nev_payne

Box arrived this morning, hardly touched by the demonic horns of the postal service. Upon flipping the lid, instructions are given on the smaller side lips as to how to empty the box, and whats inside. Visible is the XCcube itself, along with several fold out "look around maps" showing the posts and general outsides of the SFF case. There are 6 droning European languages to chose from, and English so pick wisely!

What struck me was the matt black finish on the case cover. It was GORGEOUS. Not Marylin Monroe gorgeous but "guide me with a spoon" gorgeous . My hand can be seen in reflection but due to the cameras limitations, doesnt even begin to praise the look of this beast. The front facia is covered in sticky film to protect it form scratches during transit and building (and me), this was not the case for the cover, but we'll discuss that in a moment.

The XCcubes strength on outside apperances is stealth. Its everywhere, from the front USB ports to the floppy drive. A simple "push and click" will unlock and lock the case flaps to get to your precious devices. The CD Drvice area is automatic, upon pressing the eject button the door opens. Even n00bs cant get at this shizzle.

Heres a few specs to get you started:

- Size 320(W)X200(D)X185(H)mm (take note that W is from front of Xcube to rear)

- PSU 220Watt with 80mm Fan

- Chipset nForce2-GT/ MCP-T

- Memory DDRX2 (Dual Channel) 266/333

- Socket A 200-400MHz FSB

- Graphics OnDie 8x AGP VGA (Geforce 4MX) up to 128mb shared memory, 2x VGA ports, 1x S-video

- Slots 1xAGP 8X, 1X PCI

- Audio AC97 5.1 channel onboard sound

- Network 10/100 onboard LAN

- IDE 2x ATA133 ports

- Ports 4x USB 2.0 (2 rear 2 front)

- Firewire 3x IEEE1394 (1 rear 2 front)

- Bays 1x 5.25", 1x 3.5" internal, 1x 3.5" external drive bays.

This a side shot looking into the case. As you can see, Aopen have pushed through designing and have made this very different to a standard Shuttle design. The PSU can be seen mid-left of the photo and takes up most of the upper half of the rear panel. The 80mm fan is assisted with large grills on all side of the PSU save for the front facing panel. The motherboard is bustling, especially the rear 2/3 with the NB and SB and CPU socket. the majority of the fornt panel connectors are also linked up just behind the IO panel. To save having a mess the white tube at the top of the case holds all these cables. The 2 memory slots can also be clearly seen, but on the quieter 1/3 of the board, along with the IDE connectors.

Everything is clearly marked out in the manual using colour pictures, clearly annotated labels, arrows and warning signs incase of a difficult sequence of instructions. Everything is included right down to aligning the drives properly so the stelthing flaps work optimally. What did really cheese me off though was the HSF. This chucky rather lacking cooling solution has a mere 17 aluminium fins, mounted on a copper plate about 1/4" thick. The 60cm is mounted on 1 side of this and a metal shroud ducts the air out of a grill on the case cover. Mounting the darn thing was nigh impossible.

In almost every other review I've seen abut this SFF PC has had at least 1 complaint about the HSF. In my experience of it, it came into contact with the voltage regulator "doughnut" and MOSFETs far to many times, and had to be installed at a precarious angle, almost CPU die cracking angle, to lock onto the socket successfully. Maybe 1 reason why AMD changed to other means of cooler securing.

An hour later and everything was secured into the case. Spec is as follows:

- AMD Sempron 2400 (1.77 GHz) (using 170 bus and 10 multiplier)

- 256MB Samsung 2700 CL2.5 memory

- 80GB Seagate Barracuda

- Benq 52x32x52 black CDRW

- Onboard graphics set at 200 MHz and 32MB

- 56k Modem (rulez!!!)

- Windows XP SP1 and Direct X 9.0C

- Drivers as from XCube setup CD.

Overall the XCcube can be considered a work and entertainment PC for the living room when using the onboard Geforce 4 MX. Im sure with a far for powerfull card this SFF PC could really hit some decent benches. The motherboard boasts the best chipset for the Atlhon XP and Sempron series (all be it with a cheesy intergrated graphics topping) and with dual channel memory and a 6800 installed, this beast could see a few mouths open and drooling. The cooler however is somthing that would leave lots with mouths bearing teeth....large spikey teeth....

...and so to the Pimp and Gimp:

godfoot

nev_payne

j-dogg

liz19

nev_payne

Fu3lman

elitelilnoyd

SpikeShot