Aspire X-QPack: A Lanparty Dream
by Joshua Buss on July 2, 2005 1:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Cooling
The X-QPack relies on an all-exhaust system to keep the computer cool. The main component is a semi-transparent blue LED 120mm fan.
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Larger fans allow for more air to be moved at lower noise volumes, so this is definitely a good sign that this will probably not be too noisy of a case.
The power supply has an internal 80mm fan set to exhaust as well, so these two fans working together will simply attempt to suck all of the hot air out of the back, and by creating this negative pressure inside the chassis, bring cooler air in through the perforations on both sides of the case.
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Something else to keep in mind when it comes to cooling in this case is that there simply isn't enough clearance for some of the larger heatsink/fan combos for CPUs out there. Our test bed has a Zalman CNPS7000cu heatsink/fan and it fits with only about half an inch of clearance when sliding the tray back into position.
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Construction
Overall we are very happy at the way the X-QPack is put together. Parts such as the motherboard tray and hard drive cage are made with aluminum to help keep the components cool and the case light, yet there are enough supporting rods and beams throughout the case to keep it very sturdy. Here are the two main supports for the power supply, one of which also helps to hold up the 5.25" drives.
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And here you can see how the long rod will help keep the case's front or backs from flexing under the strain of holding up the power supply.
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Looking from the other side you can see the rolled edge for the hard drive support beam and how this will also help support the drives.
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Lastly, we considered the construction and design of the front-mounted carrying handle, and in practice it is easy to use, solidly built, and still manages to look good when collapsed.
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KristopherKubicki - Monday, July 4, 2005 - link
Zepper: The fragbox is Falcon NW, not Alienware. It's based on a design from FIC as far as I know.Kristopher
Zepper - Monday, July 4, 2005 - link
The Aspire X-QPack is a variant of the Chenming 118 which I like better than the QPack as you can get it w/o any windows or with just one. It also has an interesting PSU in the Enermax 270W SFX mode - only 300W but 20A available on the +12V rail in a pinch. It's between that and the Enermax Venus series for my mATX builds. The supplied PSU should work well in most systems - but perhaps not in the freakazoid ones that many AT denizens seem to favor ;-) .A bit more FYI: Sony=LiteOn they are "technology partners" on optical drives as are NEC-Pioneer-Asus, Plextor-Sanyo, Hitachi-LGE (Goldstar), Toshiba-Samsung, Ricoh-AOpen and Philips-BenQ.
#21 - Well then, it must be great that this case is micro ATX - the wave of the future... [rolling eyes]
#28 - Micro-BTX - yes another doomed Intel "innovation". Putting the slots on the right and the PSU on the left - BFD. Anyhoo, newegg carries a couple of micro-BTX cases perhaps mobos too.
#38 - The Silverstone sg01 is supposed to be based on the Alienware Fragbox which SST designed for Alienware. And it's just as overpriced ~$200 sans PSU. Sorry Charlie...
#41 - It's not a PS/3 it's just a bit shorter than a normal ATX (the PS/3 is A LOT shorter than standard) - I believe the form factor is called "mini-ATX"
#42 - It can hold a standard size ATX PSU but you should probably use a short chassis optical drive (as mentioned above) if you do go that route. In fact, the short chassis drives fit best in most mATX cases. There are other short chassis drives besides the LiteOn based ones.
.bh.
Tamale - Monday, July 4, 2005 - link
in response to #40..my test unit was extremely sturdy.. I didn't find the back to be flimsy at all
as far as all the harsh comments against the 420 watt power supply, I'd just like to remind you all that lots and lots of people are still using generic power supplies rated for much less than 420 watts... if people are getting by fine with power supplies like that, I'm pretty certain a 420 watt from aspire would serve you fine for just about everything you could cram in a computer this small
I'll be taking a closer examination of all these power supplies as soon as I can...
yacoub - Monday, July 4, 2005 - link
Irrelevant. If it can't fit a real PSU made by a reputable name (Antec, Seasonic, or maybe Enermax), forget it.sprockkets - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
That power supply appears to be a ps3 form factor. Like others said, if this is true, it's a full size atx power supply with low depth. They exisit, but are not popular. FSP makes a 250w model for $30. 420w is stretching it a bit as to what that thing can put out, but whatever.mindless1 - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
I disagree about it being sturdy, the back in particular is necessarily flismy.Aspire is not a name to trust in power supplies either, this looks like another liability.
I like the front bezel though and the general concept. If this were made in thicker aluminum and without power supply (or a Delta), I'd buy it.
yacoub - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
Well, let's see:*Be able to fit a full-size ATX PSU.
*Get rid of the stupid lights/lighting.
*Enough room to fit at least an XP-90 HSF setup
Then I'd probably buy one.
R3MF - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
if you want a pretty mATX case then what you really want is this:http://www.silverstonetek.com/products-sg01.htm
it would be a tempting prospect for me had i not just bought a shuttle.
there are some okay nForce4 s939 boards available in mATX, but a manufacturer needs to make a high-end nForce4 Ultra/SLI mATX board.
come on MSI...............
sprockkets - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link
$188 for the case at newegg.com, that's like shuttle xpc expensive.Questioner - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
For people who want to know what AMD mATX boards that are avaiable go to Newegg and choose socket 939 then mATX and it will show about 5 boards 1 being the Foxconn NF4 and the rest is Radeon Express boards, 1 from MSI, 1 from ECS, 2 from Jetway the only difference being that one has video memory on the motherboard, but the Jetways are from what I heard are very overclockable. The MSI and ECS board are the same except for different bios tweaks and the ECS is more overclock able than the MSI. For 754 boards there are 15 of them but they are only VIA and SIS chipset boards.