Apevia X-QPack

Written by Wil Harris

December 12, 2006 | 12:17

Tags: #apevia #atx #factor #form #micro #review #small #system

Companies: #shuttle

Assembly

Apevia X-QPack Assembly Apevia X-QPack Assembly
We took advantage of the removable tray to install an EVGA Micro-ATX motherboard along with a GeForce 7900 GT and an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ with an AMD stock cooler. These all fit in fine, although we then came to find something of a problem with the (aluminium) mobo tray - it is, like the casing, paper thin. It did not feel sturdy when we attached components onto it, and bent every which way as we tried to insert it back into the system, The edges, through being so thin, are also fairly sharp, which is a bit of a problem.

The hard drives install vertically at the front left of the system, leaving the two 5.25" bays and one 3.5" bay at the front of the case free for whatever else you want to install. However, the mounting bracket for the drives is relatively flaky, and we found that the weight of our drives caused a vibration rattle that required some third party stability (bubble wrap) to stop.

Apevia X-QPack Assembly Apevia X-QPack Assembly
The DVD drive needs to slide in from the front, through one of the open bays - make sure it's one of the last things you put in, since it blocks most of the top-down access to anything else in the case. There is not a heck of a lot of room between the power connector for the drive and the edge of the short PSU - you are going to be really pushed for space if you try and use a standard sized ATX PSU in this, unless you can find another shorter one of decent quality, or can live without an internal optical drive. It would be nicer if Apevia included 90 degree molex connectors to help alleviate this problem.

With a system installed in such a small space, having 120mm intake fan can be a life saver. This is an awesome, awesome thing to have, although the actual fan itself is only mediocre - but you can always switch it out for something decent.

Apevia X-QPack Assembly Apevia X-QPack Assembly
With the system installed, there's actually a fair amount of room in the bottom level - certainly enough to get your USB headers and whatnot plugged in.
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