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Accessing the inside of the Strike-X Air is very easy indeed, just requiring us to flip up the plastic cover.
About two thirds of the width of the chassis is taken up by a large motherboard tray, with the other third being reserved for the supporting components such as the power supply, optical drives and storage drives. This design isn't exactly ideal as it takes up a lot more space on your desk than other designs which locate these components under the motherboard tray.
Installing the power supply is fairly simple, requiring us first to secure a plastic bracket to the back of the power supply. It can then be slid into the rear of the chassis and clipped into place. We would recommend installing any modular cables before sliding it into place, though, as this area can be quite hard to access.
Installing the motherboard is fairly simple as there are a number of stand-offs pre-attached to the motherboard tray. It can then be screwed into place. This doesn't let you remove the motherboard as easily as most open test benches but it does ensure a secure attachment. There is also a large cut out in the motherboard tray to facilitate the installation of large CPU coolers.
The open design of the chassis makes it very easy indeed to install graphics cards into the system as there is plenty of room to work with. The card can be secured into place with the provided rubber coated thumbscrews.
There is space under the motherboard tray for cable routing and there are a number of grommets cut into the tray for this purpose. Unfortunately, we weren't able to achieve a very tidy build as the cables on our Seasonic Platinum P1000W power supply were too-short to be routed in this way, forcing us to route them over the top of the motherboard tray. We tidied them a little with some of the supplied cable ties to keep them neatly out of the way.
I love this, looks nicer than the other one from Antec or Silverstone was it?
Yeah I like that myself, fancy a test bed myself to play with some hardware I have. just ordered it from Amazon. good review henry thanks.
Buying this too. I have a system I use for work, but id like a rig I can just rip bits out of regularly. Good price too IMO.
Henry when you say its not a wonderful build. do you mean you think it might fall apart, or is it just a bit of ‘flex’ on the metals?
I like the look of this, but dont want it falling apart on me in a few months.
@Ivan
I would assume by the score, its just a minor thing, otherwise I can’t see it scoring 8
@ Ivan,
You’re right, there’s a bit of flex here an there in the materials and it generally doesn’t feel as solid as it could be. I highly doubt that it will fall apart or anything, though!
Does anyone have any ideas how to fit a corsair Hydro H80i in the case (Aerocool Strike-X Air)? Appreciate any pointers. Is there a bracket I can get? Alternatively which liquid cooler would be suitable in this case for an AMD FX 9370 with the Asus Crosshair V Formula-Z? Thanks.