I've been interested in trying out SFF and ended up checking out various SFF cases. There's not much in the way of choice but of all the cases the Aspire QPack seemed the closest, but I reckon their ways of improving it by a large margin. Fundamentally, by improving airflow cooling and reducing noise emissions.
But, I'll say this now; the Qpack is a nice case, I just happen to think it can be nicer.
Anyway, I just wanted to see what you guys thought of the designs changes I had in mind and also what you'd like to see change.
For reference here's the recent Anandtech review on it.
The Short:
Areas to improve/problems
- Inability to fit much in the way of (decent) cooling and when installing cooling lack of clear airflow eg front to back. (Here to see the lack of good direct airflow + limitation of best heatsink being the Zalman 7000CU)
- Poor noise isolation ie the case metal is rather flimsy but what doesn't help is the grills on the side of the case which allows sound to escape directly. As seen here.
- Where are the dust filters? It's bad enough cleaning stuff in a big case but a SFF case just makes it harder. (Same link as above)
Basic suggestions
- Improved airflow where there's clear front to back airflow. Good clear airflow becomes more important as the case gets smaller so any heat produced you want leaving immediately. There are several design changes so they'll be gone through later.
- Reducing noise escaping by not have a direct path for noise to escape to your ears using ideas a bit like what the Antec P180 and P150 use on their front bezels.
- By introducing dust filters that are easily accessed and washed.
- Including right angle molex connectors (or other low profile molex connectors as first suggested in hardforums) for the front opticals so that standard ATX PSU's can be used with full length optical drives. Their very cheap to include and so there's no reason they aren't.
Additional:
- Other noise reducing features:
1. fan speed controller (for the back fan and maybe the CPU fan) integrated into the controls of the front panel rather than it just being temp probes
2. rubber grommets for the back fan
3. rubber grommets for the hardrive or even better having hardrive suspension (ala the P150)
4. Including some sound dapening layer to the case eg like the P150 has a Vinyl layer inside the metal.
Design Changes:
Changing the front bezel - improving airflow, reducing noise.
The most radical change I'd like to see is how and where the air intakes are at the front. If you look on the case there is arguably a good part of the front bezel wasted that could be used as air intakes as opposed to having them slap against the side of the hardrive as a direct sound outlet while it does not provide great cooling for the hardrives - only one side gets cooled. Instead, if the air intakes were moved forward to where the ridged part of the front bezel is and then opened up onto the inside of the case such that it is a direct front-back airflow, both airflow would be improved so that:
a) the hardrives are cooled better and more evenly
b) RAM are also cooled better and more evenly
c) the rest of the mainboard gets cooled better with cool air
(Of course, this is reliant on having clear directional airflow in the case especially with the CPU but I'll mention the design changes to achieve this later)
Some pictures to explain more clearly what I mean - apologies in advance for the pathetic paint jobs involved but I hope it gets what I mean across!
The area of the front bezel that is wasted and could be used as intakes is highlighted in red:
Intakes where highlighted in red
And have a vent design more akin to the P150 as seen here.
While it may not be as possible on SFF or may increase production costs too significantly, if the intakes could be made recessed where the intakes are more 'open' to the back it would help improve noise perception eg more sound reflected to the back away from the users ears.
What this would mean for the internal design is that now air intake now comes directly front the front.
Again excuse the poor paint job but here's an idea:
Airflow inside the case idea
The whole of the front sections to the side of the opticals would be open and let airflow through. In that way In that way you can hopefully see the more direct airflow and how the hardrives etc would be cooled more effectively without sound needlessly leaking to the outside.
Things to consider: while the airflow through the case should be pretty clear and unrestrictive the front bezel will probably needed to be extended by a few millimetres to ensure the air intakes on the side of the bezel are open enough to let sufficient airflow through so there is not too much negative air pressure in the case - the dangers if there is too much negative air pressure, it might adversely affect the PSU as the PSU fan ends up struggling and spinning louder - important when we're trying to reduce noise. (In fact in my case recently, until I enforced positive air pressure my Zalman PSU was making constant quite high pitched clicking noises - some Seasonic users in Anandtech have experienced similar problems).
