The Streacom F12C Aluminum Desktop Case Review
by E. Fylladitakis on September 14, 2015 9:00 AM ESTConclusion
The F12C is Streacom's first attempt to stray away from SFF and passively cooled cases, towards the territory of high performance enclosures for advanced PCs. As a company, Streacom has a fair share of experience with aluminum enclosures and the F12C reflects that. It is an exquisitely shaped and finished case, without a single visible flaw. Aesthetics are a subjective matter but we believe that few would not appreciate the elegant simplicity of pure aluminum. Despite its many openings and the very low weight, the mechanical strength of the F12C is remarkable. Its surface is also strongly resistant to fingerprints, stains and scratches, which is very important if the case will be installed in a living room with children or pets roaming about.
A very important feature of the Streacom F12C is the modular internal configuration design. The multipurpose mounting bars attached to rails is an excellent idea that allows unforeseen levels of customization. If we were talking about a large tower case, having such rails across its main panels would result to infinite possible configurations. For the F12C in particular, it definitely is very effective but imperfectly applied. If there is an ATX motherboard in the case, the left side panel rail becomes almost useless, as even a fan will block the motherboard's headers. If the case was just an inch wider, fans or drives could be installed on the left side panel without compatibility issues with ATX motherboards. The 450 mm standard width limit of AV cabinets is what obviously limited Streacom and they wanted to make sure that their design would fit inside all common furniture. This makes the F12C a little too narrow for systems with ATX motherboards, forcing the user to either abandon most of the left rail or select a shorter motherboard instead. Still, if a mATX or ITX motherboard is selected, there is more than plenty of space for radiators, fans, and drives, offering the user some flexibility when choosing components. Finally, the locking mechanism could have been a lot better than a metallic clip.
Despite its very high quality and versatile design, there are two issues with the F12C chassis that may affect users. The first is the omission of any front I/O ports. Getting rid of the 3.5 mm headphone jacks could be justified somehow, but having no front (or side) USB ports limits the usability in a HTPC environment, requiring users to solely use the IR remote route. This is especially true for a case intended for HTPC systems that also offers no option for an optical drive at all. Even if we consider a household that every main storage device is accessible via the network, being unable to attach a simple flash drive or HDD is problematic. The second aspect is of the retail price. The case is not available yet for the North American markets, but a retail price of about $225 (currently 199 EUR in Germany, 166 GBP in the UK) is very steep and definitely not for those with a tight budget. Streacom's pricing means that the case is aimed more at a premium crowd, which certainly highlights the aluminium chassis and lightweight, modular design, but it will be elimated from the non-premium crowd based on price almost immediately.
Streacom designed and produced the F12C chassis obviously hoping to gain a piece of the market consisting of users who want to build very powerful HTPC systems, usually designed to double as gaming machines. Actually, the design and capabilities of the F12C chassis have it leaning more towards gaming machines rather than HTPC systems, limiting the market potential of the case even further. The F12C is aimed towards an admittedly small fraction of the PC market, aimed to users who will not consider the cost too much. The modular mounting system requires a little bit of extra work with a screwdriver, but it offers excellent versatility to those that want to build their own unique designs. However, these users also are very demanding and the F12C has a shortcomings as well. The lack of front USB ports and the inability to use any type of optical media are important issues for HTPC users, but we could imagine that a system integrator might take this chassis and attempt to build a custom machine.
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Daniel Egger - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
I fully agree. I also looked specifically for a case with a 5 1/4" bay and front ports. Found the lovely Lian Li PC-C50B which is not only cheaper and offers the mentioned features but also comes with two fans installed, has plenty of space for drives and is available in black which is kind of important since my receiver and other equipment is also black and a silver case would really look like an alien in my living room... One big drawback of the Lian Li case: You *really* have to love screwing because that's what you'll be doing a lot for any tiny hardware change...Bobs_Your_Uncle - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
This case isn't for me (at least at the current MSRP) but I really, REALLY like quite a LOT of what I see on display in this case:- tolerances on joints, & especially the external panel seams, etc;
- meticulously precise conical chamfering on external AND internal screw inlets, external AND internal;
- the exceptional proportionate balance of radials (fore & aft) expressed in the 1/2 bullnose treatment that weds to the top panel;
- similar radial expression on right & left side panels flowing into the base.
