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Review Date: April 8th, 2003
Reviewed By: Rob Hohf
Edited by: Roman Robinson
Sponsored By: Xoxide
Xoxide Warrior Case
Introduction
Xoxide.com has recently shipped us a black Warrior (a Lian Li PC-61, Xoxide style) computer case, an all-aluminum case designed to be a kick ass cooler. It is, but the price is a turn-off to many, weighing in at around $220, with out a PSU. This case may look awesome and be the prettiest thing I have EVER seen, but how well does it do the job of being a case? With that in mind, we will proceed to see how well this case performs. This case takes the prize in the fan competition - it has a total of six fans and mounts, which is right up there with the Lian Li PC-70 (Which also has six fans, on a full tower case) and the Antec full towers which have more yet! It has a window on the side, a nice aluminum structure (Making it lightweight), thumbscrews for the expansion (PCI/AGP) card slots, doors and hard drive rack, and all sorts of other gadgets I will go into detail later.Case Specs
| Feature | Details |
| Style | ATX Mid-Tower (ATC Form Factor) |
| Power Supply | Not Included In Review Unit |
| External 5.25" Drive Bays | Four, with four faceplates |
| External 3.5" Drive Bays | Three, with three faceplates |
| Internal 3.5" Drive Bays | Five, with three faceplates |
| LED Indecators | Two; Power, Hard Drive |
| Switches | Two; Power, Reset |
| Fan's & Fan Placement | Six; 2 80mm Front Intake, 2 80mm Side Intake, 1 80mm Rear Exit, 1 120mm Top Exit |
| Construction | Aluminum |
| Height | 17.75 Inches (450mm) |
| Width | 8.25 Inches (210mm) |
| Depth | 19.5 Inches (492mm) |
Drive Bays
The access to the case is, as I said, controlled by thumbscrews. Not captive, unfortunately, so expect to lose a couple. I did like the fact that these particular thumbscrews are cut to work with a Phillips head screwdriver for those times when you tighten things up a bit too much. The two side panels have indentations to make gripping them to slide them off, and pop off nicely to slide back on with relative ease. There are three different cages to attach drives into, with a total of four external 5.25" drives, 3 external 3.5" drives, and five internal 3.5" drives. The four external 5.25" bays are in the top of the case, and their cage is permanently attached to the case chassis. The three external 3.5" bays are in a removable drive cage that is directly below the 5.25" drive bay cage, and it is removed with thumbscrews that are accessed from beneath the front cover of the case. It should be noted that while this cage is just attached from the front, the three thumbscrews that are used hold it in securely enough so that no movement will happen during normal use. Finally, the internal cage for the five 3.5" drives is attached to the bottom of the case using a chassis that makes it so it is removable (Once again, thumbscrews are used for easy access). The internal cage is located so that the two front intake fans blow directly over them, and from testing we found that by placing two or three drives in the chassis (In spots 1, 3, and 5, or in 2 and 4), you get will get the best airflow and better cooling performance.
Motherboard, PCI & Power Supply Mounting
The motherboard is accessed by means of a tray system. By removing four thumbscrews that hold in the tray, and an additional four to get the side panels off, you' are able to pull out the entire motherboard tray. For those of you who have never had a case that has a removable motherboard tray, I'll list a few reasons why they are so nice, and why some people swear by them. First of all, there's the fact that you can install motherboard with out the obstructions of having a case around it, so you can maneuver it more. Also, you can install your PCI and AGP cards with out the case in the way. Plus, by pulling it out just a little bit from its fully forward position, you can give yourself more room to plug in your power supply and disk drives. The motherboard mounts come in the form of the standard Lian Li mount, which is a square bracket that snaps through the back of the tray, and works quite well. All of the PCI/AGP card's are secured by thumbscrews, to make it easy to access and sawp them.When mounting a Power Supply, you normally have to insert it from the main section (Where the motherboard is) of the case, which can be a bit difficult some times (Say, if you have a radiator in the top of you case, blocking the PSU entry - making it so you have to install the PSU first, then mount your radiator). Lian Li has a slide out part that mounts on the back of your PSU, and then uses thumbscrews to securely attach to the case. This system works very well, and I had no problems with it.
Safety & Sharp Edges
Most of the case did not have any sharp edges that would be problematic. While the internal drive cage for the 3.5" drives does have a bit of a catch on it, it isn't sharp. One of the odd things about the edges of the case is that the edge of the internal frame from the bottom of the visible 5.25" cage to the back near the power supply mount has been covered with a plastic sheath. I found it strange that this was the only edge covered, because there were others like it, but perhaps it was the only edge that was at all sharp. This is a plus to those who are accident prone and general safety for those of us who like playing in our cases too much, while it is late and we are nearly asleep.
Noise and Fans
This case has a large amount of strong fans, resulting in massive amounts of air being pushed around. This is great news for those of you who want lower (cooler) case temps, but the only problem is noise. Because this case is aluminum, it is louder then the standard think steel case. To say the least, this is a fairly noisy setup. The two front fans are connected to the Lian Li 3-speed controller, but it does not make that much of a difference because the Adda 80mm fans that are connected to it are already quiet to begin with. The three loudest fans in this case are the two Xoxide-branded (Y.S. Tech) 80mm fans mounted in the side panel, and the 120mm Dynatron in the top. To test what would happen to the overall sound if I quieted these fans down, I hooked them all up to a 6-port Bay Bus, which is much like the one that Xoxide sells. When I turned the three fans to 7 volts, the case fell to a very quiet hum that most people could sleep with. It's really too bad there is not a fan controller included in this already pricey package. Xoxide does sell 6-port Bay Busses, but for the price of the Warrior, it should be included.Also worthy of note at this point is the removable, washable fan filter. I don't know about your computer, but my computer sucks up an amazing amount of stuff over time. Honestly, I'm surprised more companies haven't caught onto the idea of having a filter over the intake fans, but at least Lian Li has, and after testing, it has shown an improvement in the amount of dust NOT in the system.
Pre-Mods
Here is where this Xoxide Warrior differs from the normal Lian Li PC-60/61 case. This case has been modded to add a window on the side panel, and Xoxide has also added 3 more fans to this case, two on the side panel and one 120mm in the top for a total of six fans and a premodded case that has a lot of style. This window is attached with some kind of silicone sealant or glue, with a nice rubber edge on it. I personally dislike this method because it could be damaged far easier if too much pressure is applied to the window. I would have liked to seen some soft of bolt, along with the rubber edging, which has become very popular lately, and puts a nice professional touch on the case. When the silicone/glue was applied, it was not applied in a visually appealing method, but this flaw is not visible form the outside. There are a few small burrs in the aluminum that are visually unappealing, but the rubber trim covers it quite well.
Testing & Temperatures
To test the temperatures of the system, I installed the following system:
- AMD Athlon XP2000+
- MSI KT4 Ultra Motherboard (KT400 Chipset)
- LeadTek WinFast GeForce4Ti4200
- Generic 256MB PC2100
- Vantec Stealth 470w
General Pictures
Conclusion
Over all, I thought this to be a high quality and great looking case. But it did have its ups and downs. I recommend this case for people who are interested in moderate overclocking with air cooling or water cooling when using the 120mm fan in the top of the case with a radiator. For those looking for silence, they have to look to spending more money on a Bay Bus fan controller. Perhaps Xoxide will include one in a future edition of the Warrior, because that would make it an excellence case. PC Extreme gives the Xoxide Warrior 4X's for great performance, looks, and weight with a minimal number of faults.Pros
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Cons
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For more info, go here.
To discuss this review, go here.
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