Promising mATX case review

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:44 pm

Well, it's at overclockers.com so not a low noise review, but good pics. Silent highlights include:

2x80mm exhaust with very unrestrictive grilles
80mm mATX psu fan
small tower shape
bottom intake with large area (a la Bluefront)
rubber feet to raise intake and damp vibration
built in duct for CPU HSF

The last seems a bit iffy, but who knows?

Nowhere_man · Post by **Nowhere_man** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:09 pm

That almost motivates me to build a HTPC.

I've never liked the cramped "Shuttle style" cases.

It would take me awhile to get used to the vertical cd/dvd drive orientation.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:18 am

That looks real promising!

I like the bottom intake panel a lot. 2 80mm exhaust fans, full hieght PCI cards. Lots of nice stuff.

I kinda like that CPU duct. You could put a "sucking" type of HSF on there and seal up the area between the HSF and the duct and exhaust all the CPU heat out the top of the case.

Now, if I could only find a decent P4 m-ATX board, or wonder-of-wonders an m-ATX socket 955 board, I'd try one of these babies out.

CyRuS · Post by **CyRuS** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 6:34 am

i can recommend the p4p800-vm, can also overclock if u like using clockgen

mg1394 · Post by **mg1394** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 7:54 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:..... Now, if I could only find a decent P4 m-ATX board, or wonder-of-wonders an m-ATX socket 955 board, I'd try one of these babies out.

Just FMI, what don't you like about the D865GLCLK?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 11:33 am

mg1394 wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:..... Now, if I could only find a decent P4 m-ATX board, or wonder-of-wonders an m-ATX socket 955 board, I'd try one of these babies out.
Just FMI, what don't you like about the D865GLCLK?

Oops, left the word "undervoltable" out of my sentence. No reason to have to deal with 70W+ of heat if you don't have to. Of course that only applies to the P4 board. S855 takes care of itself.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 12:12 pm

Um, yeah the P4B533-VM I have is rather disappointing from a voltage options standpoint (how about, ZERO?!?)...

But I still manage to get rather decent temps out of the machine without mounting any fan on the SP-94. Of course, there are two other fans nearby; still, gotta' give me just a little credit for it.

-Ed

trinitrotoluene · Post by **trinitrotoluene** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 9:36 pm

This might rekindle my interest in getting my HTPC together. Hopefully SPCR will get to review it

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 11:05 pm

According to the screenshots, that CPU fan is spinning close to 4000 RPM. If the temperatures are to be trusted, that duct is performing very badly. The reviewer seems to indicate that the chipset reports temperatures too high - if that is the case, it isn't so bad.

But sealing up this area, as Ralf mentioned, should definitely help.

pony-tail · Post by **pony-tail** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 2:46 pm

To Ralph Hutter.
Soltek make a very good 865 GE chipset board (mATX with both onboard video and AGP slot) model is SL-86MIP-L , It has a Shocking north bridge fan (40mm) but the North bridge H/S &fan are easily replaced - I have just built one of these up in an old AOpen mATX case with an Antec 300 watt single fan PSU it is pretty Quiet but is still in progress - Not a Bad board.
sorry to get off topic

lucienrau · Post by **lucienrau** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:51 am

Well, someone has to be the first to talk about this case so I've taken the plunge and ordered it to to make a mid-range gaming system in.

The parts should be here on Friday so I should be able to post how everything is working over the weekend after I can get it up and running.

For those interested, the case will house:
2x 80mm Panaflo L1A (bought pre china manufacturing)
1 Biostar M7NCG 400 (hopefully I'll get version 7.2)
AMD XP 2500-M
1x 512 Kingston Hyper X 4000 (too poor to spring for dual channel right now)
Thermalright 900 with a 92mm Panaflo L1A
ATI 9500 softmodded to 9700 /w VGA Silencer
Seagate Barracuda IV 40gb
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz

I have most of this in an Antec AMB right now in which the loudest component is the VGA silencer. I also have some spare panaflos sitting around should a fan swap in the power supply be necessary or possible.

I'll be able to at least give a general idea of over and under clocking as well as cooling potential of the case as well as anything that comes up as possible for modding (suspending/grommeting drives, soft mounting fans, etc...). Unfortunately my wife has our digital camera and is out of the country right now so I won't be able to post pics for at least two weeks.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 7:13 am

Definitely looking forward to it, Lucien!

lucienrau · Post by **lucienrau** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 7:26 am

If anyone has anything they'd like me to look at or consider in building this please let me know.

Metaluna · Post by **Metaluna** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 7:54 am

I'm looking forward to hearing about the voltage and noise characteristics of the PSU, and the effectiveness of the CPU duct.

rp · Post by rp » Wed Jun 23, 2004 3:30 am

Would have liked a standard ATX powersupply and a "sidemounted" duct instead. But a nice little package none the less.

lucienrau · Post by **lucienrau** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:28 am

Metaluna- That's one of my biggest worries. Before buying this case I looked up any review of a silverstone psu to see if I could find out anything. They seem to be good quality, but there was not much info about noise/power control circuitry. Unfortunately there are few reviewing sites that are up to SPCR standard when reviewing PSUs

lucienrau · Post by **lucienrau** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 7:05 am

The parts are here so updates are forthcoming. If I'm lucky I should be able to get the first part of a review up tonight (provided the re-install of XP goes ok).