Compucase 6K27 with CPU duct
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CharlieChan
- Patron of SPCR
- Posts: 198
- Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2003 2:57 am
- Location: East Anglia, UK
I work with these cases quite a lot, they are nice, although not superb.
With Intel boards (D845EPI, D845GVSR, D865GLC) the side duct does not exactly align with the CPU - it's a bit forward of it, an inch or so. Also, the PSU bundled with the case is HEC-300ER, which is extremely reliable (in 3 years of selling these PSUs, not one came back with a failure, both in and out of warranty) but somewhat noisy, as the fan is not thermally controlled.
The black circle in front is steel mesh, but it does not have a fan mount inside, although rigging one is not too difficult, and a 120mm will fit easy. Rear fan mount accepts both 80mm and 92mm fans, and 92mm fan comes as standard.
Right panel is not removable - in fact, top, right, and bottom are made from one steel sheet bent into a U shape. There are two 5.25" bays, two externally accessible 3.5" bays (you can mount a hard drive in them, but it will require removal of steel bay covers in front - not the plastic though), and one internal 3.5" bay. The internal bay is actually a U-shaped holder for a hard drive which attaches with rails to the bottom of the main drive cage, and is perpendicular to other drives - similar to the BQE layout, but only for one drive. Due to case's narrow width, you cannot mount a drive in it with the connectors facing right (inwards), but you can mount the drive upside down and route them there between the drive's PCB and the holder.
Build quality is typical of HEC - very very good, with the sole exception of power button sometimes (very rarely, I've never had a customer complaint, but it happened a couple times on new cases) missing the actual microswitch. Only happened a couple times with new cases, I straightened it out, it never came back.
What else can I tell about it... damn, this is turning into an impromptu review. Both front audio and front USB connectors are solid, so motherboards with non-standard layouts on that may prove troublesome. There is room for an IEEE1394 connector, but the version I work with does not have one mounted.
Cooling is good - P4 2.8E with Radeon 9600PRO, stock cooling on both, ran completely fine under prolonged heavy stress (looping 3dmark03 overnight, Israel, AC off - HOT).
Edit: forgot to mention, the black finish looks very nice (I haven't seen Sonata in person, but looking at photos, it seems very similar - should be, considering that HEC OEM's for Antec) but fingerprints show on it really bad.
Edit2: Actually looked at the linked review, and found that it's about a different revision of the same case. The one I work with does not have plastic holders for PCI cards, nor does it have a plastic mount for rear fan - it's screwed on directly to case, with two sets of mounting holes provided (80mm and 92mm). Instead of that cowl thing clipping to rear fan, it has a hole in left side panel with a telescoping sleeve inside that reaches down to CPU cooler. I don't know which revision is older and which is newer, and absolutely no idea what country gets which at the moment.
With Intel boards (D845EPI, D845GVSR, D865GLC) the side duct does not exactly align with the CPU - it's a bit forward of it, an inch or so. Also, the PSU bundled with the case is HEC-300ER, which is extremely reliable (in 3 years of selling these PSUs, not one came back with a failure, both in and out of warranty) but somewhat noisy, as the fan is not thermally controlled.
The black circle in front is steel mesh, but it does not have a fan mount inside, although rigging one is not too difficult, and a 120mm will fit easy. Rear fan mount accepts both 80mm and 92mm fans, and 92mm fan comes as standard.
Right panel is not removable - in fact, top, right, and bottom are made from one steel sheet bent into a U shape. There are two 5.25" bays, two externally accessible 3.5" bays (you can mount a hard drive in them, but it will require removal of steel bay covers in front - not the plastic though), and one internal 3.5" bay. The internal bay is actually a U-shaped holder for a hard drive which attaches with rails to the bottom of the main drive cage, and is perpendicular to other drives - similar to the BQE layout, but only for one drive. Due to case's narrow width, you cannot mount a drive in it with the connectors facing right (inwards), but you can mount the drive upside down and route them there between the drive's PCB and the holder.
Build quality is typical of HEC - very very good, with the sole exception of power button sometimes (very rarely, I've never had a customer complaint, but it happened a couple times on new cases) missing the actual microswitch. Only happened a couple times with new cases, I straightened it out, it never came back.
What else can I tell about it... damn, this is turning into an impromptu review. Both front audio and front USB connectors are solid, so motherboards with non-standard layouts on that may prove troublesome. There is room for an IEEE1394 connector, but the version I work with does not have one mounted.
Cooling is good - P4 2.8E with Radeon 9600PRO, stock cooling on both, ran completely fine under prolonged heavy stress (looping 3dmark03 overnight, Israel, AC off - HOT).
Edit: forgot to mention, the black finish looks very nice (I haven't seen Sonata in person, but looking at photos, it seems very similar - should be, considering that HEC OEM's for Antec) but fingerprints show on it really bad.
Edit2: Actually looked at the linked review, and found that it's about a different revision of the same case. The one I work with does not have plastic holders for PCI cards, nor does it have a plastic mount for rear fan - it's screwed on directly to case, with two sets of mounting holes provided (80mm and 92mm). Instead of that cowl thing clipping to rear fan, it has a hole in left side panel with a telescoping sleeve inside that reaches down to CPU cooler. I don't know which revision is older and which is newer, and absolutely no idea what country gets which at the moment.