Hopefully, however, this shouldn't be too much of an issue because if a fuller length graphics card is installed (a situation where cooling would become more important and cooling would need to increase) two airflow channels/areas will be created to some degree (given the two intake areas from each side of the case) so the PSU shouldn't have to as directly compete with the 120mm rear exhaust.
Nevertheless, this will mean the case will probably need to be a few millimetres longer. However, since it is a small amount it shouldn't make any perceivably difference to the end user. Also, some small other changes will need to be made - primarily where there aren't filters their shouldn't be any air holes. At this point it's worth adding that ideally airflow could come from the area underneath the optical drives so that airflow can go directly to any northbridge/southbridge parts.
The area I'm talking about is highlighted in red again.
However, implementing this with a filter that you can access and clean easily will be difficult unless there the front panel is easily removable. Also, I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement give the cables and front bezel electronics around there.
There are two ways of having the filters easily accessible. The easiest and first would be where there was some sort of latch design at the top of the bezel where the bit of case above the filters could be flicked up and then the filters slid out. (The way I'd imagine would be easiest to implement is sliding them into metal runners.) Alternatively, a latch design could be incorporated onto the side of the case- ie. the grills on the side could be popped off and the filters slid out. The only other alternative is to have the whole front bezel removable like what most cases do. Of course, this may not be as desirable or as perceived of as much of an easy solution for the average user. However, more importantly it made add significant production cost. That said it would probably be the easiest way a filter underneath the opticals could be cleaned and used.
In fact having just re-looked at the P150 design the idea of a swinging bezel is quite attractive as seen here
Improving airflow around the hardrives - more optional perhaps
Despite the vertical mounting of the hardrives which aides cooling as the heat easily rises from the harddrives (ie doesn't get caught underneath it), airflow is still not very good. As you can see here airflow around the hardrives is relatively restricted by the metal brackets that keep them in place.
There are ways I can see where the amount of metal could be minimised so there is more airflow around the hardrives. However, the best solution I can see is to have the hardrives suspended vertically. The P150 has an option like this as seen here at SPCR. The advantages here is that it minimises materials restricting airflow around the drives while also helping reducing vibrations and thus sound from the hardrives.
Implementing this vertically in the Qpack would be more difficult but it is still perfectly doable. The suspension would have to be supported from the bottom of the case. I could imagine a sort of TT bars coming from the bottom to support it - in this way it'd also not restrict airflow from the lower area intake to the motherboard (RAM, CPU, NB). Ensuring the bars is strong enough at the top to support the weight of the hardrives and tension of the cables would be more difficult but there are ways round it I could see. (eg if the case was made in separate parts ie according to sides hooks could be implement on the top side of the case. (of course, that part of the case would probably have to be made stronger to take the weight but refer to the part on using sound proofing materials on the case as that will add strength to it)
In short, the ideal solution would be to have the drives suspended vertically. At the very least rubber grommets should be included for sound isolation for the hardrives.
On the rest - improving cooling to the CPU
A large part of the problem with SFF is fitting a decent heatsink in it. Currently, the best options for the Qpack is the Zalman 7000 which while decent is nothing special and more important does not aide in clear airflow which is the much more important for smaller cases than standard ATX cases - fundamentally there needs to be simple front intake to back exhaust airflow.
This can be seen here
In the Qpack the options for heatsink are limited in two ways. First the Qpack has a metal bar running the entire length above the CPU preventing a taller heatsink being used. Then secondly, the hardrives restricted what can be placed in there. In tackling this there are limitations of what can be done. However, significant stuff can be changed giving a good amount of flexibility.
