Xoxide X-500 Aluminum Mid-Tower Case Review
Date : Sunday, 27 July 2003
By : Stygian
Provided By : Xoxide
Introduction
Premodified cases are becoming more and more popular by the month. One need only go to most any computer store, or any online hardware retailer to see that good-looking cases complete with windows and other mods are usually readily available. Looking at these cases, it's easy to see what a long way the computer case has come in a relatively short time. It used to be that the only way you could get a nice looking case with a window was to modify a plain-Jane case yourself, adding in amenities using your own time and skill. Not anymore - beyond the window mod kits and similar products that soon followed, manufacturers began to take note and soon were pumping out ready-made cases that looked very nice straight from the factory. Clearly, business began to see that people wanted more from a case than just a housing for a computer system.
Indeed, Xoxide has been at the forefront of this enterprise, offering both self-modified cases and pre-modified units. In addition, they offer a wide variety of cases, from full-towers to mid-towers to even smaller enclosures, at various price points to suit your needs. One need of many people would have to be an aluminum-built case, a quality that not only makes the case look nice, but light weight as well. Because of this, there are now many aluminum cases out there, but as you've probably seen, this has made the market rife with subpar models that just are not worthy of housing your computer system. Xoxide recently starting selling their latest aluminum case, the X-500, and today I'll be looking at this model. The X-500, at first, looks like your typical aluminum case complete with a side window; upon further inspection you'll note that it also includes a nice front blue-backlit LCD and a motor-driven powered front sliding door. Do these extras add even more worth to the X-500, or are they golden jewels in a pig's snout?
Specifications
Looking at the bare specifications and numbers, the X-500 is pretty normal for a mid-tower case of its class. At just under 20" in height, it's not too tall, but at the same time, is not too small so that interior space is cramped. Four 5.25" drive bays compliment its dimensions, along with two external 3.5" drive bays and four 3.5" HDD bays. Four 5.25" drive bays is about right, as you could easily fill all the drive bays and have your needs provided for. A single front 80mm fan provides intake in that area, and with it and the side (window) 80mm fan operating, airflow ought to be balanced pretty well against the two 80mm exhaust fans. Though there are four fan placements, the front intake fan position is empty, and you must provide a fan to go here.
The X-500 came very well packaged; the entire unit was actually double-boxed. The inside box had the case surrounded by ~1" foam inserts, and then that box itself was surrounded by another 2" of bubble-wrap and placed in the outer box. This ensured that no matter what kind of training day the delivery people were having, the X-500 case would arrive safely, without a scratch or dent. I usually don't comment on this kind of thing too much, but I thought I'd mention it since the X-500 was exceptionally well-packaged.
 Nondescript outer box. |
 X-500 was double-boxed! |
The X-500 is very light, and you'll notice this right away. Though I couldn't find a definite weight spec., I'd guess it'd weight around 10lbs or less, empty and without a PSU. This isn't surprising when you know that the case is made of 1.0mm aluminum. This makes the case very easy to move or pickup; in this way it's ideal for a LAN party system or for someone who's just tired of moving around heavy cases. The aluminum has been anodized, making it less prone to picking up fingerprints and scratches, and giving the case a nice industrial look on its side panels and top. The front panel looks fairly flashy, but not overly so; most of it's grey, with a few places that have a mirror-like shine to them. There are other things added to make the front look nice; beyond the sliding door that covers up the front of 5.25" drives, there is a cutout for the floppy drive in the first 3.5" drive bay. Your FDD will then hide behind this, and hence won't be allowed to disturb the colour or look of the front panel.
 The X-500 case. |
 Door either covers four 5.25" drive bays or bottom half. |
 Side window. |
The sliding door dominates the front of the case; it's driven by a motor that's powered by your case's power supply. In the top position, it covers the four 5.25" drive bays, making the area look nice if you have DVD drives, etc. that don't match the colours of the case. When it's slid down, it covers everything including and from the floppy drive downwards. The sliding action is nice and smooth, and though it does make a bit of noise, it's not really more than that of a DVD drive tray opening or closing.
The side window sports an interesting design that is identical to that found on the X-450 case I reviewed earlier, and in fact the entire side panels of both cases are almost identical. Both windows are a made of a single piece of blue-hued material that is fastened to the side panel (behind the pattern cutout) using bolts. The center of the window has a clear 80mm fan set in an intake position; its hue matches that of the window, a nice thing to note. You can choose to upgrade this fan to a blue LED model, as Xoxide is usually happy to make changes to the base configuration of a case, and such a fan would go great with the window in helping to improve overall appearance.
