Four 10-Slot Cases For Four-Way SLI, Tested And Reviewed
Extra space for cooling, controllers, and add-in cards makes XL-ATX the preferred solution for extreme system builders. Today, we follow up our picture story by testing four 10-slot cases that support XL-ATX and four-way SLI (with room to spare).
Building With The Azza Fusion 4000
The Fusion 4000 installation kit includes case feet, individually labeled mounting screws, cable ties, full-sized (PS/2 form factor) power supply and fan adapters to replace the upper-system’s mini-ITX back panel, and a power switch adapter for the second power supply.
We should mention that two power supplies should never be connected to the same circuit, since slightly different voltage levels can potentially cause voltage regulator malfunction.
Top and bottom 3.5” bays use the same style trays, with both 3.5” and 2.5” mounting holes located to properly align either drive type with the Fusion 4000’s included 3.5” backplanes.
The Fusion 4000’s four-drive 2.5” backplane uses clamshell-style plastic trays that we’re fairly sure are designed exclusively for SSDs. While 2.5” hard drives may fit, plastic is a poor conductor of heat, and 2.5" disks tend to get pretty hot.
We connected a single drive bay for our one test drive and placed our optical drive in the lower portion’s top bay. Our nine-slot motherboard filled the appropriate area using traditional screws and standoffs, with the lowest installed graphics card hanging one space past the bottom of the motherboard to fill the case’s tenth slot.
Installed cards are held in place through a traditional screw-in installation, as is the power supply. Spare cable length is hidden behind the motherboard tray.
Though the Fusion 4000 also supports a mini-ITX system in its top portion, we're leaving that space empty for our evaluation. This allows us to compare the thermal and acoustic performance of the Fusion 4000 to cases that lack its ability to host a second machine.
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de5_Roy damn those cases look huge, in a good way.Reply
i am pretty sure i could live in the top apartment compartment of the azza case. it has in built cooling, water supply if one is using water cooling, a bottom grill window and so on. ;D -
joytech22 I just wish I could find the Azza Fusion 4000. >:\Reply
I could really take advantage of the dual mobo feature.
Just stick a i5-i7 Mini-ITX system in the top for thin clients, servers for gaming at lans etc..
Then use the more powerful bottom system with a KVM switch and use whichever you want for whatever task you intend to perform. :)
That's what I would do anyway.. I might get thumbed down but that's my use. -
ksampanna I know it's not a cpu/graphic card review, but come on ... 980X & 4 580s beg for performance numbersReply -
DRosencraft Does anyone actually know a place in the US you can get the Azza? I can't seem to find one.Reply -
buzznut I think the Enermax case is really sharp. The Thor isn't bad looking but the Armor is god awful. I don't like the aesthetics of the Azza case, but I bet the top portion could be put to use as a housing for a pretty wicked water cooling setup! That's what I'd do anyway.Reply -
The toms guys are without ideas. Why not make a competition looking for de pc cheapest-fastest?Reply
Spaniard