First the bar can be reduced if not moved. Irregardless of how the hardrives are mounted (suspended or fixed) they can be supported from the bottom of the case - without the horizontal bar. The bar as seen in the last picture certainly does not need to be that excessive. It can be reduced so there isn't metal directly above the CPU socket. The metal there is not also helpful as it restricts airflow from the CPU to the exhaust fan. Therefore, with a simple modification you can kill two birds in one stone. If the bar on that side of the case was moved it could be moved to a more traditional position of the running the length of the top corner. While, the fan would then need to be moved down slightly that wouldn't be a problem. Additionally, the bar could also be used to support the hardrives and how they are mounted.
Secondly, the hardrives can pushed forward a little bit more so they are right against the front bezel. This will save some millimetres but that can become a very significant amount as a more vertical and directional heatsink could be included.
Heatsinks this includes are:
Artic Cooling 64 Pro
Asetek Vapochill Micro Ultra Low Noise (nb is actually a good cooler - just use the DFI mounting mechanism to give much better contact and lower temps - poor contact is the reason why some review sites report great performance and others poor performance)
Zalman 9500
Of the coolers mentioned above it seems the Zalman would be the cooler most likely to fit in (presuming when mounted it points to the rear exhaust).
Nevertheless, the benefits for having such coolers are numerous. As well, as much better temps from a better heatsink, the air gets immediately exhausted at the back lowering ambient temperatures and temps yet again. At the same time, such direction airflow+heatsink will mean much increased airflow around the hardrives and then also the the northerbridge and RAM hopefully.
With such a setup a system could be cooled better at lower noise - in fact it could probably be overclocked at near silent.
However, depending on the heatsink and board, such heatsinks might not work. Certainly, for any of those heatsinks to be able to work properly, the CPU position on the motherboard will have to be much more central if not closer to the rear fan of the Qpack. In fact in the Anandtech review the position of the CPU socket on motherboard is actually closer to the hardrive area and so it can't be taken as representative of how the heatsink could fit in.
That said, there is an alternative I could see and that is if a heatsink design like that of the Akasa Evo 120 was used. You can see it here. Certainly, such a design would work - with the Akasa you could effectively have a 120mm heatsink in your case! That might in fact be too big given the rear fan is only a 120mm thing itself. Perhaps a 92mm design based on the Akasa would be perfect.
This comes onto another possible idea that Aspire include a heatsink in their case. For enthusiasts (which account for many who the case sells to) and perhaps P4 owners (sorry - not actually a dig!) this would be a very important and winning feature. Aspire could even get Akasa to produce the fans for them or otherwise license the design of them. In bulk and a corporate deal like that would not add too much cost but would make it much more attractive. In fact, if Aspire was to target such a case at enthusiasts they could easily dump the PSU and add the heatsink and it would come out at about parative cost. All they would need to do is ensure they included right angle molex connectors or so and it'd be fine!
In fact, one idea that could be used is that Aspire could one copy of the case with the PSU included and no heatsink, and another copy without the PSU but with the heatsink - in doing this they can target both markets at once - the stock user build on the cheap and the enthusiast looking for performance and who would use their own PSU.
Reducing case noise otherwise
As has already been mentioned ways to reduce noise would be:
- the rear 120mm fan mounted on rubber grommets
- a fan controller for the rear fan (and maybe CPU) included in the front bezel controls or at the very least speed settings on the rear fan
However, there is a further measure that could be taken and that of adding an extra layer to the aluminium case. The material could be something like the vinyll coating that the P150 uses - bottom picture. Benefits include:
- increased sound proofing
- a more robust case ie less worries about the case being flimsy or getting dented as some people with Qpacks have complained about
- increased strength generally to the case and the sides - it would probably add enough strength that hooks could be added to the top part to suspend the hardrives
Additionally:
- it wouldn't add much weight so would still be fine for lanparties
- cost shouldn't be much extra
Summary
Change the front bezel for direct airflow
Use filters (although not too fine as to restricted airflow)
Suspend the hardrives / otherwise minimise the restrictive metal and include rubber grommets.
Include right angle molex's or other solution for full length opticals / standard ATX power supplies.
Get rid of the PSU
Remove the metal bar running along the CPU side of the case
Add a 92mm special side blowing heatsink ala Akasa.
