Inside Lenovo's Erazer X700
Lenovo uses a mid-weight sheet steel case and card bracket to prevent damage during shipping, along with extra-thick flexible foam packaging and a double cardboard box.
As a prosumer, I used to get terribly upset when I'd open a full ATX system and find a microATX motherboard inside. Improvements in on-board components have made add-in cards less necessary for most gamers, however.
The biggest problem we spot is that the single-band 802.11n Wi-Fi card must be removed to facilitate a CrossFire upgrade for the included Radeon HD 8950 graphics card.
No amount of packaging can completely protect the motherboard from the impact of a heavy CPU cooler in shipping, so Lenovo uses an unbranded version of Intel’s BXRTS2011LC closed-loop liquid cooler. Both the Intel and Lenovo solutions are manufactured by Asetek, and the 1.5” radiators that accompany them are halfway between Asetek’s 550LC and 570LC factory-configured options.
One problem of liquid cooling is that its remote fans no longer blow onto voltage regulator components. Lenovo solves this issue by adding a standard 60 x 10 mm fan and partial shroud over its PWM heat sink. We’d need something like Antec’s SpotCool to accomplish this task in our own builds.
