ZXMods SOLID Case Review - ZXMods SOLID Case Review
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Installation
Installing your components in the case was pretty straight forward. I didn't encounter any problems and the case is as roomy as any other mid-tower I have worked with. Here are a few shots of the innards.
You'll notice the inclusion of 2 80mm fan ports in the rear of the case. These are great for exhausting the hot air from around your CPU and video card. This particular case does not have a removable motherboard tray, but typically the biggest drawback of a mobo tray is you have nowhere to put exhaust fans in the back, at least not decent sized ones. Personally, I'd take the ability to cool my case over a removable mobo tray, but of course that is personal preference. Additionally, I prefer to breakout the dremel and hollow out those 80mm fan ports. This will give you MUCH better air flow and also give you much less feedback noise from the fans. I did this to my Antec case and it helped quite a bit, here's a shot of that and it could easily be done here as well.
Before we move on, I would like to mention the case painting job. As u know, there are 3 colors available from ZXMods. Black, Silver and Pearl White. The exterior of the case looks excellent, I was very impressed with the painting and there were no visible drip marks or bad spots. The only thing remotely wrong I could mention is there is just a tad bit of overspray on parts of the inside of the case. Here is a pic of that.
While this does not bother me in the least, I know there are some out there who are very particular about their cases and felt this deserved a mention. Clearly it does not take away from performance in any manner, or it's outward appearance. But I felt it needed to be touched on briefly. Lets continue.
Ok. All cases have their respective ways of mounting the mobo. I particularly like what Solid has used here. Much like the Cooler Master case, these guys use grommets that you simply install to the specs of your motherboard mounting holes.
You simply snap these bad boys into the mobo plate, lay your mobo in there, and screw it in. The screws also appear to be of a copper type substance which would help discourage any grounding issues. Here's a close-up snap of those.
Moving on to installing PCI cards. This case has the type of PCI slot covers that you twist off if you intend to use them. This isn't my "favorite" solution, but I don't see anything wrong with it. And in the package they include 2 separate covers that can be screwed in place incase you take one off and need to cover it back up. Here's the bag-0-goodies.
Another item of interest is the inclusion of 2 extraStealth Tray clips. Incase you lose or break one. This is the kind ofeffort that I really appreciate from a company, and shows Solid ismaking an effort to give this case some extra longevity in the case ofloss or breakage of certain parts. These are the springs that letthe Stealth Tray door close back up when the CD-Rom is not opened.Additionally, if you happen to have a digidoc or something similar andwish for the Stealth Tray door to remain open, you can simply removethe spring and it won't close automatically, and this is very easy todo. Simply pull off the Tray cover, snap out the spring, and re-installthe cover. Viola!
Lets pry off one of these slot covers and install the vid card.
These ones are actually a bit nicer than most I have seen. Some you have to literally pry out with a flathead screwdriver. These were very simply, just push through, and wiggle a few times, it came off nicely and with no burrs. Then I plopped in the ol' GeForce with no issues.
Of course having a case window, your going to want to put some type of lighting in there. I chose to use 2 Cold Cathodes I picked up from Sidewinder Computers. The inverter is very handy for these things. Now, I'm not gonna cover installing these things, but if your curious, you can checkout ourCold Cathode review where Palma gives a nice installation guide as well. Anyways, here are a few pics of the finished case.
Conclusion
Well, that about covers the review. Initially, this case didn't strike me as one I would favor, however, once I got a chance to work with it, and checkout the excellent hidden bays, I believe it would be a great case for anyone, especially at a 65$ price tag. Here are a few highs and lows to finish off with.
Highs
Lows
OK, that about covers it. I really didn't find too many bad points about this case, and would easily recommend it to anyone looking for a new case that wanted a nice side window and more options for modding, and again, the addition of the multimedia ports is a definite bonus for Lan Gamers. I'd like to thank ZXMods for providing the case for review.
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