Gadgetory

what's up guys this is Dmitry with higher conducts and what we've got today on the review table is a $50 enclosure that's the Cougar qvx making it one the most affordable in its class and it's exactly how it should be now of course some corners have to be cut but it's a nice departure from more expensive ITX cases so let's see if this should house your components in the future build after this check this out the fans XP 400s which is one of the best mid towers on the market get a sexy upgrade now with the tempered glass side panel with a comfortable rubberized mount to show off your gorgeous system with an RGB LED strip included get your glass on the fans XP 400s plants not included so starting with the size it's not the most compact ITX case out there just be aware of that plus it's not that sim either it is quite long because of excellent GPU support and in comparison the define mini C which is a micro ATX closure and the SD 40 elite you're actually looking at a capable mini case the exterior top and front panels look much better than they feel they are plastic with this aluminum processor and nice dark grey color to create a little bit of separation from the black steel frame the side panels are perforated but without any dust filtration this might be on purpose to eliminate resistance for passive airflow at least the mesh here will stop some of the dust and the only filter is found on the bottom that slides out from the back the i/o is kind of hidden on the right side with power button USB in audio and being somewhat crammed in there in between this frame I was surprised to not have any issues with thicker USB devices they just don't look that great sticking out from the side but regardless of the plastic exterior and the thin wavy metal panels the qbx looks premium which is a nice balance at such a low price I also appreciate the text branding on the front panel instead of having their full logo displayed there at the back there are two PCI slots and 92 millimeter fan included plus the power extension at the top now to have a rear saucepan is quite nice there isn't much volume of air to move anyway I wish the power extension was somewhere near at the bottom or like tucked away to the left side as it doesn't look good being right in the middle with the stick cable at the top but as far as the GPU support goes it's quite standard with two PCI slots and some additional spacing below it and you can install dual 120 member fans at the bottom but only slim fans with a dual slot card installed the top panel has an interesting mechanism to slide out to reveal a slot loading optical drive mount something I wouldn't say is necessary but it goes right at the front for optimal utilization of that space and removing the panel we see dual 120mm fan mounts you probably will not need high rpm here given how close the top plastic panel is and you want to avoid rebound off that airflow on the inside the first thing we notice is a multi-purpose bracket that is meant to house a 120mm fan or an a IO with two mounting locations which is awesome so you can offset them based on your needs second the bracket has some swivel action which makes removal and reinstallation with hardware very simple with this locking mechanism built in on the opposite side of the bracket we have a drive cage for two of these and a single hard drive it's a nice compact storage area that can be removed if needed and what we're left with is an open frame and I love how many cable cutouts there are all around a tiny 18 or a fan can be installed at the front I would skip that and you know some low cost elements pop out here like the ketchup master cables on a fan a pretty visible green PCB for the front IO and no thumb screws for the PCI slot the only time screws are for the side panels and I feel like that's totally fine for a budget case just have your expectations in line behind the motherboard tray we get the single SS the amount that can be oriented differently I put mine to guide a 90 degree SATA cable directly into the main chamber with purpose cable cutouts on either side so as far as the field goes the interior supports the full-size ATX power supply you can see occupies a good half of the interior but only up to 140 member units in length because of that built-in support platform that won't allow bigger units to fit although if you have a bigger power supply you can always bend it if you need that extra room also keep in mind the orientation of the AC socket on the power supply as one format is not compatible since the extension cable is quite bulky and will interfere with the frame in that position now I decide to use a non modular power supply which is a surprise for you know an ITX tight compact case just to see how the case would handle those extra cables and as long as they're bunched up and close to the power supply you would have no problem with long GPU support 11 inch cards will fit just fine even with this front cable concentration so cable routing in general was fine utilizing all the cutouts underneath and on top of the board plus the extra openings above the power supply which you can see from this shot works really well to guide that fab 24 pin cable and you can work creatively in securing all the cables which is my main point criticism the lack of cable tight hoops anywhere on the frame is really disappointing especially at the back here where there is a little bit of space between that side panel but also just a fairly large surface area to spread your cables to make everything as flat as possible they just need to make it just one tiny bit better because kale management is not super easy and so here is the finish system with a GPU in place I can see what cougar was trying to achieve here the qvx is a good option for an ITX system with existing hardware ITA not needing to buy an XFX power supply and I would definitely utilize a 120 millimeter all-in-one cooler for the CPU and maybe one additional fan above the motherboard area for exhaust but the bottom intake is kind of awkward because the ventilation strip doesn't span the full 120 millimeter width and I feel the case doesn't have that much height for ventilation from the bottom also I do appreciate everything the qvx stands for and the school package at only $50 that comes with a surprising amount of options it looks modern and I can totally look past the drawbacks which is why we're giving it the Harbor Canucks standard value award and you cannot consider in icx bills that realistically fits into your load budget and so that is it for the Cougar qbx review thanks for watching we'll see you in the next video