Aerocool Strike-X Air Review
The Build
Published: 23rd July 2012 | Source: Aerocool | Price: £89.99 |
The Build
You'll remember that I was a little hesitant as to how to achieve easy access to the rear of the motherboard area. In a traditional case this is done by simply removing the opposite side panel and turning the case around. With the X-Strike it wasn't going to be that simple though. The solution however came rather quickly as the strength of the case enables it to be flipped on it's side giving unprecedented all round access. Even at this stage we weren't quite sure how we were going to manage so many cables in such an open plane enclosure.
I guess we needn't have worried though as in reality the underside of the case seems to just swallow all the loops of unwanted and unsightly cables with the management holes perfectly placed to allow them to pop up at just the right place. even the front I/O cables we were worried about seem to easily disappear.
With a modest sized GPU such as the old faithful 8800GT it's actually possible to close the cooling panel lid. This it must be appreciated just isn't going to be possible with the larger modern GPUs. The accommodation of massive CPU coolers may also be possible with the lid shut, but this may be compromised by the degree to which they extend over the RAM area. For this build I fitted the moderately sized Havik 120 cooler which fitted underneath no problem, and does give some idea about just how much room there is under the lid.
Installation of both the 5.25" and 3.5" drives is simplicity itself as previously mentioned the 3.5" drives screw into their cassettes then simply slot into the hot swap bays. the 5.25" drives slide neatly into the bay area and are held in by good old fashioned screws.
Most Recent Comments
wrap my head around it. but now, that you've shed a light on it, (or as well as you could be
cause of how large it was) it is different in a different way.
it doesn't look portible for a LAN case. it supports water cooling (grommets in the bulkhead) but
where to mount a radiator(s)? again, great review. told me what i need to know and how my
open benches are important without worrying about the top blowing off! LOL...
airdeano
@ Airdeano. Please see above re rad mounting holes and page 2 para5 of the review.
seems to have all the things i need and pretty cheap as well,
Thanks for the review Gary Wain (bit late)
Greetings, Ray......
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Originally Posted by theteebox
Almost PERFECT! Except for this one : it might slower you SATA III 6Gbit/s transfer rate. also don't know either it using SATA Revision 3.1 or not.. wasting on my SSD
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With it's bold and aggressive styling, the open frame design of Aerocool's Strike-X Air is aimed not just at gamers, but at those who like maximum access to their hardware.
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