Accessories and Getting Inside

The accessories you'll get with the X-500 are pretty much standard for a case. Inside a cardboard box that has been secured with a twist-tie inside the case (so it's not bouncing around inside during shipping) you'll find a small baggie of screws and standoffs, an ATX I/O shield, a power LED connector/converter (for mobos with a different pinout for the power LED), two replaceable slot covers and a sheet explaining the front panel connectors. Also included with the case was a user's manual, a small booklet about 12 pages long that details the case's features, usage of the door, LCD and front ports, and also goes over basic installation techniques. While many of us won't need this manual, it was nevertheless nice to see something like it included, as it shows that the manufacturer was willing to invest at least some time to explain their product to end users.

The reason two slot covers are provided here is that the slot covers on the X-500 are the tear-out, non-replaceable type. Unfortunately, this aspect of the X-500 was not improved from the X-450, which also suffers from this problem. I just don't like tearing out metal from cases, and the fact that the covers are not replaceable (and only two replaceable ones are provided) makes things worse. It would have taken little time and effort on SkyHawk's part just to include or use some regular, replaceable slot covers instead, and this little thing would have prevented, if only a little, trouble from happening.

Accessories.

Two thumbscrews and a handle per side.

Side panels slide back ~1cm and then can be removed.

One-piece window bolted into place.

Getting into this case by removing a side panel is very easy, and is almost identical to the X-450's access. There are two thumbscrews per side, and after these are easily removed, you pull the handle outward and then you can use it to easily pull out the side panel. The hinged handle was a nice addition because of its larger size; this allowed me to get a better grip and remove the panel easier. The hinge allows you to fold the handle inward so it's not sticking out so much, making the case look a little nicer and also preventing injury or damage that could happen if something moving hit the handle, or if the handle struck something while you were moving the case.

The side panel itself is very light; in fact, save the hinged handle at the back, this side panel is pretty much identical to the one found on the X-450 case reviewed earlier. The panels are so light that the non-window side (right side) weighs less than the windowed side. The side panels also feel flimsy, as one gets the idea they could be bent very easily if pressure was applied in the right (or is it wrong?) way. Both side panels and the top cover are made of anodized aluminum, and the exterior surfaces seem very durable because of this; they also have the brushed aluminum look made popular by Lian-Li cases. The top cover, as expected, is non-removeable as it has been riveted into place; it probably should stay there as it gives considerable strength to the structure. Looking at the window from the inside, you'll get an idea of the one-piece design; it has simply been bolted into place behind the cutouts on the side panel. The window is pretty nicely done, with rounded corners and edges, as things should be done from the factory.

Side internal view.

5.25" drive bays.

3.5" drive bays.

Taking a look inside, we find quite a bit of room for a motherboard and quite a lot of drive bays, for a mid-tower. There is no horizontal crossbar inside the case, and while this makes the layout neater it does not improve the strength of the case. The motherboard tray is not removeable, something that would have been nice, particularly for a mid-tower. The mobo tray does have mounting holes for P4 heatsinks, as any case nowadays should have. Almost all of the edges have been rolled over in this case to not only protect you from injury when working inside, but also to give the case a little more strength. Where this is most evident is around the drive bay areas. You can see how much the vertical edges of both drive bays have been rolled over to add strength to these important areas.

All drives are directly mounted to the chassis in the X-500; that is, they're directly screwed to the chassis and no drive rails or anything like that are involved. This method is the most simple for the manufacturer, but has its advantages and disadvantages; I personally prefer rails as they allow one to quickly move a drive a little forward to give a little more room to attach a cable or some other little thing. There's enough room between the 5.25" drive bays and the motherboard tray so that drives shouldn't interfere or cover the motherboard. The only time this might happen is if you use a fairly long CD/DVD drive in the lowest drive bay, and have a large motherboard that is quite wide. There is room for up to four internal 3.5" drives, which should satisfy most users; a RAID setup would find a nice home in this case.

Rear area; the black thing is the fan holder that directs were air is sucked out from.

Slot covers not replaceable.

Fairly standard back.

To the rear of the case, we see the big black fan holder, which dominates the view here. This holds the two 80mm exhaust fans, which are included, and also serves to direct airflow somewhat; the interior intake vents are sloped towards the motherboard tray so that air will/should be draw up from the area around the CPU and then exhausted. This should help in eliminating heat from this vital area. The presence of two 80mm fans here is a large improvement over the single thin 60mm fan found in the X-450. While there are some problems with the setup (as we'll see later), pretty much anything beats a 60x15mm fan for exhaust. Above the fan holder, you can see the two supports for the PSU, which are needed since four screws probably aren't enough to hold the PSU in place for long periods of time, especially considering that aluminum comprises the chassis.

The tear-out slot covers are about the worst kind that there are. After being blessed by the tool-free method in the Black Enermax Server tower (CS-10182-BA), these things were like a trip to hell. Basically, I hate tearing them out, especially when there's a motherboard in place, and I hate that if you choose to move expansion cards around, you're left with a big hole. True, two replaceable slot covers are provided, but they'll probably not be enough.

While proper slot covers couldn't be provided, SkyHawk was thoughtful enough to provide a plastic hook to strap down all the wires from the front panel. While it isn't the most pretty thing inside the case, it's needed as there are many wires coming from the front, what with the front ports, temperature probe and LCD. It's easy to remove wires from the hook though, as it's simply clipped shut. An interesting thing to note is that the connectors for the front USB ports were not comprised of separate pins; what I mean by this is that the connectors resembled normal ones, as they were simply made up of multiple wires going into one connector. I assume SkyHawk did this because perhaps most motherboards nowadays have standardized or similar pinouts for their internal USB headers. In any event, as long as your motherboard matches the pin configuration of the connector here, connecting the front panel USB ports ought to be easy as heck. However, the audio and firewire connectors were still made up of separate pins; there's probably not enough motherboards out there with these internal headers for there to be even a defacto standard pinout.

Lastly, the white thing in the third picture from the left below is the thermal probe. It's been wrapped in plastic for protection, and it's almost perfectly flat. While I wouldn't put it between your CPU's core and the heatsink, you could position it to just touch the side of the core, and then have it come out from under the heatsink. It connects to the front LCD, so you can use the LCD to monitor the temperature read by this thermal probe. This is a really nice addition to the case as the monitoring operates independently of your system, so you can read the temperature no matter what.

Wires/cables tied down.

Standard front panel connectors.

USB, firewire, connectors and thermal probe.

ATX pass-through to power the LCD, door, other lights.

Lastly, in the rightmost picture you'll notice what appears to be an ATX power cable extender. That's basically what it is, but it also has some wires spliced in that go to the LCD, giving it power along with the door and some other lights. One of the wires is a standby voltage that is always on, even if your computer is off, thanks to the wonders of an ATX power supply. This allows to LCD to be on at all times, as long as the PSU is plugged in; however its function changes slightly when the case is turned off. Firstly, there is a blue light surrounding the LCD that is only on when your system is on; when you turn off the computer this light goes off. The blue backlight in the LCD, however, stays on all the time. Secondly, you cannot read temperatures from the thermal probe when the system is off; you can only read the clock. The clock does retain its time, even when the PSU is completely disconnected from power, so you won't have to keep setting the time after you unplug your system to make an upgrade/change to the hardware. Left disconnected from power for an extended period of time, the LCD's clock will however, run a little slow.

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