The Cougar QBX Mini ITX Case Review
by E. Fylladitakis on November 13, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- Cougar
- Case
Final Words
Wrapping up our reivew, for Cougar the main selling point of the QBX is its design, and for good reason. The company has clearly put a good bit of effort into this design, and despite being their first ITX case it has already won a trade show design award. With the QBX, Cougar has definitely put together something that is interesting and rather versatile, and they've made it look good in the process. The elegant appearance of the QBX, along with the low retail price, are probably the strongest selling points of this product. Which is not to say that this is a case without drawbacks - its small size is both a curse and a blessing - but as we'll get to, these are matters that an experienced builder should be able to handle.
Overall the quality of the QBX is excellent, all the more considering the low price of the case. Cougar may have skipped some "luxury" features, such as rubber grommets, but the case is very well designed, with excellent mechanical strength and made of high quality materials. The solid craftsmanship is reflected in the aesthetics of the QBX as well, making it look almost just as good as much more expensive designs.
In terms of performance the QBX won't quite deliver "the best performance of its class," at least not with just the slow 92 mm stock fan, but it's definitely a solid performer. The case is cleverly designed so as to provide very good airflow to the main system and it appears capable of handling fairly heavy thermal loads, while the optional fan mounts should give it yet more thermal headroom. Meanwhile isolating the PSU's airflow from the rest of the system is a clever and welcome design, but it is not really something new. The vast majority of cases, from the smallest to the largest designs, employ the same dedicated intake & outtake cooling strategy for their PSU bays.
The drawback of this case then is also one of its greatest strengths: its size. For just about everything - the selection of the graphics card, the size of the CPU cooler, the type of the PSU, etc. - there are limitations and consequences that need balanced. A modular PSU would limit the maximum length of a video card, the installation of an ODD drive would block the installation of certain PSUs, installing a side fan limits the CPU cooler's height to just 80 mm, and so on. In the end nearly every hardware selection impacts another, requiring careful planning and selection of hardware to make the most of the case's limited space.
As a result our final thoughts on the QBX may be somewhat complicated, but the Cougar QBX is a deceptively complicated product as well. Ultimately once you have done the necessary homework, what you will find is that the Cougar QBX is a well-designed and high quality Mini-ITX case, one that experienced builders should find rewarding. This, coupled with retail prices hovering around $53, makes the QBX a definite steal right now in the Mini-ITX space.
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SpartyOn - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
I like the exterior look of this case and will definitely keep an eye on it, but I think for practicality purposes, I'll have to stick with my Cooler Master 120. The Cougar just looks a little big for my tastes in the wrong dimension (too tall).Before Cooler Master released the 130 without the drive rack (though by the looks of the 130, the cage maybe would still take some modding) I modded the CM 120 by removing the internal bays and mounting two 120x120x52mm CLCs in it with three 120mm fans in a stacked rad configuration (F-R-F-R-F), one for the GPU and one for the CPU. The overclocked CPU gets the fresh intake from the front and then I was actually still able to cram in two 120mm fans, one on each side of the rad stack, to blow fresh air through to the second interior rad. Add in CM's 80mm side mobo fan and the Antec 92mm spot cool I threw in there for the mobo and the VRAM on the back of my GTX 770 4GB and I've got a whopping SEVEN fans in that shoebox with two radiator systems. And that's not counting the 92mm an I have on the modded GTX VRAM. All of the fans are PWM except for the 80mm and the spot cool, so it's quiet when it needs to be and boss when things ramp up.
Been daily driving a 3570K @ 4.65 GHz and a GTX 770 4GB @ 1400 MHz core/7940 MHz memory for three years now.
Still my favorite ITX to tinker with.
Been waiting for Pascal to drop before considering an upgrade, but it's all good; I'm almost hitting GTX 970 3dMark scores with my overclock.
If I can see this Cougar in-person before Pascal drops, I might give it a go if I feel it can suit my needs, otherwise it may be back to the 120.
jwcalla - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
Somebody make something smaller.romrunning - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
This Cougar case does seem too big for mini-ITX. My Silverstone SG05 seems like it's half the height of the QBX. To me, that's part of the point of going mini-ITX - you want something small.tabascosauz - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
In 10-15L ITX designs, there are essentially only two conventional designs. One moves the PSU to the side so that a cooler like the D9L or U9S can be accommodated, and the M1, SG08 and QBX follow this route. The other is to suspend the PSU over the motherboard, saving space but limiting CPU coolers to a maximum of something like the L9x65. The SG05, SG06, and SG13 follow this design. IMO the Elite 130 doesn't make a whole lot of sense aside from long GPU support, seeing as how the case is large yet can't accommodate a decent air cooler.Samus - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
The FT03-mini is 17.6L but is a complete mindwarp to work inside. Once you figure it out it's actually quite genius. Once you figure it out...I'd never recommend one to a novice. I think Cougar is targeting a wider audience than Silverstone, which I've always considered to be a niche brand.
sna1970 - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
this case is stolen from NCASE M1 , the same design . SHAME ON THEM !https://www.ncases.com/
techxx - Friday, December 30, 2016 - link
Similar design. I think it's great they could bring something this good to the masses at this price point.Xajel - Monday, November 16, 2015 - link
I would like to see a review like this for the croudfunded NCASE M1, small yet very feature rich, including ODD, large graphics cards, Water cooling support, etc.. the only drawback some might see is it support mainly SFX PSU, and has a very limited ATX PSU supporthmmmm. when we will start to see Type-C ports on cases, AFAIK only one case now have support for it... hope AnandTech will make an article in this regard, maybe case manufacturers will rethink again about adopting it...
sna1970 - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
front bay USB 3.1 Already exist from Asus , Gigabyte and Asrock.you can add front USB3.1 to any case available.
DanNeely - Thursday, November 19, 2015 - link
Filling an entire drivebay up for a pair of ports you can hide under your thumb is inelegant at best. If you've got a case that hides the drive bays behind a door (aside from visual aesthetics, this offers better noise suppression in most cases) it's borderline unusable.Unfortunately it's probably going to be a few years before we see a widespread and largescale replacement of A ports with C ones on the front panels of cases. Worse is that because they're a different size; even if the case manufacturers offer a swapable upgrade part in most cases it's not going to have a particularly clean look. (The only exceptions being designs that put the ports bezels on a separate case part instead of just cutting holes in a large front/top panel.)