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So a little over a week ago i got this big parcel....
Exciting time's! However i did have a bit of trouble instantly as it turns out i didn't get the SSD with the lot. Spoke with Hexus about it and they got or should i say DR got it sorted out with in a few day's! New SSD popped through the door. One very happy me.
So i went on a to start the building, Now don't get me wrong i've not had many of the newer case's but the metal at the back of this one was a bit shabby, incredible thin and easy to break if you put to much pressure onto it. I continued to put the build together and the space makes this case great for beginners and pros! it has a lot of room inside, can take in total 2 HDD and 1 SSD or 3 SSD drives. It does allow for a full size DVD drive but this does loose you a HDD/SSD slot. One other thing i did notice that i didn't have the screws to screw the SSD to the nylon mount. I did speak with the other winner who confirmed having a separate set of screws, i unfortunately didn't have them so i compromised and a little bit of fine sanding went a long way!
In this image you can see the nylon SSD/HDD mount, take note these are not the right screws for it but i had to compromise like i said!
It must of taken me about 10 mins of sanding if that as it is rather soft plastic! but still strong which is a bonus! It also acts as a great way of being cable tidy,
Observe..
I have moved it to the top left so you can see the plan, the cables will go underneath to keep it neat and tidy,
By using this little bundle of goodies....
I was able to really tidy the inside up! the grill filter is actually magnetic which i was baffled with at first but the soon realized what it was for,
So before i continue with impressions and general use of the machine, here is a picture of the finished setup,
I used USB to install windows 7 home prem 30 day trial so a DVD drive was not needed for this ATM (i shall be loading a 500GB into it after the new year along with a drive)
Now going back to that magnetic filter thing? look at this!
Now it takes a lot to amaze me but for some reason this did, i wondered for a good 5 mins how it was going to be placed onto the machine but hey ho its magnetic! brilliant idea which also doubles up as a great and easy way of cleaning it.
Going back to the parts, with the cpu came a standard cooler, rather small in size and to be honest i wouldn't feel safe using it for long periods of time, think back to A6 cpu coolers.
The PSU comes with a range of cables which means if i wanted to add an external GPU i could as i have the 6 pin connector, it also has a 8 pin supply to the motherboard even though the motherboard does only have a 4 pin i have come across this before and it will always fit so not a problem! there is 3 cables which are allow you to connect an array of drives to, sata and molex but also one (i think its called mini molex?) for a floppy drive, pretty obsolete if you ask me! again though the cable management in this case is amazing so easy to work around.
With regards to boot times it is incredible. From a cold boot it took a matter of seconds, i mean literally about 14 seconds to boot, on average it was between 10 to 15 seconds ( i did a lot of restarting)
So the SSD is something i will defiantly be considering for my main rig now!
The memory is pretty awesome nice but clean heat spreaders and it runs amazing fast however, the motherboard does hold it back...more onto the motherboard later as this one became interesting!
In terms of looks and build quality i am fairly happy with the case in itself, it looks nice and does fit in well with my tv unit and looks like it is suppose to be there. The only issue i do have is the ports on the front not having anything to cover them, pretty much a small niggle but a niggle indeed.
So onto this funky cooler i got with this, what a beast! Before i go on i must mention the fact it does come supplied with TC which seems a good quality and the base of the cooler did have a seal to protect it which needed to be peeled off. It is surprising how good the cooler actually is for its size and it performs well which i needed as i will be putting this system through it's pace's shortly. The only issue was the metal bar in the case does come close to the top of the fan, does it cause a problem? No. But it was just a moment where i wondered if the metal bar was really needed as if i got a cooler just a few mm higher it would create an issue so height could possibly become an issue there.
Now onto the motherboard, it is a very clean and sexy layout, full on hardware porn with this tidy little number! the layout is good which aids in keeping everything inside the case tidy, obviously with the cooler being a low profile it was close to the memory but this i see as a bonus as it will help with cooling the memory in some respect. I noticed it had 6 sata ports although pointless for this sort of case it would be handy if you had the intention for a bit of raid action
So now that's out of the way how does it run? smooth is how, fast boot times thanks to the SSD and nice response inside of windows, working around a new desktop is always nice as it generally is pretty quick but with this i can easily notice the response with regards to loading apps and moving data.
When i installed windows it was pain free, took approx 20 mins to get everything loaded and about an hour to download some new drivers for the board. Once done i went on to install a few apps and games, again pain free installs and then i came onto the tests...
Now i haven't finished them all yet but i can tell you that the 3d mark vantage score is....drum roll please!
2454.5 3D marks not bad!
GPU score is 2172.3
CPU score is 4021.9
Now this system is going to become my little test bench for abit of an OC, i do however need to go have a Google as it has been a few years since i last OC'd a AMD CPU, so expect an update tomorrow on how it goes.
Thanks again Hexus for such an amazing prize! and to all involved in making it happen.
Originally Posted by TAKTAK
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