Aspire X-QPack: A Lanparty Dream

External Design

From a styling perspective, the X-QPack manages to find a nice compromise between 'extreme' and 'professional' through the use of classy, straightforward lines on the front of the case and a triple-window removable piece.

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Aspire ships the case with plenty of protection for all this plexiglas - there's covering on the inside and outside of all three windows and also a small piece covering the LCD display on the front.

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Looking at the front in more detail we can clearly see the carrying handle as well as the LCD readout display, USB 2.0 / Firewire / audio ports, power LED, HDD activity LED, reset and power buttons. Our only complaint with the layout here is that the Firewire port might be difficult to use if you have a larger usb device plugged in at the time, but this is a rather common problem when it comes to front port-clusters.

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Another quick glance confirms the unit's claim to being able to fully support two external 5.25" drives and one external 3.5" drive. Only a very few other cases this compact have the ability to hold two 5.25" drives, and this is one of the first areas where the X-QPack begins to strut its stuff. Speaking of size, the chassis is definitely in a class all its own. It's larger than pretty much any shuttle XPC in both width and height, but not by much - certainly not enough to be looked over in situations where an XPC might be considered. It is primarily this unique size of the X-QPack that allows it to get so many things right.

Here is an angled shot of the third window, the one on top of the case. Here we can start to get a better idea of how the case's internals are laid out.

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It's not too easy to tell from the pictures, but the front of the case is a rather normal plastic whereas the sides are a textured metal that resists fingerprints quite nicely. In spite of all the glory that super-gloss, car-paint style jobs get, there sure is something to be said for a case that does not need to be kept immaculate to look good.

Here we can see the right side of the case again as well as the back of the unit.

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The HD cage as well as the beam that supports it is visible through the window, and looking at the back we can see the nice large 120mm exhaust fan as well as the motherboard tray. Here's another shot of just the back, with the three thumbscrews that hold the top/side panel cover all removed.

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Now we can clearly see just how carefully the layout of the back of the unit has been planned. The 120mm fan fits with just enough room underneath to make the removable tray a possibility, and while the included power supply does not have the same depth as a standard ATX one, it does have the same height and width. We can also see one of the main benefits of choosing a full-fledged micro-ATX board over smaller alternatives: four PCI slots.

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Looking at the bottom of the case we find that the X-QPack uses four dark gray rubber feet to keep the unit from sliding on any surface. Let's pop the hood and take a look at what's underneath.