Originally Posted by Mankz. Why not implicate a bottom mounted 120mm fan for the HDD's.
It seems silly not cooling the HDD's at all.
I believe there was a Google study recently that showed hard drive life to be fairly unaffected by temperature. I do agree that cooler drives are usually preferable though. I really like the hot-swap idea, even if its only used for fast hard drive changes whilst the system is off. I love my Silverstone TJ-09 but it is a huge pain to organise all the cables going to the hard drives. I don't know why these companies don't mix all the best features together into one case!
This thing is absolutely hideous. Far better cases exist in the same price range. Zalman should stick to what they know: Cooling.
And to note as said above; it's pretty odd that a company known primarily for their cooling products would neglect to provide any form of heat relief for the HDD's. Party foul Zalman. Party foul.
Meh, looks pretty fugly. I'm really not a big fan of mixing metal and plastic, it makes the plastic look even tackier.
Also did I miss something about Zalman? Since when have they been considered the BMW of computer peripherals? I mean from my experience their products are alright but really not all that special or anything.
"However, the reset button and HDD activity LED are notable by their complete absence - we still like to see these inclusions on a case; I know I still use mine at least a few times a week."
You do? Personally, I can't remember the last time I used either..
Yeah.. as others have said, it's not a case i'll be looking into buying, though I am after a case in that price bracket.
a case for more than 100£ shoudnt have a plastic exterior.
the zalman fans arent bad, they preform well and are very cheap, but if you have several it can indeed get noisy.
I'm not sure I'd miss a reset button, but I'd definately miss a hdd indicator light. What concerns me more is the ability to drag the weight of a loaded system from under your desk to upgrade/repair stuff. Why not have castors? Or the sledge arrangement that the Cosmos sits on? As for the build quality - that's a real put-off. Was this a retail unit you reviewed?
surpricingly, i hit reset button more than my power button..... HDD light can be dismissed without problem, same goes for the power LED. both are redundent LED where you will only look at if your monitor is off or not responding.
is it me or every case manufacturer is copying Antec's design? (was it antec's orignal idea to put PSU on the bottom? )
I do use the reset button quite a bit. I find it helpful when I have missed getting onto the BIOS when I am starting my computer up, and similar such scenarios. My motherboard actually records how many times it has been pressed, I will have a look next time I restart it.
As for the case - oh well. Thanks for the review though :)
Still looking for something similar to the case that was used in the £400 PC build, cheap and not too rubbish.
I don't know how people can consider a $200 case "mid-range." $200 for a graphics card is mid-range, but $200 for a case when you can get a $50 Antec and get similar results is asinine. $100 is mid-range. $150 is higher-end. $200 is extravagant and unnecessary.
Just how much disposable income do you people have?
Originally Posted by Baz Keep your eyes on bit-tech - I've got the Akasa Omega and Lian Li PC X2000 ready for review - both cases show a LOT of promise.
LiLi's are always a good thing to see (well, except that hideous Armorsuit... )
Originally Posted by wuyanxu surpricingly, i hit reset button more than my power button..... HDD light can be dismissed without problem, same goes for the power LED. both are redundent LED where you will only look at if your monitor is off or not responding.
Heh, i'm the complete opposite :p
lack of a reset button is not an issue at all: just hold down the power button a few secs to turn it off then hit the power button again ;)
absolutely none of the PC's at work have reset buttons and i've never missed them.
Power LED: meh, not a biggie, actually unplugged the one on my PC at home as it was too bright
HDD LED: huge problem for me, it'd drive me bonkers not having one. It's about the only way you can tell if a program has frozen or simply still loading :p
I even went to the trouble of soldering LED's to my raid controller card as it didn't have the connector for the activity LEDs present
Oh, how one wishes the Lian-Li PC-A20 were here already... Zalman seems to have gone the way of flashy (and fugly). Once they started fitting every new cooler with LEDs you just knew things were going downhill. And this is "case in point" (pun intended)... :(
Comments 1 to 25 of 34
ReplyIt seems silly not cooling the HDD's at all.
It seem so silly designing a case to look like that.
I believe there was a Google study recently that showed hard drive life to be fairly unaffected by temperature. I do agree that cooler drives are usually preferable though. I really like the hot-swap idea, even if its only used for fast hard drive changes whilst the system is off. I love my Silverstone TJ-09 but it is a huge pain to organise all the cables going to the hard drives. I don't know why these companies don't mix all the best features together into one case!
I think that kind of person would go for a CMS 830 with 2 5in3 drive swap bays anyway. thats 10 drives with 2 slots left for optical and cardreader.
classic engineering flop, the details are the killer
And to note as said above; it's pretty odd that a company known primarily for their cooling products would neglect to provide any form of heat relief for the HDD's. Party foul Zalman. Party foul.
And though thermal performance is pretty good, there's no cooling for the HDDs (many people, like me, DO care about that).
Plus, I've never been a fan of bottom mounted PSUs. If it's cables are not long enough, you've had it.
Also did I miss something about Zalman? Since when have they been considered the BMW of computer peripherals? I mean from my experience their products are alright but really not all that special or anything.
You do? Personally, I can't remember the last time I used either..
Yeah.. as others have said, it's not a case i'll be looking into buying, though I am after a case in that price bracket.
the zalman fans arent bad, they preform well and are very cheap, but if you have several it can indeed get noisy.
is it me or every case manufacturer is copying Antec's design? (was it antec's orignal idea to put PSU on the bottom? )
Haven't used my reset button in about 5 years.
As for the case - oh well. Thanks for the review though :)
Still looking for something similar to the case that was used in the £400 PC build, cheap and not too rubbish.
Just how much disposable income do you people have?
LiLi's are always a good thing to see (well, except that hideous Armorsuit... )
lack of a reset button is not an issue at all: just hold down the power button a few secs to turn it off then hit the power button again ;)
absolutely none of the PC's at work have reset buttons and i've never missed them.
Power LED: meh, not a biggie, actually unplugged the one on my PC at home as it was too bright
HDD LED: huge problem for me, it'd drive me bonkers not having one. It's about the only way you can tell if a program has frozen or simply still loading :p
I even went to the trouble of soldering LED's to my raid controller card as it didn't have the connector for the activity LEDs present
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