 Rear of the case. |
 Handles for easy side panel removal. |
 Handles fold inward when not in use. |
The back of the case shows the punch out vent holes for the two 80mm exhaust fans. While they are in a good position, and a welcome change from the 60mm fan used in the X-450, the vent holes leave something to be desired. As you can also see, no PSU is included; some will look down upon this but it's perhaps a better option than including a junk PSU and raising the price of the case by another $10-15 USD. Each side panel is held in place by two thumb screws, and also has a handle that makes removing them easier; these handles are hinged and can be folded inward so that they don't protrude out back too much when not in use. A little addition, to be sure, but one that's appreciated, at least by me. The thumbscrews are pretty much standard fare on a case like this, and overall, getting into this case should be fairly easy thanks to these features.
 Actually a SkyHawk case. |
 Front LCD and Power/Reset buttons. |
 Silver button here moves the door. |
Taking a closer look at the door, you'll notice the "Eagle" logo behind the protective plastic wrap. This is because the case is actually made by SkyHawk and is part of their "Eagle" line of aluminum cases; the actual part number is "PSR-5601". And, in case you're wondering, the plastic wrap is in place because the door is made of a slightly translucent acrylic (or is it plexiglass?) material. As mentioned before, it's motor-driven, but you can manually move it slowly by applying pressure, if, for example, you need to install a CD/DVD drive and the door is in the way. In the rightmost picture above you'll see the silver button on the upper right side of the case that, when pressed, moves the door up or down.
In the lower part of the front of the case you'll see the LCD surrounded by a ring of shiny oval plastic. This is perhaps one of the main selling points of this case, as this LCD can display both the time (independent of the computer) and the temperature from the included thermal probe. The LCD also has icons for these indicators; the LCD itself is always on because it draws power from one of the standby voltage rails of your ATX PSU, as an ATX PSU is never really "off" unless hard-switched off or unplugged. The three buttons directly below the LCD, control its function. Below the LCD is the Power and Reset buttons. Almost this entire part of the front panel is lit up in a light blue colour when your PC is on, and the shiny piece of aluminum bolted into place in this area only makes things look better. It's easy to see why this case will be an eye-catcher at LAN parties, with its stylish design, noted especially in this location. One little thing I noted was that the Power and Reset buttons felt kind of loose, but responded with a firm click when pressed.
 Front ports and secondary power button. |
 4 feet at the bottom of the case. |
At the bottom of the case, a small door opens downward to reveal the front ports. Two USB 2.0 ports, a firewire port, and mic and headphone audio jacks are placed here, and these features are starting to become standard on many cases. The USB ports are especially useful, with the prevalence of USB devices such as game controllers and flash drives; sometimes going to the back of one's case can be one burden too many. There's also another power button here - though why? Well, if you left the door in the 'down' position when you turned off your computer, you'll note that it will then cover the main power button, preventing you from turning on your PC that way. True, you could move the door up manually but that can quickly become annoying every time you forget, so the manufacturer was kind enough to include an alternate power button here, that is accessible no matter what the situation - additionally, this secondary power button is hidden along with the rest of the front ports when the small door at the bottom is closed. Lastly, the bottom of the case has four grip feet for stability, and this has pretty much been a standard for mid-towers for a long time.
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.
Installation
The X-450 was already a pretty easy case to install a system into, and the X-500 takes the X-450's merits here and... really doesn't add or change anything. The motherboard tray is not removeable, so you'll want to install things like memory modules into the motherboard before mounting it as these things can be hard to put into place with the motherboard in the case. The tray uses standard standoffs to hold a motherboard to the chassis, and these brass standoffs offer the most secure option for mounting a motherboard. You'll need to use tools of course, to get the brass standoffs into position, but in the end they're a better option than the clip-on variety. Strangely, the mounting holes on the rightmost part of the motherboard tray can only be serviced by plastic clips; these holes are only used on larger ATX motherboards. I would have just preferred if all the mounting holes used brass standoffs, as these plastic standoffs, while convenient, can be awkward to use. P4 mounting holes can be seen in the pictures below.
