3R Mstation HT-1100 (cont’d)
Examining the front closer, we notice the great job of the brushed aluminum finish even more so. With the flip-down face up, the minimal “OPEN” stencil is visible, in addition to the gold-colored feet.
One final look at the front panel - this time, a close-up of the top left corner - reveals to us the nice layout of the power and reset buttons, power and HDD activity LEDs, and the front display as well. Finally, the product’s model number is also discretely placed in the far upper corner.
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Moving on, here’s a shot of the Mstation from the side. Notice how the cover’s finish matches perfectly with the sides of the case and really helps keep the overall look immaculately clean.
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This theme is continued all the way around to the rear of the case, where a simple I/O plate with one installed 70mm fan (and space for a second), extra exhaust fan, and power connector can be found. Something that grew on us while working with this case was the unit’s dimensions. It doesn’t feel particularly long, deep, or tall, and would work perfectly with other electronic components right under or on top of it.
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Getting inside the HT-1100 is as easy as unscrewing the three holes on each side of the top cover and sliding it back. The fit of the cover is perfect, and much to our liking, it doesn’t require any finicky latching mechanisms.
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With the case opened, the most prominent feature of the Mstation comes into plain view; the warm air exhaust tunnel. With a power supply installed, the warm air from that (plus additional heat drawn in from the fan visible in the above picture) is all funneled out to the rear of the case. The idea sounds good, but we’ll only be able to tell for sure after we benchmark the case with our test bed installed.
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Turning the case slightly, we can see that, overall, the HT-1100 has a smart layout. Moving the power supply to the front should help keep motherboard clearance issues from arising, and the height of the system is kept in check, thanks to the omission of the external 3½” drive bay. While certainly this could be an issue for some people, for the majority of users, a floppy drive is not even really necessary anymore.
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Like most HTPCs, the Mstation has plenty of cabling coming from the front of the case, but thankfully, there’s a space between the power supply and drive cage that makes cable routing a little easier.
Notice also the standoffs that will help support the power supply. While not exactly pliable rubber, they are still a soft plastic and will help absorb any additional vibrations from the power supply that would’ve otherwise added to the noise of a running system in this case.
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Tamale - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
The 'POS' power supply happens to deliver steadier voltages to the highest-end gear I've gotten my hands on (and no, the P4 test bed isn't the most powerful thing I've tested it in) than anything else that's passed through my hands, and that includes over a dozen power supplies by high-end manufacturers. I'm no reviewer of power supplies yet, as we're still working on that, but I guarantee you that this is a fine unit, especially for the area of case reviews, because in quiet mode it does a fantastic job of staying silent enough to hear the case fans and still provides rock-solid voltages to a stressed-out system. It also gets warm when in quiet mode in the cases that don't ventilate the power supply well enough, which is another good measure of a case. Perhaps most important however is the modular nature of the unit, and even though I've tried other modular units none were as quiet as the MadDog.Secondly, the thermaltake golden orb II at full voltage is quieter than any of zalman's coolers at full voltage. While I understand that the zalman will probably get lower temperatures, It is absolutely essential that the CPU cooler in my test bed make as little noise as possible, and the golden orb II does just that.
The recurring theme in your post seems to me to be that you want 'the perfect HTPC', but the whole idea of a case review is to isolate everything but the case as much as possible, and sometimes hotter components do a better job of illustrating the deficiencies of units than the latest and greatest.
Trust me on this one, if we used the absolute best gear available the comparisons would be much muddier.
As for the subjective comment, my scale of 1-10 can be thought of as a scale of tolerance.. with 5 basically being the threshold... anything higher than that really is 'too loud for the given application' and anything lower than 4 is 'acceptable'. It's not meant to be a numerically accurate scale of any sort. I felt very comfortable with the final subject ratings I gave these cases, because the Tenor and PC-800B just barely passed my personal threshold test, and I believe most users will agree.
tayhimself - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
I hope you realize other PSUs are likely quieter and more efficient than "Mad Dog". Sure the may be quiet to your ears, but thats too subjective to really mean anything. Sadly, you rate the modular nature as being an important issue when it is not. The PSU getting warm in quiet mode may be a sign of a PSU not getting enough airflow.And you say "its silent enough to hear case fans". While that can be true, the PSU and Tt golden orb noise signatures can drown out subtler differences between the cases in terms of noise of the case fans. This is almost obvious from your review as you dont perceive the difference of 9 dB to be significant. Its better to use quality quiet components so you can tell what the case is contributing to the noise spectrum. Since this is about making case buying decisions, the other factors are best isolated.
Avalon - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
Get crackin'.mrgq912 - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
to tired to read the article but first post.mrgq912 - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
okay now that I have that out of my system. How come you guys never review stuff from alienware or voodoopc. Those guys make HTPC's aswell. I never every heard of the players in this review making HTPC's untill today. Well nice to know i have options.Would buy one if i could, untill then i will live with my ati tv wonder elite.
ksherman - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
uh, cuz Alienware and Voodoo are over priced peices of DooDoo... and because this site is more geared around people that build their own machines...