[section_title title=Closer Look]Closer Look
Taking a look at the system itself and starting with the exterior, the first thing I noticed when removing the system from the packaging was the very vibrant red finish on the Aerocool DS Dead Silence chassis. This particular case doesn’t have a window so no looking in from the outside I’m afraid but it does have support for up to M-ATX motherboards and full-size PSUs.
The red finish is also complimented with a nice soft, smooth feel which is something Aerocool get praised for; something I praise them for at least.
On the top of the case, the Braebo Hercules features 2 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack, 1 x 3.5mm microphone jack, a reset switch and a power button. These run parallel down the top of the case and I feel the black/red contrasts very nicely.
For those who want access to the top panel to install some aftermarket fans, the top panel does clip off which also gives you access into the main compartment of the case; another nice feature of the Aerocool Dead Silence Cube.
There is the optional space for the installation of a 5.25” device such as a DVD-RW or Blu-Ray player; these are of course optional although I tend to use USB flash drives myself. Windows 8.1 64 bit is included in the price however and all drivers/updates are installed on the system prior to arrival which is fantastic.
Here we have the rear of the case which of course features the rear I/O; this has the ports featured on the Gigabyte FM2A88XM-D3H motherboard and are as follows:
2 x USB 3.0
4 x USB 2.0
1 x PS/2 port (keyboard/mouse)
1 x VGA
1 x DVI
1 x HDMI
1 x SPIDIF out
3 x 3.5mm 5.1 audio
Certainly plenty of connections to get even the most advanced users going and with this being A88X, the chipset also supports SATA3 storage devices such as SSDs; none included here today I’m afraid but we do have a large 1TB HDD included.