Use rubber grommets to mount the rear 120mm fan
More optional:
Fan controller (and perhaps CPU) included in the controls on the front.
Oh yeah and the case should be produced (without windows) in black and silver
But, I'll say this now; the Qpack is a nice case, I just happen to think it can be nicer.
Anyway, I just wanted to see what you guys thought of the designs changes I had in mind and also what you'd like to see change.
For reference here's the recent Anandtech review on it.
The Short:
Areas to improve/problems
- Inability to fit much in the way of (decent) cooling and when installing cooling lack of clear airflow eg front to back. (Here to see the lack of good direct airflow + limitation of best heatsink being the Zalman 7000CU)
- Poor noise isolation ie the case metal is rather flimsy but what doesn't help is the grills on the side of the case which allows sound to escape directly. As seen here.
- Where are the dust filters? It's bad enough cleaning stuff in a big case but a SFF case just makes it harder. (Same link as above)
Basic suggestions
- Improved airflow where there's clear front to back airflow. Good clear airflow becomes more important as the case gets smaller so any heat produced you want leaving immediately. There are several design changes so they'll be gone through later.
- Reducing noise escaping by not have a direct path for noise to escape to your ears using ideas a bit like what the Antec P180 and P150 use on their front bezels.
- By introducing dust filters that are easily accessed and washed.
- Including right angle molex connectors (or other low profile molex connectors as first suggested in hardforums) for the front opticals so that standard ATX PSU's can be used with full length optical drives. Their very cheap to include and so there's no reason they aren't.
Additional:
- Other noise reducing features:
1. fan speed controller (for the back fan and maybe the CPU fan) integrated into the controls of the front panel rather than it just being temp probes
2. rubber grommets for the back fan
3. rubber grommets for the hardrive or even better having hardrive suspension (ala the P150)
4. Including some sound dapening layer to the case eg like the P150 has a Vinyl layer inside the metal.
Design Changes:
Changing the front bezel - improving airflow, reducing noise.
The most radical change I'd like to see is how and where the air intakes are at the front. If you look on the case there is arguably a good part of the front bezel wasted that could be used as air intakes as opposed to having them slap against the side of the hardrive as a direct sound outlet while it does not provide great cooling for the hardrives - only one side gets cooled. Instead, if the air intakes were moved forward to where the ridged part of the front bezel is and then opened up onto the inside of the case such that it is a direct front-back airflow, both airflow would be improved so that:
a) the hardrives are cooled better and more evenly
b) RAM are also cooled better and more evenly
c) the rest of the mainboard gets cooled better with cool air
(Of course, this is reliant on having clear directional airflow in the case especially with the CPU but I'll mention the design changes to achieve this later)
Some pictures to explain more clearly what I mean - apologies in advance for the pathetic paint jobs involved but I hope it gets what I mean across!
The area of the front bezel that is wasted and could be used as intakes is highlighted in red:
Intakes where highlighted in red
And have a vent design more akin to the P150 as seen here.
While it may not be as possible on SFF or may increase production costs too significantly, if the intakes could be made recessed where the intakes are more 'open' to the back it would help improve noise perception eg more sound reflected to the back away from the users ears.
What this would mean for the internal design is that now air intake now comes directly front the front.
Again excuse the poor paint job but here's an idea:
Airflow inside the case idea
The whole of the front sections to the side of the opticals would be open and let airflow through. In that way In that way you can hopefully see the more direct airflow and how the hardrives etc would be cooled more effectively without sound needlessly leaking to the outside.
Things to consider: while the airflow through the case should be pretty clear and unrestrictive the front bezel will probably needed to be extended by a few millimetres to ensure the air intakes on the side of the bezel are open enough to let sufficient airflow through so there is not too much negative air pressure in the case - the dangers if there is too much negative air pressure, it might adversely affect the PSU as the PSU fan ends up struggling and spinning louder - important when we're trying to reduce noise. (In fact in my case recently, until I enforced positive air pressure my Zalman PSU was making constant quite high pitched clicking noises - some Seasonic users in Anandtech have experienced similar problems).
