Introduction

Cable management iis one of the areas many PC enthusiasts look into when building their computer system. Apart from making your system interiors look neat, it also helps to enhance the overall airflow within your case, allowing unobstructed airflow and thus keeping all the components in the rig cool. Amongst the many cables and wires in a PC, one of the more challenging ones to managed are the IDE cables. But that's a few years back and with rounded cables widely available now and many motherboard manufacturers including them in their package, you don't have to worry anymore. But things just got better with the new interface, Serial ATA or SATA. Not only does it bring a speed bump, the data now travels on a cable just a tad larger than your regular USB cable! And for those of you who have a window, here's a SATA cable that would go well with your case!

Features

As far as I know, AC Ryan is the only company that makes these SATA cables and they are the XNeon EL SATA Cable. The first thing you'll notice about these cables are the clear shieldings used to cover up the cables inside, much like a silver braided rounded IDE cables. The shieldings are divided into 3 parts, with data lines on each side and right in the middle, an EL wire is inserted to provided the illumination for the cable. The data lines are covered with silver mesh for EMI shielding and I think it enhances the overall look of the cable.

Now like any other EL (Electro-Luminescent) stuff, you'll need an inverter and with the XNeon cable, it's connected to one end of the cable to the EL wire inside it. The inverter also has a pass thru Molex cable so that you do not lose a Molex connector from your PSU just by plugging the cable in. These cables are available in 5 different lengths to suit your needs. If you wanna use them as light strips or lighting up your case interior, go for the longer ones! :O) You can get them in 20cm (8"), 30cm (12"), 50cm (20"), 75cm (30") and 100cm (40")

Unlike the SATA cables that comes with your motherboard which are stiff, the AC Ryan XNeon cable is very flexible, allowing you to route the cables any way you want. Here you see the closeups of the cable, showing you the EL wire and the silver mesh covering the data lines.

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