Introduction

It used to be that PC cases were just your generic beige rectangular boxes. Nowadays you've got all sorts of sizes, designs, and colors to choose from. If you browse on over to Xoxide.com, you'll see an example of what we're referring to. Last summer, we here at WhiningDog decided to purchase one of their funkier looking cases - the Xoxide RazerX microATX case - for an in house project. Though the case is no longer available at Xoxide, we decided to finally write up a short review of it anyhow. One of the original inspirations in obtaining the RazerX was to build a home theater PC/game console PC around it. Join us as we take a look at our experiences with the RazerX microATX case.

Packaging

The following are pictures of the packaging for the RazerX case:

Here are the accessories:

Specifications

Case Dimensions:

440mm (H) x 155mm (W) x 270mm (D)

Fits a microATX motherboard

Case materials:

Steel

Drive Bays:

3 total (1 x 5.25" external, 1 x 3.5" external, 1 x 3.5" internal)

Expansion Slots:

4

Fans:

2 (1 x 80 mm front, 1 x 60mm rear)

Power:

P4 certfied 200 watt PSU included

Features:

Front dual USB, Microphone and Headphone ports

Physical Overview

First off - yes this case is indeed orange and white (though there were other color options available at the time). Our initial impressions of the box consisted of "WOW - now this would make a cool looking game console box or HTPC!" Ok, so an HTPC might be stretching it a bit here since many like their systems to look more like stereo components than some funky orange box. To each their own!

Here's a shot of the front of the case.

The front section is covered by an orange panel which flips down to reveal two drive bays - one 5.25" bay and one 3.5" bay. There are two audio jacks and two USB ports on the front face of the box.

The case can be oriented in a number of ways but we preferred to keep it in a vertical position.

Here are some pictures of the rear of the case.

There are four expansion slots covers in the rear. The RazerX comes with a 200watt power supply unit which should be enough juice for a small microATX system. (consider that many Shuttle systems have 200 watt PSU also)

Here are the inside shots of the case. The side panel can be lifted through the removal of two thumbscrews.

Once the panel was removed, you'll notice that there isn't much room inside. The RazerX can sustain a total of three drives - one 5.25 inch drive and two 3.5inch drives. One 3.5" drive literally sits on top of the power supply which is a bit too close for my comfort.

There are a couple of design problems with the guts of the RazerX. First, notice the steel barrier between the power supply section and the motherboard section. You need to route your cables over the steel wall which at first doesn't seem like a bad idea except when you realize that there's practically no clearance between the steel wall and the side panel that is currently removed. Can you route it underneath the wall? There is a small opening available but most of that is blocked by the processor heatsink unit.

While we're on the topic of the side panel - since there isn't much clearance between the panel and the insides of the case, you'll have problems if your expansion cards are too high. The cover won't be able to close properly but more on this experience later on.

Setting Up

As we saw in the previous section, there isn't much room inside the RazerX. The chassis is designed to fit microATX motherboards and nothing larger. For our setup, we used an Intel microATX motherboard that has an Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz processor installed.

It wasn't easy installing the motherboard into the case. The drive cage on the right side of the chassis had to be removed before we could do anything else. The board then had to be slid in at an angle since the rear fan was in the way. Do yourself a favor and unscrew the rear fan to give you more room to work with. The case already had the standoffs placed on the motherboard tray so all we had to do was to screw down the motherboard. The chassis includes a set of screws for you to use.

The two drives (one DVD drive and one 3.5 inch hard drive) were initially placed on the left hand side of the case. As stated earlier, the hard drive resides right on top of the power supply unit while the DVD drive stacks on top of the hard drive. The power and IDE cables had to be routed over the center barrier which proved to be problematic for us later on.

We attempted to install a 3.5inch drive into the drive cage on the right side of the case but we were unable to slide the drive into the cage initially - it was a very tight fit unfortunately. However if you are concerned about the heat generated around the power supply then the hard drive should definitely be housed in the drive cage instead.

The last step in the setup was to install the AGP graphics card which in this case was initially an ATI Radeon 9500. However once we screwed in the card, we quickly realized that the side panel to the case would not close properly. The Radeon 9500's backplane juts out a bit higher than the height of the case.

An older nVidia GeForce 4 MX card had to be used instead of the Radeon 9500 since the MX had a smaller form factor.

Here are pictures with the board layed out in the case:

Usage

The machine was set up in a matter of one hour (though it helped that the board was already prepared ahead of time!) As stated earlier, the case is very crammed on the inside. Some of the steel corners on the interior of the case are not well rounded so one should be careful when maneuvering inside. The crammed corners also means that there's a high probability of wires blocking the internal airflow thereby increasing system temperatures.

The RazerX comes with one case fan installed and one power supply fan blowing air out. There's another case fan included in the accessories packaging but you will need to install it. Without that case fan, system and processor temperatures were fairly high (processor temps at idle were around 53C!) since everything is so close together. If you are concerned about internal temperatures then make sure to install that other case fan. I would definitely be concerned about the temperatures emanating from the power supply to the hard drive.

The case isn't too loud when everything is sealed and powered up. One can still hear the slight whir of the internal fans spinning round and round. If you plan on using this case in the living room as an HTPC or a gaming console, then you really won't hear anything.

Remember that the IDE cables were routed over the steel divider? Rounded cables might be a workable alternative to flat IDE cables. The best solution is to obtain a Serial ATA supporting motherboard since SATA cables are small and thin. Whatever the possible solution, we had some issues using standard IDE cables once the box was sealed. The hard drive connection was extremely flaky during usage and this was traced back to the low amount of head room between the side panel and the central divider of the case. The IDE cable was being squeezed too tightly and this was causing errors with normal hard drive operations. Ultimately, the best solution at that time was to place the hard drive into the drive cage on top of the motherboard. We're not sure if the hard drive is ever going to come back out!

It's a shame that we had these difficulties with the case design. The RazerX is actually a very cool looking case (though some of you may not think so). We would love to see Xoxide sell these cases again except with a redesigned interior.

Summary

The RazerX microATX case is a design that will truly turn heads. Love it or hate it, the looks will make you stare! However once you dig into the guts of the chassis, you'll soon discover that all is not well despite the exterior appearances. The insides are cramped, the temperatures are high, and the drive locations less than ideal. Despite these issues, the case is somewhat workable if you absolutely love the design. However, good luck trying to find this case on the market - Xoxide doesn't currently sell the design but perhaps they will in the future?

If you have any comments or questions, please post them in our forums.

Pros:

• Cool design
• Inexpensive

Cons:

• Cramped quarters
• Poor placement of drives
• Hot internal temperatures
• Low internal headroom for expansion cards

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