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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SilthDraeth - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
In response to my above post, I simply mean to convey that if this case does well at heat disipation, and providing a well designed, thoughtful case for the microATX formfacter, then the only disadvanage you could say it has compared to say a microBTX or any other small form factor design, would be the inability to support those motherboards. In all things buy what works best for you.SilthDraeth - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
Anyone that reads Porkster's comments knows he is anti AMD. But Porkster, if not micro atx, then what form factor?slashbinslashbash - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
I agree, great review. I too have been thinking about building a SFF PC, and this case adds a lot of options. I especially like that it can handle extra PCI slots and 2 optical drives. The handle is pretty cool too :)Tamale - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
I dunno man.. with cases this well designed and intel under so much fire I think atx is here for a long time yet to comeNordicNINE - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
#20, I was thinking of using that board for a Media Center PC since it has a DX9 video onboard.I had one earlier for a client and played with it a bit before hand. Plenty for a HTPC (MCE2k5) machine.
I wish it had a DVI port though since I want to get a DLP TV later this year.
porkster - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
Pity it's ATX. It's a bit late int he day to be making ATX cases..
kaborka - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
I've had my eye on the MSI microATX board with the RS480 chipset for building a HTPC. It has the onboard Radeon graphics + it's socket 939. This looks like it might be just the box for it. (Dunno if this board has 1000MHz HT, though.)NordicNINE - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
I was just going to buy this case.I hope this review doesn't make it harder to find. :)
Noriaki - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
Hey, great timing. I've been thinking about shunting my current machine as is over to a Linux box and building a brand new gaming rig. My Athlon XP2100+ is a little slow these days ;)And I would love for it to be a nice compact case for LANing. This article couldn't be better timed.
Are there any MicroATX boards that support 1000Mhz HyperTransport and the dual core Athlon 64s? I understand Via's chipset is a bit sketchy on A64x2s, and the K8M800 is 800 HT only I believe.
Tamale - Saturday, July 2, 2005 - link
lot of good questions here... I'll try to answer as many as possible..first off, yes, I wish I could've put in a more detailed review of the power supply itself - I'm currently working on getting a testbed that would be much more stressful to see how power supplies will stand up to it.
as far as dimensions, stromgald is right that it has the right mounting hole positions but that it's just shallower.. if you had a particularly shallow optical drive and/or were careful with the cables you could probably use a normal PSU.
I did have two hard drives installed at the end.. the seagate (sata) is behind the western digital (pata).. this was my attempt at putting as much of a load on the power supply as I could and seeing how the case handled the extra heat.
my comment about the excess cable clutter was simply an attempt to say that if our motherboard had the headers for extra usb/firewire cables I could've routed those cables to the appropriate places on the mobo instead of just cramming them up front.
I hope to get a system for testing power supplies in a much more informational manner very soon.