 The non-removeable motherboard tray. |
 Brass standoff and plastic clip. |
 Bad slot punchout covers. |
 PSU can be mounted the correct way this time. |
Other than that, motherboard mounting was pretty much standard, and no difficulties were encountered. Where difficulties were encountered, or at least perceived, were at the slot covers, whose punchout quality has always been detested by me. True, it's not such a big deal, but perhaps it's just a pet peeve of mine. Oh well, just be careful when ripping them out, and maybe wish that SkyHawk had chosen to include proper slot covers.
Another major issue I had with the X-450 was the PSU had to be mounted upside down in the case; this not only made for a few awkward moments when installing the power supply, but also turned any PSU vents away from the CPU area and towards the top of the case, where they'll do little good. That kind of mounting certainly had adverse effects on cooling, or at the very least, didn't help the situation. Luckily, you can mount a PSU the correct way in the X-500; why the problem even existed with the X-450 was a mystery me. (Looking at the screw holes for the PSU in the X-500, you could probably mount the PSU upside down if you wanted to...) You'll want to mount/install the PSU first, as it can be tricky to switch out the power supply with a full system in place.
 Direct mounting for 5.25" drives. |
 Door must be moved down to remove drive bay cover. |
 There we go... |
Installation of 5.25" drives can be a little troublesome. There's no problem with the direct mounting method, as it's a pretty straightforward process, but removing a drive bay cover can be a little tricky. First of all, you'll need to move the door down to reveal the bay covers, and because the front panel is not readily removeable, you'll just have to go inside the case and push the drive bay cover out from the inside. The top 5.25" drive shield has already been removed, so you'll want to remove the drive cover in this place first. After that's done, removal of the other drive covers is fairly easy, as you'll now have room to pull them out from the front. The rest of the three drive shields must be twisted out to be removed, but they have screw holes that allow them to be reattached to the chassis. Not many of us will bother to do this, but I suppose it's a good option concerning EMI and the like. After all of this done, 5.25" drives must be slid in from the front and then screwed down.
3.5" drive installation is pretty straightforward as you'd expect. If you'll remember, the front panel has a cutout for the floppy drive that hides the floppy drive's faceplate so the front of the case won't be tarnished with the look of an off-colour drive, but because of this you'll have to install the FDD by inserting forward, from inside of the case. I did not have to remove the floppy's existing faceplate, but getting the floppy into proper position this way required a little jiggling and wiggling, and took about 5 minutes. After that, it's screwed into place; both sides of the case will have to be removed in order to get screws on both sides of the drives. The second external 3.5" drive bay has both a drive shield and cover in place, both of which need to be removed if you intend to use this bay. The shield must be torn out, and the cover must be popped out.
 3.5" drive bays. |
 HDDs are mounted right in front of the 80mm intake. |
HDD installation just involves sliding the HDD into position from inside the case, and then screwing it down. There are four spots for HDDs (five if you don't use the second external 3.5" bay), so you can stagger your HDDs to allow for airflow in between them, unless you have a huge multiple-drive RAID system. The four HDD bays are also nicely placed behind the front 80mm intake position, so any fan you place here will be pushing air directly over your HDDs to keep them cool. Overall, there's more than enough room in this case for your drives and devices.
On the whole, installation was fairly easy inside this case, with the major problem being with the tear-out slot covers and tear-out drive bay shields. The latter is found on a lot of cases, so I won't hold this against the X-500. Because there are no drive cages, however, you'll need to remove both side panels in order to screw/secure a drive to the chassis. This isn't too big of a deal, since both side panels are fastened with thumbscrews and have handles to allow for easy removal. The inside of the case, with respect to installation, is virtually identical to that of the X-450; I thought some improvement could have been made with the X-500, such as the addition of a motherboard tray or some removal parts, however I was a little let down. This is not to say that the X-500 fails in this respect, as the overall installation experience was good, but could have been better.
Cooling
and Mod Possibilities
The X-500 comes with placements for four 80mm fans, three of which are filled when you get the case. But, as we know, the number of fan placements doesn't matter if the positions of the fans aren't good. The X-450 suffered from having only a single thin 60mm fan for exhaust, and the X-500 has certainly improved this by moving up to having two 80mm fans for exhaust. But, how does the rest of the case fare?
