Xigmatek Elysium Video Review

Introduction

Xigmatek are a company known by many in the enthusiast community. They seem to have a never ending trail of well priced CPU coolers being released every couple of months plus an ever growing range of cases. Talking of cases, every now and then a case arrives that doesn't immediately look much from the box and the promo photos but once you actually get to work with it you can see that a lot of thought has been put in to try and cover all of our enthusiast picky needs.

One such case from Xigmatek was the Utgard, an instant hit with all the staff at OC3D Towers. It managed to cram in 9 optical drive bays, 240mm water cooling support, cable management, 120mm HDD cooling and a window into a mid tower sized chassis for £65! It walked away with with the prestigious gold award and a value for money award. It was an outstanding achievement from the team at Xigmatek to deliver all of those features at such a good price point.

So the stage has been set and the expectations for the Elysium are high, mainly because in our eyes this chassis is an Utgard on steroids with support for huge motherboards, masses of water cooling radiators and the oh so pleasing ALL optical bay front perfect for chucking yet another radiator in... On paper this case is a water coolers dream, and all for £140!?

Lets move on and take a look at some of the details we have 'borrowed' from the Xigmatek website:

Support HPTX super big M/B and 10 PCI slots for four graphic cards.

Hot-swappable 2.5/3.5” SATA HDD docking on top panel.

Two USB3.0 super-speed ports on top panel with dust-proof cover.

Both side screw-less ODD holders.

Dual PSU possible on the top and bottom.

360/420mm water cooling radiator possible.

Fully external twelve 5.25” bays with two “4 in 3 HDD cage”.

3.5” HDD anti-vibration rubbers inside of 4 in 3 cages.

Anti-vibration rubbers and bottom dust filter for PSU.

Aluminum on the front mesh panel with removable dust filters.

Video Review

Conclusion

My my my, where in Fods name do I start? How about Epic, glorious, fantastic, fan-dabby-dozey even! Xigmatek didn't let us down did they. They basically took everything they had learnt from the Utgard stuck it in a Gym for 12 months and brought us this steroid packed WWF Wrestling ready monster. Gone are the days of needing to spend upwards of £300 to get a decent water cooling chassis that you can bolt all your large radiators straight in to. When we say radiators we mean it to as this case will support a 3x120 or a 3x140 radiator AND a 4x120mm in the front aswell! There is a mount for a 2x120 or 2x140 in the bottom but to use this properly it sadly means relocating your PSU to the upper slot and thus blocking the roof grill. Its a shame because there is enough room in the chassis to have a psu and a rad in the bottom with ease.

The case was obviously designed around the SR2 but we cant help buy feel it should have been made slightly more ATX friendly, we would wager a hefty amount of pocket fluff and sofa change on the fact that 90% of the customers buying this chassis will NOT be using an SR2 at all, but cramming it full of water cooling goodies on their ATX based motherboards.

Talking of cramming a chassis full of expensive watercooling hardware, pretty much every watercooler I've ever met has a chuffing great window on the side of their case to show of the tubing artwork they have created, not having a full window panel ie: no mesh panel with the 200mm fan agains seems some what of an oversight on the designers part. Even if it was an extra cost option I would happily pay it.

As I said in the video this case is so close to being perfect its unreal. Give it some minor tweaks and I'd happily state this is the best water cooling chassis I have ever seen. Those kind of statements from a reviewing that's as picky as me really don't come lightly. The most amazing things is that this was all achieved at the staggering RRP of just £140, it's completely mind blowing.

Pickiness aside this case is nothing short of amazing for its price, I have sat here to try and think of another chassis that delivers so much and I really can not think of anything that comes even remotely close no matter what the price point.

Now award time, its a difficult one as I did find a few niggles, but as explained in the video I'm wading in with a Solid and well deserved silver. If Xigmatek address the minor issues I mentioned I'll happily change this to a gold and state that it is the best water cooling chassis on the market bar none. The challenge has been set Xigmatek, that small bit of polish and you could have a chassis that will go down in history as elite rather than just great.

Thanks to Xigmatek for the Elysium on test today, you can discuss your thoughts in our forums.