Aspire X-Navigator: A High End Gaming Chassis

Cooling

With so much room for adding as many HDDs as current hardware standards will allow, requirements for temperature regulation become even more vital then they have been in the past. It is obvious that a single HDD running at regular operating temperatures along with even hotter-running hardware, like the CPU and VGA card, may require some cooling, like a few case fans, to keep the system running stable. But when adding up to 9 HDDs to a mid-tower case, an extreme amount of cooling hardware is required.

Aspire has done a great job of planning the design of the X-Navigator. They considered thermal conditions within an extreme situation like one where more than just a few HDDs would be installed to coexist with today's highest of high end VGA cards and the most powerful CPUs. They have included plenty of case fans to help circulate air in and out of the case, which help cool these components so that they can continue to operate at stable temperatures.

With a total of three 80mm intake fans, a side mounted 120mm and top mounted 80mm exhaust, and the option to add a sixth 80mm fan to the front of the chassis, the X-Navigator is ready for any hardware that we can possibly throw at it.

The front 80mm fan is mounted at the bottom of the case in front of the third drive cage as an intake. It can be seen through the ventilation on the front bezel by its bright LED glow.

Two more intake fans are mounted at the back between the expansion slots and the power supply mounting area.

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There are a total of two stock exhaust fans mounted. The first is a 120mm exhaust, which is mounted on the left side panel near the expansion card area on an ATX motherboard. This fan helps alleviate the area as well as the CPU area of warm air.

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The second exhaust fan is mounted at the top of the X-Navigator where it would make the most sense. Since heat rises, a top mounted exhaust fan would help warm air escape to the top of the case instead of shutting it in, as many cases without top mounted vents do.

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Aspire also generously includes a hefty 500W aluminum power supply, which features a see-through acrylic design to its internal components that are multi-colored for a custom look. We cannot downplay this power supply, since it has such a robust set of features such as a fan speed adjuster, UV sensitive sleeves and connectors on its wiring, as well as blue LED fans to match the other case fans. The unit retails for around $55 at various online stores, which makes up over 1/3 of the X-Navigator's total price!

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Click to enlarge.