Starting with the most basic fan position, we see the front 80mm intake position. A plastic fan cage is here, and you simply place a fan into it and clip it into place on the chassis. This allows for a tool-less installation, however no fan is provided for this location; you'll have to get your own. Problems don't end there, though. The front fan placement suffers from a lack of ventilation holes and proper intake. As you can see, the front grill is merely a punchout in a design that is not very conducive to airflow; there's still a lot of metal in the way. Worst still, there's pretty much no ventilation in the front panel, not even a vent/hole on the bottom of the panel. With the LCD in the way and the stylish design of the front panel, you'd be hard-pressed to mod in some vent holes yourself without destroying the looks of the case. There is definitely room for improvement in this area.
 Front 80mm fan placement. |
 Plastic fan cage clips on. |
 Not much ventilation in the front panel. |
The two rear 80mm exhaust fans are included with the case, and they are contained within a single plastic fan holder that also serves to direct airflow. The fans here are Power Logic model no. PL80S12M sleeve-bearing units, and are rated for about 27.5cfm of airflow, while producing around a 28dBA noise level; I'd say these specs. were about right, as I found the fans to be quite quiet. The plastic fan holder has vertical vents that are slanted towards the motherboard tray, so as to force the fans to take air from this area and exhaust it out the back; this design ought to help at least a little in cooling your CPU. However, the vent holes for these fans were also not very good, being poor chassis punchouts. What's even worse is that when the fans sit in their cage, they aren't flush with the chassis grills! This means some of the air they "exhaust" will merely be pushed back into the case. After struggling with the fan cage for about 5 minutes, I came to the conclusion that there's probably no practical way to remove it - not a good thing if one of the fans starts to fail.
 80mm fan cage holds both fans and has vents to direct air into it from the CPU area. |
 Holder is not readily removeable. |
 Vents not the best. |
 Fans don't sit flush with the chassis. |
The side fan is in a position that pays special attention to form; it's right in the center of the window design, and is set to blow air into the case. The fan is a Young Lin sleeve-bearing model no. DFS802512L that spec'd at 25.6cfm and 22dBA; as it uses only 1w of power, it's neither loud nor power-hungry, and you'll easily be able to plug this fan into any rheostat or fan controller, if you so desire. The fan sits behind the window, and it held in place by self-threading screws; a nice proper fan grill completes the setup, so this intake fan will have no problem with ventilation. As you can see, the fan's housing and blades are made of a clear plastic that has the same blue hue as the window, but the fan itself is not an LED version; you'll need to supply your own lighting. The fan could be in a better position, perhaps over the CPU/Videocard area, but as mentioned before, its placement perhaps reflects attention to form rather than function.
 Side 80mm fan set for intake. |
 Clean factory mounting job. |
 A proper fan grill is in position. |
The window is a single piece of blue-hued material that goes well with case lighting to make the interior look simply beautiful. The window is simply screwed down into position, so no moulding is required or used; it would have been nice to use moulding but unfortunately that options is fairly impractical due to the cutout design on the side panel. Nevertheless, the window is a "job well done", as the window looks very clean and mounting hardware matches the overall appearance of the case. As with the X-450's almost identical side panel, there were no rough edges to be found, either on the window or side panel edges around the window. The only thing you might want to change with the window is the fan; you can upgrade it to an LED version or change it out for something a little more powerful. One thing I would have liked to see on the window was some protection, like a plastic sheet attached to it to protect it from scratches during shipping; considering how well the case was packaged, I was a bit surprised not to have seen this.
 Mounting hardware looks decent. |
 Window screwed down. |
 Clean installation. |
For those of you who still like to make your own fan controller, or perhaps mount something like an LCD yourself, you'll be in luck with the X-500's faceplates. They're flat on both sides, so cutting them shouldn't present a problem. They simply attach to the case with clips, so that makes mounting fairly easy as well. About the only place you can properly add another fan is at the top of the case, for some sort of chimney exhaust. There's enough room up here for an 80mm fan, but you might have to watch what you mount in the top 5.25" drive bay if you go this route; the newer DVD drives that are short (like <20cm) will have no problem fitting with a fan there, but some longer ones might. You'll want to use fan grills on both sides of a fan here, just to prevent cables and other things from entering the fan housing and getting tangled/chopped up by the blades.
 Faceplates are ideal for modding. |
 They're flat on both sides. |
 Room for an 80mm fan at the top. |
The LCD is perhaps the most interesting thing about the X-500, and this is why I saved it for last. I couldn't get a decent picture of it (mainly because my camera sucks, and it's not easy to take a picture of a backlit LCD), so I'll use the picture from Xoxide's site to explain some operational details. The LCD serves three purposes: To display the time, temperature (of the thermal probe) and provide indicators for the power and IDE activity status. Either the time or temperature can be displayed on the main part of the LCD, and you can switch between the two using the rightmost button. The middle button toggles the temperature display between Celsius and Fahrenheit, so you can take reading in a measurement you're familiar with. The flat temperature probe is about 60cm or 22-23" long and can go pretty much anywhere in the case; you could even check the CPU temperature if you were willing, or the temperature of your HDD.