Hopefully, however, this shouldn't be too much of an issue because if a fuller length graphics card is installed (a situation where cooling would become more important and cooling would need to increase) two airflow channels/areas will be created to some degree (given the two intake areas from each side of the case) so the PSU shouldn't have to as directly compete with the 120mm rear exhaust.
Nevertheless, this will mean the case will probably need to be a few millimetres longer. However, since it is a small amount it shouldn't make any perceivably difference to the end user. Also, some small other changes will need to be made - primarily where there aren't filters their shouldn't be any air holes. At this point it's worth adding that ideally airflow could come from the area underneath the optical drives so that airflow can go directly to any northbridge/southbridge parts.
The area I'm talking about is highlighted in red again.
However, implementing this with a filter that you can access and clean easily will be difficult unless there the front panel is easily removable. Also, I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement give the cables and front bezel electronics around there.
There are two ways of having the filters easily accessible. The easiest and first would be where there was some sort of latch design at the top of the bezel where the bit of case above the filters could be flicked up and then the filters slid out. (The way I'd imagine would be easiest to implement is sliding them into metal runners.) Alternatively, a latch design could be incorporated onto the side of the case- ie. the grills on the side could be popped off and the filters slid out. The only other alternative is to have the whole front bezel removable like what most cases do. Of course, this may not be as desirable or as perceived of as much of an easy solution for the average user. However, more importantly it made add significant production cost. That said it would probably be the easiest way a filter underneath the opticals could be cleaned and used.
In fact having just re-looked at the P150 design the idea of a swinging bezel is quite attractive as seen here
Improving airflow around the hardrives - more optional perhaps
Despite the vertical mounting of the hardrives which aides cooling as the heat easily rises from the harddrives (ie doesn't get caught underneath it), airflow is still not very good. As you can see here airflow around the hardrives is relatively restricted by the metal brackets that keep them in place.
There are ways I can see where the amount of metal could be minimised so there is more airflow around the hardrives. However, the best solution I can see is to have the hardrives suspended vertically. The P150 has an option like this as seen here at SPCR. The advantages here is that it minimises materials restricting airflow around the drives while also helping reducing vibrations and thus sound from the hardrives.
Implementing this vertically in the Qpack would be more difficult but it is still perfectly doable. The suspension would have to be supported from the bottom of the case. I could imagine a sort of TT bars coming from the bottom to support it - in this way it'd also not restrict airflow from the lower area intake to the motherboard (RAM, CPU, NB). Ensuring the bars is strong enough at the top to support the weight of the hardrives and tension of the cables would be more difficult but there are ways round it I could see. (eg if the case was made in separate parts ie according to sides hooks could be implement on the top side of the case. (of course, that part of the case would probably have to be made stronger to take the weight but refer to the part on using sound proofing materials on the case as that will add strength to it)
In short, the ideal solution would be to have the drives suspended vertically. At the very least rubber grommets should be included for sound isolation for the hardrives.
On the rest - improving cooling to the CPU
A large part of the problem with SFF is fitting a decent heatsink in it. Currently, the best options for the Qpack is the Zalman 7000 which while decent is nothing special and more important does not aide in clear airflow which is the much more important for smaller cases than standard ATX cases - fundamentally there needs to be simple front intake to back exhaust airflow.
This can be seen here
In the Qpack the options for heatsink are limited in two ways. First the Qpack has a metal bar running the entire length above the CPU preventing a taller heatsink being used. Then secondly, the hardrives restricted what can be placed in there. In tackling this there are limitations of what can be done. However, significant stuff can be changed giving a good amount of flexibility.
First the bar can be reduced if not moved. Irregardless of how the hardrives are mounted (suspended or fixed) they can be supported from the bottom of the case - without the horizontal bar. The bar as seen in the last picture certainly does not need to be that excessive. It can be reduced so there isn't metal directly above the CPU socket. The metal there is not also helpful as it restricts airflow from the CPU to the exhaust fan. Therefore, with a simple modification you can kill two birds in one stone. If the bar on that side of the case was moved it could be moved to a more traditional position of the running the length of the top corner. While, the fan would then need to be moved down slightly that wouldn't be a problem. Additionally, the bar could also be used to support the hardrives and how they are mounted.
