Xclio has entered the case market with their innovative, cheap and fun designs. One of their latest cases has posed an age old question to computer enthusiasts everywhere: Does size matter? Xclio’s Propeller case sports a 360mm side fan makes it clear to everyone what side they took.
So why would they want such a large fan? Well, simply put, more surface area yields more air movement per revolution. More air movement per revolution means you can keep your RPM’s lower with the same amount of airflow as a smaller fan. Low RPM’s lessens vibration and the overall sound the fan makes. Anyway, that’s the theory behind it, but we all know that real world performance is what matters and that’s what we’re here to test! Let us move on to the specs.
Specifications
Specifications from Xclio.com:
As we can see from the above list, the Propeller carries a relatively standard featurelist for a mid-sized case. It does not come with Front or Rear fans by default, however since the 360mm with fan speed control is included I can’t complain. That’s just over a foot worth of fan included by default!
Packaging
By the time the package was in my hands it looked like it had been on more than a couple shipping docks. However, you can sleep soundly – – Xclio has taken the good move of using multi-layered packing foam to ensure that even if the box is jostled around, the contents stay in good condition:
Personally, the way a company packages their product make a big difference to me, since often the products usually have to travel a very long way to get to where I am. Good packaging on the manufacturer’s part plays a huge role in the survival of said products, and Xclio has done a good job on this front.
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Package Contents
Inside the well packaged box, we found the following contents…
- Xclio Case
- Accessory Screw Bag
- Rubber Feet
The only two things I wish that Xclio had added here are thumbscrews and a manual. These are not essential items as most users likely have enough technical prowess to figure out how to use a case and screwdriver, however these two items make it that much easier to make use of the case on a day to day basis.
First Impressions
Once we took the case out of it’s battle-worn packaging, we saw that it had come through unscathed, so it looks like the packing did it’s job! The case itself looks quite nice, with a matted black finish and a tasteful glossed-plastic stripe down the front of the case.The USB, Audio out and Firewire are located on the right side of the case. Personally I prefer front-mounted jacks so that my USB cables are not bent quite as sharply since I sit on the left hand side of the case, with USB headphones. However, if you sit on the left side of the case, this will not bother you:
The front door of the case opens to just over 90 degrees to reveal four optical drive bays and two floppy/card reader bays. This is much more than any person usually needs, but it’s a fairly standard feature these days.
This side fan looks impressive, to say the least. Built right into the side panel with speed control and a on/off button, this one one thing that Xclio definitely got right. Surprisingly, this large fan and the LED’s together only require one molex connector, which likely means that the fan will not operate at high RPM’s. This is actually a good thing, as it will reduce noise.
The back of the case reveals a place for up to a 120 mm exhaust fan and seven card slots with multi-use slot covers. This means that once you punch them out, you can re-install them if you ever remove the card from that slot. This is useful if you are frequently changing cards and want your case to look nice during your between swap stages. As for the actual inside of the case: it is quite bare and of standard design. It would have been nice to see removable drive bays and tool-less design here but given the price point of the case, I can’t complain much! Let’s move on and give this case some guts!
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Let’s give this case some guts!
We’ve rounded up the following components to be assembled into this case:
- AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Socket 939 CPU
- Asus A8N-E Motherboard
- MGE 500 Watt PSU
- 2 x Transcend 512 DDR PC-3200 Memory Modules
- BFG Geforce 7300 GS Video Card
- Maxtor Maxline Pro 500, 500 GB
We’ve also decided to put in a 120mm artic cooling fan in for the rear exhaust and a 80mm fan in for the front fan. The reasoning for this was simple: The huge side fan moves quite a bit air, but blows it in directly against the motherboard. Without a equally beefy fan on the back end sucking almost as much air out, it would be hard to ensure good airflow in the case itself.
Installation
The setup and installation of this case was very straightforward. All you need is a Phillips screwdriver, your motherboard manual and about twenty minutes of your time. Overall, the case is nice to work with , feeling nice and sturdy – – something to expect from a quality build. Let’s see what this thing looks like with some guts!
With some components and large side fan, this case does indeed look fearsome. Overall, it has a lot of space to work with and leaves quite a bit of room for expansion. But how well does that side fan actually work?
Test Setup
There are overall two things that we want to test with this case: It’s noise level and it’s temperature rating. Since we want to test the noise level of just the large fan and not the rest of the setup, we hooked up a power supply just to the side fan and closed the case up to take our noise readings.
For temperature ratings, the computer is started from a cold-boot into a Windows XP Pro SP2 install at room temperature (22 degrees Celsius here) and is then subjected to 30 minutes of a 2 x CPU-Burn in to get the CPU nice and toasty. We then allow the CPU to idle for thirty minutes to get it’s running idle temperature. To monitor temperature levels, we used AMD64 CPU Assistant.
After we’ve recorded the running idle of the machine, we start two instances of CPU-Burn in and run the machine for an hour. After that hour is up, we continue to run the machine under load until we can pinpoint a stable maximum CPU temperature and record it. So, what did we find?
Noise levels
If there is one thing I cannot stand, it’s a noisy case. With the large fan on this case I was expecting quite a bit of noise, however I found quite the contrary. The 360mm fan itself only seems to carry about 20 dBA of noise, which is quite respectable for it’s size and the amount of air it moves. The overall case produces just shy of 50 dBA of noise and how much noise the cases produces overall will highly depend on the components to choose. The side fan does not add too much noise, and it is not too noticeable even when it is running at full RPM’s.
Temperature Levels
So the noise levels don’t seem to be much of a problem here. But how does that big honking fan cool? Let’s see what the temperatures say…
Temperature levels in open Air:
| Idle | Loaded | |
| CPU | 29 | 40 |
| GPU | 54 | 69 |
| PWM | 33 | 43 |
Temperature Levels in Xclio at full fan power:
| Idle | Loaded | |
| CPU | 28 | 39 |
| GPU | 52 | 68 |
| PWM | 31 | 42 |
I ran the tests multiple times and found that the results were indeed consistent. Unfortunately we are not as impressed with the temperature levels in the case as we had hoped to be, since it is sporting a 360mm fan. I believe what may be happening is that air flow is impeded by the graphics/PCI cards causing the air to not move around as freely as it should. A case with a different card layout may fare better on these tests. That being said, I can’t complain too much as the fan is quite quiet and it did take a couple of degrees off here and there!
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Final Thoughts
It looks like we have answered our original question: bigger is not always better. Although the large fan doesn’t cool as well as we had originally hoped, it definitely has the “Wow!” factor if you are out to impress your friends or colleagues and it definitely beats opening your case and putting a real honeywell fan to the side for cooling!
Overall the case was very easy to work with and it does strike home as a bit of a novelty case. That being said, at $65.99 from many retailers, this case is reasonably priced, especially given it’s high-quality.
Pros
- Great Paint finish, does not scratch or show dust easily
- Elegant case design
- 360mm fan with adjustable controls
- Quiet
Cons
- Cooling not as good as expected
- No manual
Overall Rating: 8.0 / 10.0
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