The leftmost button, labelled as "Time" or "Mode", is used to set the time when you're viewing the clock. It's very similar in operation to the buttons on a digital watch; pressing it once causes the hours digits to flash, and you can then use the other two buttons to adjust the value; pressing it again allows you to set minutes, then seconds, and pressed after this, the time button returns you to normal clock operation. When you're setting the time, a small clock icon will appear at the top center to indicate so. Pretty simple eh? You'll probably not even have to look in the manual to get things working.
 LCD operation. |
 Time display. |
 Celsius temps. |
 Fahrenheit temps. |
The Power and HDD indicators also find a place on the LCD as little icons, a lightning bolt and a stack of platter, respectively. These, however, do not replace Power or HDD LEDs, but merely compliment them. The Power and HDD LEDs are below the LCD, and are fitted in behind the Power and Reset buttons, which are made of a clear plastic. The Power LED is behind the Power button, and shines blue, while the HDD LEDs flashes red from behind the reset button. Having the LCD display icon indicators for these was merely a nice addition, as the Blue/Red LEDs will be far more eye-catching.
While the LCD and its backlight are always on as long as your ATX PSU is plugged in, (as they draw power from the standby rails), you cannot check the temperature while the system is off; you can only properly view the clock. Additionally, there are some blue lights around the LCD that also shut off when the system is off; these are sort of like Power LED indicators as well. The light from these LEDs bleeds to all edges of the transparent faceplate, making the front of the X-500 look very brilliant indeed. The viewing angle of the LCD itself is OK, but the backlight does help in making the LCD fairly clear. However, the display is set quite a bit behind the clear plastic cover, and this is what hurts viewing angles the most, as it prevents you from getting a clear view of the LCD at all from a lot of angles, especially from above. Furthermore, the plastic cover is slightly curved, and this tends to distort the image when viewed from an angle. The last note I want to make is on the colour of the LCD backlight; the pictures here make it look light blue, but in actuality, the colour is quite a bit darker and deeper.
 Setting the time. |
 Border lights go off when system is off. (But LCD stays on) |
The door is another nice feature of the X-500 as it's powered and motor-driven. The system must be on for it to work, however, you can move it manually. The door is very slightly translucent, but its main purpose is to cover the 5.25" drives' faceplates in case they don't match the appearance of the case; this is just another feature of the X-500 designed with looks in mind. Overall, the case offered OK cooling options, but looked very nice as-is. There's not much to mod here; adding in another fan (in the front position) or case lighting should be all that's needed.
Conclusion
The X-500 improves upon the X-450 in many ways. First and foremost, the addition of the powered door and LCD were a combo that sure to make the front panel impress most anyone. Both add to the appearance, either by blocking out unsightly drive faceplates, or adding an attractive backlit display. Indeed, the LCD is both nice looking and functional, as it allows monitoring of the temperature provided by the thermal probe. The Clock is also a nice feature, but perhaps less needed. The front panel already has quite a bit of lighting, with a bunch of faceplate LEDs in behind the display area along with the Power and HDD LEDs, and this makes the case stand out somewhat. The side window and fan are virtually identical to the X-450's, and there's nothing wrong with this as the setup was good looking in the first place. Also, cooling is improved with three 80mm fans included, with an option for a fourth. With these features, the X-500 is undoubtedly better than the X-450.
However, not everything is perfect. Firstly, the tear out slot covers still persist in their annoying existence. Secondly, the cooling setup, while improved, is not great, with no proper source of ventilation for a front fan, and the rear exhaust fans not mounted flush with the chassis. Some work could be done here, to improve cooling without adding any more fans. The case is also not the strongest out there, as the side panels feel kind of weak. However, I was more pleased with the X-500 than vexed. If you're looking for an aluminum case that offers something more than others, you'll find it in the X-500.
Pros
Cons
Lastly, a big "Thank you" goes out to Xoxide for providing the X-500 for review. Check them out if you're in need of a case, as they have a wide variety of them, along with all the modding supplies you'll need. Thanks for reading!