spawn01
Description
So, if you ever wondered what it would be like to purchase a PC case from IKEA, this is it. What we have here is an all acrylic (with some small bits of aluminum) put together yourself PC case. It comes directly from the manufacturer in Taiwan in a small flat box.
When I opened the box and laid the components on the table, I was like...What The Heck!?!?!?! This is a PC case! After looking at the components, I found it to be well manufactured and good quality. The instructions have to be downloaded from their web site and is what you would expect from assemble yourself furniture. Mainly a bunch of pictures of add part A to part B and what the finished project should look like.The leave it up to you to figure the rest of it out.
I went with the white and black case. Only the top and front panel are a flat white and the rest of the case is tinted transparent acrylic. You can see right through it. I really did not like that to much. I vinyl wrapped some of the interior with white carbon fiber vinyl but the color did not match exterior panels so I wrapped those as well. Originally, I was planning on using spare parts for this build, but the MSI mother board would not post, the ASUS GTX 960 for the life of me would not allow the HDMI to work! So in the end, I ended up using the I5 6600 processor.
So lets talk some issues here. If you decide to get this case, do yourself a favor and get the PSU cover because the flex ATX PSU is very utilitarian (meaning ugly). Also get the PCIE extension cable they sell. Well worth it. They sell a custom modular PSU but because of the location of the connectors, I was afraid of some airflow issues. I was amazed at how small these PSU's are. Although, that 40mm fan can get pretty loud. I took this one out and replaced it with a noctua. Big difference. As far as GPU's, when they say 211mm, they mean it. But, you can get any ZOTAC mini in there all the way up to a 1080ti. One of the mother board standoffs was in the way of the GPU power connector and required modifications. I had to trim off some of the cpu cooler fan shroud for clearance with my ram. Had to shave some off the fins on the cooler for clearance on the M.2 heat sink. Other than that, everything was great.
Cable management is something else in this thing. You get enough room in front to stuff everything but it don't look good. I made a compartment out of acrylic to hide some of it. Initially, I sleeved the entire length of the cables. Big mistake. It just made the wiring bundle twice as big and impossible to manage. I ended up cutting the cables to length and doing just the part that you can see. In hind site, I should have used paracord.
As far as cooling, this thing is great. 62 degrees on the GPU and 57 on the CPU under load. Air flow is really good. This copper C7 is amazing. I am using a non-K I5 though. I don't think I would try and cool a 8700k with this, although there are people who do in those Dan cases. Once I cut a 2 inch hole in the bottom of it so the PSU could breathe, this thing is real quiet. Now that it is done, I am pleased at how it turned out. While building it, I didn't like it to much. Once it is all put together, it is pretty solid. No flex and a little heft to it. This is the smallest PC I ever built but the layout is really well thought out. For its size, I think it is a great little case. And it looks good too.
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