Palo Alto Products ATCX Mid Tower/Desktop ATX

Cooling Summary

No surprises here, adding fans decrease the CPU, HDD, and case temp. The horizontal fan assembly does come through as promised by cooling the CPU better than the standard exhaust fan. Unfortunately, case and HDD temps are slightly higher with the horizontal fan, although not enough to make a fuss about.

It's interesting to note that the AAVID heatsink/fan does a good job of cooling the CPU regardless of this cases fan setup. The horizontal assembly would probably by more important when used with a passive heatsink.

Noise

Conclusion

Since this is AnandTech's first ATX mid tower review, we won't be giving out any awards just yet to Palo Alto Product's ATCX. However, it is definitely in contention for an AnandTech editor's choice award, but that decision will have to wait until we get a few more cases in our test labs.

The biggest blemish on the ATCX is probably the difficulty in actually locating it for purchase in single unit quantities. Until recently, Palo Alto would only sell the ATCX in quantities of 1000 per month or more - so basically only to system builders. Recently, however, the ATCX has been opened up to distribution and it should be possible to order the ATCX.

With that said, there's no denying that the Palo Alto ATCX is an excellent case and it's no surprise that the likes of Dell and Micron have chosen and stuck with the ATCX since their first ATX systems. The construction, use of space, cooling, noise, and attention to detail are all top notch - an extremely rare combination these days. If the ATCX meets your expansion needs, and you can get a hold of one, don't pass it up - you won't be disappointed.