So as my first "Official" review as a staff member (I had completed 5 reviews prior to joining VL staff), I am sent a very large, very colorful case. First and foremost, let me say, my very first case, was in fact, not. Let me explain, when I was a youngin, just starting to build my own rigs (not to show my age but this was in the late 80's with a 386 16MHz CPU), cases were an expensive piece of the puzzle; as was everything else mind you. So to save money I decided to forgo the case and proceeded to cut the motherboards anti-static wrap along the two sides, leaving the bottom connected, folded it over (due to the OUTSIDE of an anti-static bag is conductive) and laid my new motherboard on that, connected all of the peripherals and had them cabled to different shelves of my desk (oh I wish I had a picture of that setup).

It was classic I tell you; these clear cases have nothing on my original design. Since then I have had many cases, most were of the plain vanilla (crème actually) that we have all come to know and love thanks to Compaq, IBM's were a medium grey color with a crème METAL front panel, Compaq's were more aesthetically pleasing I am guessing as that became the pseudo standard. Through all of the cases I have had there has always been a trend of less weight and better air flow for extending the life of the components (or overclocking :p).

Somewhere during a case upgrade I decided to try the "mid-tower", I fell in love with it and have used it ever since, my current case included. For this review I am going to look at an "Oversized Mid-Tower". Courtesy of I have in my hands the "Aluminum Silver X-Superalien ATX Computer Case". I step outside to retrieve the case from FedEx and the driver hands it to me with one hand, either this guy is an ox or this puppy is on the light side, and light it is. Weighing in at just 19lbs (this includes the box and shipping material it was shipped in) and a mere 13 lbs with no PS this unit is very easy to handle and position where you want. So now that I have it in my greedy little hands maybe the first thing we should do is to go over the Specs.

Specifications:

Size: Oversized Mid-Tower

Construction: Super Light Weight, Heavy Duty High Grade Aluminum Alloy

Drive Bays: Five 5.25" (Exposed)
Two 3.5" (Exposed)
Five 3.5" (Hidden)

Power Supply: 500 Watt Aluminum Cast See-Through Power Supply
Two 80mm Blue UV Fans with Quad Blue LEDs
Power Supply Fan Speed Control via Knob on rear
Ultra Quiet Operation when Fan Speed set to low
See-Through, Fire Resistant Cover
Multi-Color Coated Inner PCB and components
High Cooling/Ventilation Design (1 direct intake and 1 exhaust)
Green UV Reactive Wire Sleeving
Power Supply Connectors are all Green UV Reactive

Available Colors: Silver / Black / Blue / Green / Red and Yellow

Fan Configuration: 2 80mm Front intake / 2 80mm Rear outtake / 1 80mm Windowed
Side Panel intake / 1 80mm Top of case intake (all Blue Quad LED fans).

Accessories: Front Mounted 2 channel Rheobus with dual Temp. monitoring.
Front Mounted ports: One Firewire / Two USB 2.0 / Microphone / Headphone (Speakers, R and L only)
Tool Free 5.25" and 3.5" device installation (well, almost)
Removable Motherboard Tray

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