[section_title title=Closer Look – Exterior]
Closer Look – ExteriorÂ
A quick glance at the front of the case shows a relatively simple aesthetic from Aerocool, and something completely different to what we normally see from them. All of the cases follow the same design with a coloured middle section, in our case its a Gold variant, with black trim. The front has two bay panels, one to accommodate a 5.25 inch optical bay and a smaller one below is for 3.5 inch FDD devices. At the bottom we have the Aerocool logo finished in a shiny silver plastic. The black trim around the outside has ventilation holes all around it, allowing the front intake fan to draw plenty of fresh air into the chassis.
Onto the roof of the chassis, we have decided to use the solid roof panel for the picture below. On the left side of the panel is the power button, reset switch and then the 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks. On the right hand side the IO is made up of two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports, both of these run off of internal headers. Towards the rear of the roof panel you can see a little black tab, this is the locking mechanism for the roof panel. Also on the left and right side you get a better look at the ventilation provided by the black trim, this is the same as the front of the chassis.
Below, just a quick picture of the roof with the optional mesh panel installed. As you can see it is made from a black hex mesh and has fine dust filtering under it.
Onto the back of the chassis and we can see that Aerocool have decided to use a motherboard orientation that we generally do not see a lot of, the motherboard being mounted horizontally. To the right of the motherboard cutout is the four PCI-E expansion slots, which immediately tells me this chassis is able to accommodate an MATX motherboard. As for the slots, they are not fastened down with the conventional use of screws, but by a hold down plate which is tightly held in place by a beefy thumbscrew. As the bottom we have a power supply cut out and to the left of that is a small vented area, this is in face a mounting point for some SSDs, hence the ventilation, but more on that later. We also have fan mount for the rear exhaust which is populated by a 120mm fan but is also capable of accommodating a 140mm fan too. Lastly, below the power supply cut out is the access to the removable dust filter for the power supplies air intake.
Removing the roof panel we are greeted with the fan mounts for the roof. It is able to accommodate dual 120mm or 140mm fan configurations with the latter only being able to be mounted on the inside of the chassis and even then the drive bay needs to be removed. The 120mm fans can be mounted on the exterior of the mounts and will fit below the roof panels, this then allows push pull set ups if you were to use a radiator in the roof. There are also three cut outs in the roof which are for the cable routing of the IO panel.
Removing the front panel gives us a better look at the 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch bays. These are removable by removing the screws that are pictured as well as some on the side of the chassis. We can also see more cable management holes as well as the fan mounts, which is able to accommodate a 120mm, 140mm or a 180mm fan.
Just a quick look at the window panel which focuses on where the motherboard is mounted and will predominately be dominated by whatever graphics card you choose to install in the system, in this case it is dual R9 290 graphics cards.
