Joined on 02/02/04
Nice case
Pros: - SMALL footprint. This is one of the few Mini-ITX cases that has room for FOUR drives (one of which can be a full-size optical drive!) and it's still tiny. It's a clever layout and design. - Pretty sturdy construction, In-Win always makes a sturdy, well-finished case. - Many cables included, including a slimline CD drive converter cable, which is very nice. - No separate power adapter brick. Built-in 120W power supply. - Relatively generous room for stock CPU fans, even if you have an optical drive installed.
Cons: - Front panel doors are a bit flimsy. I'm waiting to see how long they last. - Tight fit, to be sure! Especially if you use a slimline optical drive. Getting the drive and front panel to align perfectly can be maddening. - Proprietary power supply, this doesn't bother me, but it might bother you. - Fans a bit loud, but nothing to write home about. If you are using for media PC, you might want to consider replacing them. For desk/office use, I doubt you would notice. - Power connectors are super short. Anything more than a single hard drive (including any optical drive) is going to require some power cable extenders/splitters.
Overall Review: I used an Intel board (N82E16813121381) and Intel CPU (N82E16819116076) and had few problems, other than things being a super tight fit of course. No clearance issues with the stock Intel fan. Great little office PC.
Great little board
Pros: - Small footprint, used to build about a dozen office workstations. Perfect for the usual office tasks - word processing, e-mail, internet, etc. (Haven't tried anything heavy-duty.) - Includes DVI and VGA as well as legacy connectors, handy. - Automatically recognized by Win7, no need to download drivers if you don't want.
Cons: - What is it with those annoying POST beeps! No way to disable them in BIOS, very annoying! Not enough to drop an egg, though. - Front panel connectors a little awkwardly placed, but that's probably just me.
Overall Review: Needs a 65W CPU. I used an E5400 2.7GHz (from Newegg, of course! N82E16813121381). Makes a nice speedy system. Use an Intel stock fan on your processor unless you know what you're doing. I imagine that other cooling fans might be a problem to attach, just a hunch.