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I know
that sometimes Viperlair can be all about performance and tweaking
your PC to get the most out of it, whether for gaming or just for
bragging rights. As of late though, I have noticed a trend towards
Home Theater PC's (HTPC), not around the web as such where it has
been a popular theme for a while, but within our own Viperlair forums.
With this in mind, I searched the web for sometime trying to find
who had the top of the line enclosures we could take a peek at that
were built for HTPC's. My search led me to the Ahanix
site who I contacted to take a look at their latest HTPC enclosure
the D.Vine 5,
and find out why it is the talk of the HTPC forums.
Size:
ATX Desktop
Construction: Aluminum
Drive
Bays: One 5.25" (Exposed)
One 3.5" (Hidden)*
Power Supply: Included Ahanix HTPC 300W (ATX 2.03 compliant / AMD/Intel
Approved)
Available
Colors: Hair Brushed Finish Silver / Black
Fan
Configuration: 2 x 60mm Silent Rear outtake.
VFD:
2x16 character/Samsung SDI/Parallel connector/Additional
Features
*
- a 2nd 3.5" drive can be installed below the 5.25" drive,
if your motherboard does not have it's IDE interfaces directly behind
the Drive Bay or of you are using entirely IDE drives.
Pulling
the D.Vine 5 out of the box I was confronted with a unit that
is both light and very aesthetically pleasing. This Black, brushed
aluminum case looks clean, and from the front of the unit, you
do not get the impression you are looking at a pc, but some sort
of modified Amp/Receiver.
Inside
the case at the rear we see the typical bag of screws that allow
you to secure all of your internal equipment, two small exhaust
fans and the included Ahanix Power Supply along with an extra
cable that connects to the parallel port (this is for the front
LCD Display on the D.Vine 5). At the middle front of the case
is the drive bay, (well, it does hold one 3.5" and one 5.25"
drive) and the front panel PCB's. On the bottom of the case middle/front,
is the only inlet air vents. It will be interesting to see if
this causes an issue with maintaining a cool operating environment
while viewing CPU demanding video.
Unlike
most HTPC enclosures on the market, the D.Vine 5 has the ability
to house either a MicroATX or Standard ATX motherboard. This does
lend to a slightly larger footprint overall, but Ahanix was able
to keep it at the size of a typical high end Receiver/Amplifier
that you would see in the same Home Theater rack. The lines on
the case are crisp and the finish is nothing short of inspiring.
Ahanix has done its homework and come up with a well finished,
ready to sit next to your other Home Theater gear, piece of equipment.
Inside the case there is slightly less attention to detail as
they have made the space fit the external design and not choreographed
it for ease of installation. The Drive Bay is not the easiest
to get to, and requires removal if you are going to be exchanging
the DVD-ROM or the motherboard. Obviously there is no removable
motherboard tray, as this would add weight and probably would
not be functional with the design they are trying to achieve.
The rear fans are of differing depths; this appears as though
it was built in a "what is available" scenario. One
fan uses the 3 pin motherboard connection, the other uses a piggy
back Molex connector, and again I feel that it was built with
what was on the shelves, not what was planned. Although most people
will not see it this way, I did, and for some reason it bothered
me.
The
PSU was only anchored at the rear of the case, allowing it to flex
the side somewhat. Overall internally is not a bad design, just
not the best I have seen. Let's see how everything comes together
as we build it.
I
pulled out the bag of goodies and found that Ahanix has not included
an installation manual; there is however a piece of paper that
is the Quick Installation Guide. This also instructs you to connect
to their web site and either download the manual or print it off
(PDF format). Included in the miscellaneous parts bag is a new
DVD ROM cover that matches the case, something I was thinking
was going to be hard to do, very nice catch Ahanix. Checking over
the front panel connectors I see there is only PWR-ON / PWR-LED
/ FP-RESET included. I guess you don't really need to hear the
PC Speaker beep, or see that pesky blinking HD indicator, at least
not in the HTPC world.
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