Anidees AI Crystal XL Review
Up Close: Interior Rear
Published: 2nd April 2018 | Source: Anidees | Price: |
Up Close: Interior Rear
As always with cases these days, there's as much, if not more going on behind the motherboard as there is in front of it, and the XL is no exception. Cable management though isn't quite as generous as the size of the case would perhaps suggest, with just 17mm of room on offer for the majority of the area. Don't get us wrong, that's enough space to fit everything in, but you're going to have to be very neat and tidy, which is pretty much a given anyway, being as the XL has a tempered glass panel on this side as well as the motherboard side.
Up in the top left hand corner we have a multi port fan hub, which in turn is linked to the unit that works in conjunction with the remote control to offer full speed and lighting adjustment. Yes, you read that right, this case comes with a remote control!
If you're one for stealthing your SSDs as opposed to showing them off, then there are a total of three mounts along the bottom edge of the rear, with each of them offering a quick detach option.
Under the false floor, and accessed from the rear there are a pair of HDD cages. Each cage contains three drawers, and each cage can be removed individually.
With the HDD racks in place the XL will, with a bit of jiggling, accept PSUs up to 170mm long. If you want to place anything longer than this you're going to need to whip out one of those HDD racks.
The tempered glass front panel removes with a firm tug revealing the 4x120mm fans which are, in turn sat behind a magnetically attached mesh filter. It might seem a bit of a pain to have to remove the front panel to do this, but in reality we think it's no big deal.
Most Recent Comments
What kept distracting me was the Grommet cover and the lines (gpu holder) I'd have to replace that with a flat panel for a cleaner look also the extra HDD holder holes need to be coveredQuote
To start on the case... Manufacturers should decide on which consumers are cases targeted. To have options is good but too many options ruin the product.
Why is there 10 cm of space under the motherboard, and only 6 cm on the top? If you target your case for water cooling why reduce top radiator clearance? I don't remember seeing XL boards in any recent times. Why support them?
PSU shroud. Shrouds make sense only on budget builds. Then you have extensions and you want to cover default PSU cables. On expensive "flagship" models at least give the option to remove them.
Front fan mounts are disaster. If you have glass make indentation for fans, like on be quiet Dark Base 900 so there are no metal bars over RGB fans.
What the hell is going on with that "GPU holder"?
And those punch through holes for HDD cables... Cmon... Put some plastic plugs in them. It will at least look like you made an effort.
I will use the Top Gear analogy from episode when they reviewed Chinese cars. It is like someone described them modern cases over the phone, and they bogged something. It looks to me like they have tried to have all the features from the modern flagship cases, but they either lack the resources, or were done buy incompetent people. Everything is cramped, and rushed.
It is like they had a list from the accountants of the features they need to put in the case, and no one checked were they aesthetically pleasing, or actually functional. It just needs to say on paper that we have those.
The one thing I agree with Tom is that it could be a good project case. If the price is around 200 tokens you can dive right into it with dremel and drills. Not as much to make it yours, but more to correct the mistakes.Quote
In its default configuration of storage alone I am sold, 6 3.5" + 3 2.5" with this amount of water cooling support is rather amazing.
Amazon shows 210 USD for the fan-less version right now, so that is a 40 USD premium for 5 fans, again a good sale for those who might want to use the bundled fans and call it a day.
I wish, though, the fan controller up top would be completely gone from the lite version of the case as, is also the same with the non-software controllable rgb stuff, many people prefer software based solutions nowadays.
Little stuff though. Overall, I could very easily fit in a huge reservoir with extra fins on the pump in the bottom + vibration dampeners with a 360 + 480 rad setup. The case can easily store an HBA + battery bank + sound card + 2 graphics cards in there.
Huge, insanely huge and versatile. I like it and is rather well priced for a case that can store this much.
If there is a couple of things to modify, though; I would take that PSU cover out and mod it until just the farthest pump mount remained and the cabling grommet moved to align with the graphics cards. Not much else is there to do.
Great review guys, in depth as usual. This just might be my next case.Quote
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