Extensive photos & well angled views reveal that every element of this case is EXACTLY where they intended & every aspect flows into the next PRECISELY as envisioned. Streacom demonstrates a masterful blending of excellent engineering to gifted design.
I seriously like where they're going in this case. Design choices & asthetics can (& should) be questioned & debated. But like them or not, their execution appears beyond reproach. The disclaimer of course is: photographs. But these photos give rise to the craving for an up close & personal stroll around the block.
As it stands, I'll look into the Lian Li PC-C50B. Cuz I do *REALLY* love screwing but so rarely get the pleasure!
angrypatm - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
It looks as though it's targeted at Apple people, plain, no ports (no versatility). Its pretty, but not friendly.dwatterworth - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Fractal Node 605 makes this thing look just plain silly and overpriced.The major problem with attempting to put any GPU's in these horizontal cases, other than blower-style cooler equipped cards, is the airflow. You can either exhaust or supply, a longer GPU blocks nearly the entire airflow path.
The size I think was more to match existing theater components rather than to provide functionality for this case. It's like they had 2 designers who never talked to each other, one thinking of interior layout and one hacking holes into the exterior. Those top grilles...why not make it more functional and get actual full sized filtered opening with fan mounts? That movable rail system is kind of an afterthought I'd say, little correlation to the case layout or component positioning on the motherboard.
Like the article says, the exclusion of any front USB ports is such a huge omission, people will just end up having a USB extension coming from the back of the case and mucking up what could be a clean appearance in an theater setup. No sound absorption materials with that high ticket price is crazy too. At least some padding above the main CPU and GPU areas. Then to mount some potential mechanical drives right up against the aluminum with no dampeners or anything? Yes, I'd love to conduct all vibrations through the case please!
nightbringer57 - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Well thing thing certainly does not look like a big storage champion, to be honest. I'd view it more like a network bound machine for HTPC purposes. Just drop in a SSD for the system, a bigger ssd if you plan on gaming (or a second cheaper/GB SSD)ImSpartacus - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Yeah, it's hard to understand the use case for this one.DanNeely - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
I initially assumed it was a scaled up version of the rest of their cases (presumably checkbox marketing driven design); but while bigger than the remainder of their lineup it has a very different design than the rest.Almost of their gallery shots are of black cases; so I'm not sure why they send this model for review. The rest of their cases are a lot more reasonable too; slim mATX/mITX models that either support half height cards or use a riser to mount a full size card or two parallel to the mobo, and with heatsinks that use heat pipes to connect the CPU to the chassis to use as a giant heat sink. I suspect the one case with the PCIe riser is intended for a pair of full height tv capture/etc cards because a GPU would broil in the case. Some of the cases have room for a small fan; but in their intended mode most look like they would probably function just fine passively cooled. Maybe the fan's for if you're using an HDD; I didn't look that closely at layouts.
The best I can say about this case that it might've been a failed experiment; but the PHBs insisted on production to try and recover some of the r&d costs. It's a pity they decided to send it out for review; almost all of their other cases look like they'd've gotten a better reception.
stephenbrooks - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
It seems to be a common mistake that "sleek, minimalist design" is assumed to mean "remove all the ports".If the company is really phobic about visible ports they could put a flush door in front of them but TBH in my experience doors are more hassle than they're worth. The USB type-C hole is quite elegant, perhaps we could look forward to a future where you just have a regular array of those on the front of the case...
Morawka - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
wtf is that a GTX 295 Graphics card you installed in that pc? kinda old and outdated ya thinkBrokenCrayons - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
I think the point was to illustrate the case layout, cable management, and what a finished system will look like inside the box. Since consistently repeatable testing of case thermal and noise properties uses a specifically designed set of hardware component simulators rather than actual computer parts, the parts used to show layout in the photo aren't as important. Besides that, the size and general shape of dual slot, blower-equipped GPUs hasn't significantly changed in quite a few years so a GTX 295 is perfectly reasonable.