire system comes courtesy of a 750W be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 supply. Do note that we attempted to run multiple memory kits at higher speeds, but were unable to maintain stability on this particular X370 platform, hence the 3,200MHz G.Skill kit operating at 800MHz less than advertised.

To find out how well the comparison chassis can cool the AMD-flavoured build, we log CPU temperature while encoding a large 4K video clip using the popular HandBrake software utility. This task puts heavy load on all available CPU cores and we extend the stress test by queueing multiple passes. In order to provide a stabilised reading we then calculate an average temperature from the last few minutes of encoding.

To get an idea of graphics-card cooling performance, we log GPU temperature while looping the F1 2017 benchmark at a 4K resolution with ultra quality settings. Last but not least, we also measure chassis noise by using a PCE-318 noise meter to take readings both when idle and while gaming. The meter is positioned 35cm from the front of the chassis in a direct line of sight 30cm from the ground.

All chassis are tested only with the standard manufacturer-supplied fans (any/all of which are set to a low-noise curve in the MSI BIOS or low-speed using a fan controller if present), and to take into account the fluctuating ambient temperature, our graphs depict both actual and delta temperature - the latter is the actual CPU/GPU temperature minus the ambient.

Performance

Cooling our eight-core AMD Ryzen chip isn't a problem for any of the chassis on show, so perhaps it's time to upgrade to a more power-hungry chip. Watch this space.

Taming the Radeon graphics card tends to be a tougher task, and given the solid frontage, we're reasonably pleased to see the MSI MPG Sekira 100R keeping peak temperature to 73°C when gaming.

There is a caveat, mind you. The four supplied three-pin fans offer decent cooling performance, but they aren't the quietest and the chassis itself makes little effort to dampen noise. Our test build is always noticeable and gets quite noisy when gaming.

Conclusion

MSI wants to give its fanbase an opportunity to adorn their gaming setups with as much Mystic Light gear as possible. RGB-laden hardware continues to prove popular among the target audience, and the MPG Sekira 100R serves as another piece of the jigsaw.

Playing to its strengths, MSI includes four 120mm aRGB fans as standard, which when coupled to the front light bar and illuminated dragon logo, allow for multiple effects and synchronisation opportunities via a single motherboard header. Such features may be deemed superfluous by some, yet the chassis looks surprisingly sleek in the flesh, with MSI managing to find a pleasing balance between subtle illumination and overblown light.

The spec sheet is reasonably well-stocked, too, with plenty of clearance for a high-end build, a decent number of storage and fan mounts, and an I/O panel outfitted with three USB ports, including a modern Type-C. The foundations are there, however the user experience could be better. Having to remove the top panel to get at the sides is an unnecessary extra step, cabling with four RGB fans can get messy, and there's little effort in suppressing noise.

Bottom line: MSI isn't the first name that springs to mind when choosing a high-quality chassis, yet for those wanting to amplify their Mystic Light setup, the MPG Sekira 100R fits the bill.