External Design (cont’d)
Typical of all home theater components, there’s nothing of real interest on the right or left sides of the MCE601. Worthy of mentioning, however, is that the case has well-designed feet on the bottom.
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The rear two feet are rubber cones approximately 3/4” high, and the front two feet are those rather familiar-looking silver and black circular affairs.
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Taking this into consideration, one could realize just how nice a computer built with this case would look mixed in with your already-existing home theater equipment. Since there are not too many differences between various HTPC cases, it is definitely the attention to details like this that one has to take note when deciding in which case to build their HTPC.
On the back of the MCE601, we found several familiar items, but also some other rather unconventional ones that piqued our interest.
First off, the included SilentX power supply does not have standard ATX-sized dimensions. Including the feet, the entire case is only 5.8 inches tall, while standard ATX power supplies are 5.9 inches wide (or in this case, tall), so it was necessary for Ahanix to use a proprietary power supply in this chassis.
Click to enlarge.
We can also see from the back the screws that hold the side panels to the back panel - always a nice choice in our opinion, since rivets are irremovable. There is a pair of 60mm fans situated above the motherboard port cluster to handle the bulk of the system’s cooling, and a cable coming from the display in the front bezel of the case out of a PCI slot. It is designed simply to plug into the motherboard’s parallel port, which while normally would not cause any problems might begin to as more motherboard manufacturers decide to leave out a parallel port altogether.
Click to enlarge.
Looking straight down at the top of the MCE601, one can see the CPU intake vents and the additional passive cooling vents situated over the video card area. Without additional fans, however, we are a bit curious as to how cool the MCE601 will keep the internal components and ambient air.
Next up, internal layout.
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ImJacksAmygdala - Friday, May 6, 2005 - link
Show me a single HTPC case that has two 120mm fans and a ATX power supply and I'll buy it. The first company that takes the Antec Sonata or SLK3700BQE design and flips it on its side with a horizontal DVD drive, HT component damper feet, and a clean HTPC face plate gets my money. Currently no such case exists on the market. Antec tried and failed with the Overture design due to the heat enthusiast systems now create, and for some reason they haven't thought about using the popular design of the Sonata and SLK3700BQE. If you go to the silentpcreview forums you can find tons of threads on these cases, and I am surprised no one has tried to mod one horizontal yet.araczynski - Friday, May 6, 2005 - link
cheap, retro wannabe, thin aluminum crap. probably made in vietnam for $0.50.but all the more power to them if they can sell this pile of sh*t to idiots.
Tamale - Friday, May 6, 2005 - link
It was a tad akward perhaps, but that is what I meant to say.. the hard drive's local air isn't really getting pushed or pulled anywhere thus keeping that area warmer than it should be..as far as the power supply, yes it offers the 20 or 24 pin connections, but no i didn't notice any 6-pin VGA connectors.
Spacecomber - Friday, May 6, 2005 - link
While these cases (Ahanix) are nice to look at, I have to agree with the consensus that there just doesn't seem to be enough good about them to justify a $300 price tag.I thought that the review was well done. I'll add just one small suggestion: more information on the vpower supply would be helpful. Maybe a shot of the label, so the power capacity on the different rails would be available. Also, perhaps add a mention of whether it is a 20 or a 24 pin ATX power connector and whether it provides the new 6 pin PCI video card connectors.
Finally, I think this sentence is mis-written, "It is a bit discouraging to see that the hard drive itself is not really any hotter than what we are used to seeing, but the warm air created from that component must not be moving much, as that area of the case is still quite warm. "
Still, a good start and I look forward to other reviews.
Space
Tamale - Friday, May 6, 2005 - link
Sorry about the broken images when the review first went up.. they should all be fixed now. This is my first review so things didn't all go quite as smoothly as I had hoped. I'm still trying to find the best ways to illuminate the cases before I shoot, but I feel the only real problem I had with most of these shots was a failure to manually set my white balance. Your feed back is highly valued though everyone.. thanks!-Joshua Buss
Tamale - Friday, May 6, 2005 - link
Zirconium - Thursday, May 5, 2005 - link
I don't care how good this case is - for the almost $300 that it costs, I can get a Shuttle cube.ncage - Thursday, May 5, 2005 - link
Cool looking case. Would definitly look like a piece for your home theater and wouldn't stick out like a normal case would but the cost is WAY WAY WAY WAY to high. If it was in the $100 range i would think about it but at this price no way. Im just going to get a super mini case from antec.Houdani - Thursday, May 5, 2005 - link
Ditto the troubles with the thermal images. Win2K, IE6.The missing images are the ones which display the temperature readings -- the ones we really care about. The mouse-over images will disply fine when you put your mouse on the placeholders, but those are just the pictures of the case innards less the thermal scores. Zoinks.
piasabird - Thursday, May 5, 2005 - link
I think a slot loading notebook drive would be better for a case like this. Might help with the air flow. I think possibly the intel chipset for the mobile desktop motherboard might be better. A centrino setup might be nice. I cant see many designs that can cool off multiple hard drives in a case this size in an efficient manner. If you have a vent on the bottom where the hard drive rack goes a low rpm fan might help. If the hard drives sat verticle they might cool better. Sitting horizontal they block the air flow.