Performance

The assembled system looks good, the acrylic is crystal clear and all the components are seen in their natural glory (does anyone else remember the "Visible Man/Visible Woman" anatomy display models?) and wasn't too noisy to one who grew up with PCs that ran their 80mm fans flat out 24/7 - but may be unacceptable to the noise freaks out there... In any case, you won't be using this case in your living room or office, will you? ;-) In the proper settings, the noise will hardly be noticed.

The normal operating temps of my components hovered in the low 30s (all temps. in degrees C at an ambient from 21 to 23) including the CPU and hard disk while the exhaust air ran 25 to 26. After the stress test which consisted of running HeavyLoad and having the SCSI drive powered on for several hours:

CPU temp: 36°C

System temp. 29°C

Intake air at the rear fan: 25°C

Intake air at the PSU: 26°C

SCSI drive was 32°C (The noise from the SCSI drive was blocked hardly at all)

For grins, I cranked back all of the fans (including the CPU fan) from their normal (about 2k rpm) to just below 1600 rpm which lowered the overall noise substantially. I then let the system equilibrate to that level of air flow and took another set of readings: CPU - 34 to 35, SATA hard drive 32, exhaust temps remained at approx. 26. I then ran HeavyLoad with the fans at the same settings and the increases were marginal - the CPU went to 37 maybe 38 at one point other temps rose by no more than 2 degrees at any location.

The cooling was more than adequate for the installed components. If high performance components will be run in this case for long periods or at high stress, some mods may need to be made. But I was surprised at how well these tiny fans were able to do. I didn't even bother to mount the 4th fan and the bracket for it - it might be of help if you have some hot cards.

Here I'll discuss the front panel LED wires and other cabling. The LED wires don't use the standard color coding of a color for positive and either white or black for the negative wires and the connectors don't have polarity markings. The header pin connectors for the USB cables are coded the same (one set should be USB0 and the other USB1, but both are marked USB0). The shielded cabling for the USB and audio ports do not have their shields grounded at the panel jacks - shielded cables work best when locally grounded at both ends (another deficit of a plastic case, there is no local chassis metal to which to connect any grounds). The audio cables have pins for AC'97 standard only. This poor shielding didn't seem to affect the transfer rate of my Flash card reader which I had attached to a front panel jack through a long, thin USB extension, but in some more stressful applications it might.

Conclusive Thoughts

My overall rating when used in an appropriate setting is 8.5 of 10 (I'd call this the "suitability for intended use" score). Used inappropriately, the score drops to 7.0 of 10 (based on extra maintenance and electrical "good practices" issues rather than apparent functionality) - this integrates the Casitude (tm) score.



My Casitude (tm) score is less than 2 of 5. Some of the Casitude (tm) issues could be addressed with a degree of effort, but one would require a total redesign of the front panel and that might not even do it...


One final note. The motherboard standoffs are quite tall, and while this allows for hiding cables under the motherboard, it also decreases the room for tall CPU coolers. The tip of the tallest heat pipe on my Hyper TX2 just touched the lid when it was in place - anything taller is out of the question unless you intend to leave the lid off. Video cards of up to 9.5" will fit depending on the length of your optical drive. The room in the direction of the PSU is also a bit limited for some of the monster coolers out there (about 1.5" from the TX2 to the PSU). The short cables of my PSU fed in between the PSU and the cooler limited space yet further - longer cables could be dressed out of the way. As always, spending some effort in planning to achieve the result you want will pay off.

Pros:
+ Attractively exhibits your components.
+ Pieces are machined precisely to go together easily.
+ Unexpected level of cooling from the 80mm fans.
+ High quality materials for a reasonable price of approx. $90.00 US.
+ Reasonably low noise.
+ Since it is a full-size ATX, desktop case, it is roomy to work in.

Cons:
- Lack of standoff holes for microATX motherboards.
- Hard acrylic feet may damage surfaces.
- No elastic drive noise isolation.
- Total lack of RFI/EMI shielding and grounding.
- No filters on the front fans.
- Some of the screw types are overly long.
- Acrylic cases require constant cleaning.
- Though the cooling is good, it could have been better and quieter with larger fans in front - plenty of space for them.
- The front panel cabling is not up to current standards.

We thank Derek from Sunbeamtech for allowing us to test their latest HTPC case.

The article text and photos are (C)opyright June 2008 in the USA by W.A. (Bill) Hill, Jr. It is published on Madshrimps with permission of the author. Any trademarks or other intellectual property of others used in the article are covered under the "Fair Use" provisions of US copyright law.