Aspire X-QPack: A Lanparty Dream
by Joshua Buss on July 2, 2005 1:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Introduction
Aspire seems to be a company that does not mind marching to the beat of a different drummer. We have seen more boldly themed cases from Aspire than just about any other case manufacturer out there. This is not a bad thing at all though, as many, such as the X-Navigator we reviewed last year, actually represent a very good performance per dollar niche especially for the gamers out there.
Continuing in their tradition, Aspire has recently come up with a Micro-ATX form factor case dubbed the X-QPack, and let us be the first to tell you, this is by no means a case that only gamers should get interested in.
A quick search through your favorite engines on the web for "micro atx cases" will most likely yield droves of squatty-looking mid-towers with no real features separating them from their slightly-bigger mid-tower brothers. One has to wonder what the point is of getting a case that does not allow the use of larger motherboards if it really doesn't have much to offer over the nicer (not to mention only marginally bigger) mid-tower cases.
Well the X-QPack definitely aims to change all that. After a couple days of working with the unit, here is a brief summary of how we feel about the new chassis:
| Aspire X-QPack | |
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- Excellent layout (good expansion) |
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| - Rounded edges - Tool-Less Features (minor) |
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Much to gamers' delight everywhere the case comes in red, yellow, green, blue, and silver, and the model we received for review was of the blue variety.
More information on the X-QPack on Aspire's website.
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Questioner - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
I have this case with the MSI Radeon Xpress 200 MB with an AMD64 (Venice)3200+, 4 sticks of Geil 512MB PC3200(With Blue heatsinks)ATI 550 Pro TV Tuner card, VIA Vinyl Sound card, 2 Plextor SATA DVD/DVDRW drives, 2 Segate 120GB SATA drives,Mitsume 3.5 floppy drive with built in smart card reader,Gigabyte cpu cooler with blue led fan, blue led SATA power connectors, UV SATA drive cables,Logitech MX 1000 laser mouse, Logisys lighted blue keyboard and Sceptre 19" LCD 12ms. The question about can full sized power supplies be used is yes, only if you use Liteon or Sony optical drives because they are shorter than the other drives. This case is great it is very quiet and cool the motherboard lacks any overclocking options but I was able to push it to 2.2gHz with a software tweak and it was stable and I didn't need any other voltage tweaks to do it. If any one wants pictures of my system I would be glad to show it if I knew how to post pictures on Anandtech, plus my system is alot neater than what the Anand's reveiw looks like because I have alot less cable clutter than Anand's, plus I did a little cable modding to make it look better.at80eighty - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
#30 , did you even read my disclaimer?thanx for the answers though :p
bbomb - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
How does this case compare to an Antec Aria? Its a pity they didnt compare the two as they are very similiar looking from the outside.IPSecGuy - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
Great review - thanks for the in depth info.Just a couple of (hopefully) quick questions;
1 - What MicroATX mobo's would you recommend for this case? I have looked at some Intel 915 foxconn and ASUS mobo's and have also looked at some AMD 939 based MicroATX boards. AMD vs Intel aside, which would be your top pick from each camp? (btw - haven't seen one with SATA-II support, so if you are aware of one let me know)
2 - Assuming that selecting a mATX board with pci-x16 is a given, do you think the PSU included with this case would support a vid-card such as a nVidia 6800GT/Ultra or the newer 7800GTX?
Thanks for your time!
deathwalker - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
Olaf van der Spek: Aren't there like four MicroBTX boards on the whole market? And aren't two of them based on 915G? I'll pass.Kristopher
Gholam - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
#29, did you even read the article? This is a case, not an SFF barebone system. It has nothing to do with SATA or SLI. It will accept pretty much any mATX motherboard, which DFI LanParty isn't. Abit is rumored to have a mATX SLI board in the works, but nobody has seen it yet. The PSU can be replaced, but the space is tight, and you'll have to use a short 5.25" drive to leave enough room for it, and fitting a long PSU such as Antec Phantom is out of the question.at80eighty - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
utter n00b questions :-1) SATA 2 supported?
2) SLI - capable?
3) Can a mobo like the DFI LanParty fit in this case?
4) Can the PSU be replaced with something like a Antec Neopower?
Appreciate any help :)
Olaf van der Spek - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
#25: MicroBTX?vfxraven19 - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - link
I bought this case and love it! I think this is better than the Antec Aria, but the Aria is still a nice case...