Secondly, the hardrives can pushed forward a little bit more so they are right against the front bezel. This will save some millimetres but that can become a very significant amount as a more vertical and directional heatsink could be included.
Heatsinks this includes are:
Artic Cooling 64 Pro
Asetek Vapochill Micro Ultra Low Noise (nb is actually a good cooler - just use the DFI mounting mechanism to give much better contact and lower temps - poor contact is the reason why some review sites report great performance and others poor performance)
Zalman 9500
Of the coolers mentioned above it seems the Zalman would be the cooler most likely to fit in (presuming when mounted it points to the rear exhaust).
Nevertheless, the benefits for having such coolers are numerous. As well, as much better temps from a better heatsink, the air gets immediately exhausted at the back lowering ambient temperatures and temps yet again. At the same time, such direction airflow+heatsink will mean much increased airflow around the hardrives and then also the the northerbridge and RAM hopefully.
With such a setup a system could be cooled better at lower noise - in fact it could probably be overclocked at near silent.
However, depending on the heatsink and board, such heatsinks might not work. Certainly, for any of those heatsinks to be able to work properly, the CPU position on the motherboard will have to be much more central if not closer to the rear fan of the Qpack. In fact in the Anandtech review the position of the CPU socket on motherboard is actually closer to the hardrive area and so it can't be taken as representative of how the heatsink could fit in.
That said, there is an alternative I could see and that is if a heatsink design like that of the Akasa Evo 120 was used. You can see it here. Certainly, such a design would work - with the Akasa you could effectively have a 120mm heatsink in your case! That might in fact be too big given the rear fan is only a 120mm thing itself. Perhaps a 92mm design based on the Akasa would be perfect.
This comes onto another possible idea that Aspire include a heatsink in their case. For enthusiasts (which account for many who the case sells to) and perhaps P4 owners (sorry - not actually a dig!) this would be a very important and winning feature. Aspire could even get Akasa to produce the fans for them or otherwise license the design of them. In bulk and a corporate deal like that would not add too much cost but would make it much more attractive. In fact, if Aspire was to target such a case at enthusiasts they could easily dump the PSU and add the heatsink and it would come out at about parative cost. All they would need to do is ensure they included right angle molex connectors or so and it'd be fine!
In fact, one idea that could be used is that Aspire could one copy of the case with the PSU included and no heatsink, and another copy without the PSU but with the heatsink - in doing this they can target both markets at once - the stock user build on the cheap and the enthusiast looking for performance and who would use their own PSU.
Reducing case noise otherwise
As has already been mentioned ways to reduce noise would be:
- the rear 120mm fan mounted on rubber grommets
- a fan controller for the rear fan (and maybe CPU) included in the front bezel controls or at the very least speed settings on the rear fan
However, there is a further measure that could be taken and that of adding an extra layer to the aluminium case. The material could be something like the vinyll coating that the P150 uses - bottom picture. Benefits include:
- increased sound proofing
- a more robust case ie less worries about the case being flimsy or getting dented as some people with Qpacks have complained about
- increased strength generally to the case and the sides - it would probably add enough strength that hooks could be added to the top part to suspend the hardrives
Additionally:
- it wouldn't add much weight so would still be fine for lanparties
- cost shouldn't be much extra
Summary
Change the front bezel for direct airflow
Use filters (although not too fine as to restricted airflow)
Suspend the hardrives / otherwise minimise the restrictive metal and include rubber grommets.
Include right angle molex's or other solution for full length opticals / standard ATX power supplies.
Get rid of the PSU
Remove the metal bar running along the CPU side of the case
Add a 92mm special side blowing heatsink ala Akasa.
Use rubber grommets to mount the rear 120mm fan
More optional:
Fan controller (and perhaps CPU) included in the controls on the front.
Oh yeah and the case should be produced (without windows) in black and silver
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