Gadgetory

how fast can you cool crackle design maturity fans not just for computers oops hello everyone I'm Dimitri with hard-working accent for today's review we've got something very special from a company called street comm so they specialize in unique aluminum designs their target markets are not exactly gaming enthusiasts builders but instead someone who appreciates the form and simplicity of an enclosure this is the street comp F 12 C and before you might get turned off about the $275 price point the company's mission here is to focus on highest quality materials and finish and I sincerely appreciate the fantastic build quality of this enclosure the entire structure is made of premium grade four millimeter aluminum with refined edges rounded corners and everything is so well put together but the caveat here is the unique interior layout is challenging to work in and therefore the F of C is targeted for users tired of that conventional case and are looking for something fresh and perhaps for even a challenge so the first surprising thing about the case is the front a yo or actually bill hack of it the front panel is completely bare aside from the illuminate power switch and a window for an optional IR receiver given this landscape orientation and the beautiful design the f12 C is more suited as a living room PC so the omission of any front USB port is confusing also there are no 5 the quarter inch drive base no way to put the case standing like so even though look at how fantastic this looks the rubberized aluminum feet are screwed in but removable and unless modded to have the feet underneath the tower you are limited to this lying orientation all the sides are the sprue with these clever filters it's a two-piece mount having a metal outer piece to magnetically press the filter underneath that is held in place with these pegs so the filter doesn't slide around the triple filter at the top looks great and is completely flush against the panel they sit securely in place yet can be quickly removed if needed for cleaning at the back we find appropriate cutouts for standard ATX power supply motherboard i/o and seven PCI slots to get inside the case you have these two thumb screws that you turn in one direction to unmount the panel and it's a very clever system with a built-in nut on the interior to keep the exterior completely clean the only gripe I have here is once you unscrew the thumb screws the panel is a little bit difficult to pick up and lift off unless you sort of nail your way into the liftoff edge but I found removing the filter to grab a hold of the panel to be the most convenient method inside this is what's freaking was talking about when they mentioned a challenging process for assembly as you can see there is no compartment separation there isn't even a back panel to remove so what you see here is where you'll be working the dual rail in the center supports triple 90 to dual 120 or 140 mm they're fans with maximum 240mm radiator clearance this means you can configure the width between the two brackets to complement your desired fan mount there's also plenty of ventilation underneath the motherboard tray but the real unique aspect of the interior are these brackets street comm labels them as universal brackets this has got to be the most innovative way to move Hardware inside a chassis so this is how they work first the bracket has multiple mounting cutouts for drives fans radiators reservoirs or hid really anything you can fit on the bracket the second piece of the puzzle is the retention clip accompanying each of 80 Universal brackets to mount multiple three and a half inch drives you place them in order make sure they're straight and screw in both brackets and the shipping the system it is recommended to attach a third one on the other side for stability and you can mount four in total for this type of assembly and it's the same idea for multiple SSDs however single drives can also be mounted vertically three and a half inch drives as well and here is a 120mm fan mounted on the dual brackets giving users total flexibility in theory of how many drives and fans they want to populate inside the f12 C now here you insert the bottom end into the low channel inside the case and use the retention bracket to Curia main bracket in place this is by far the most impressive Tula's design that I've seen and it's relatively easy to master and so starting with the assembly I got the tall motherboard standoffs installed mounted our micro ATX reference system with the radiator in the middle bracket that works great to save on space and have some fans set to exhaust but then I finally ended up with this configuration to show how cable management is handled the 240 moment of radiator I mounted on the side with the space in front the power supply occupied by the only intake fan here and less amount more in the middle top bracket that can also support three and a half inch drives and I installed two there and right off the bat you realize just how little cable management support there is inside the f12 C there are no included clips no zip ties no dedicated channels to route your cables it's all left for the user and I was able to clean this up to best of my abilities and I realized that if you had a full sized ATX motherboard getting the radiator installed on that one side like you see here would be impossible due to limited clearance and also notice how there is no ventilation holes above the motherboard IO this means you're limited to either an all-in-one water cooler or a CPU heatsink with a downward fan as there is plenty of ventilation on the top panel and so then I came to another realization that this setup does not make sense as there's nowhere to mount an SSD and three and a half inch drives on the middle rail are extremely uncomfortable so I began to tear down thinking with a smaller system inside the case I would have more options for storage so I installed my triple mechanical drive array which is fairly spaced out away from the GPU but still covers all five other PCI slots which means no sli system for you if your hard drive is installed on this side of the case I also mounted a triple SSD array right behind the mechanical storage only to realize that my micro ATX port can only support four SATA drives which is the case with most micro ATX boards and so then imagine the night mirror of having to route your SATA power and data cables to those tight spots or needing to replace one of the drives and also check out this massive empty spot in front of the motherboard that could potentially house one of the drive arrays but the rail mounting system is not on this side it's only on the opposite sides of the motherboard which means for mini-itx systems this entire space is pretty much wasted and so here is the bottom line I feel Street comms mission is excellent we need diversity we need high quality materials and finishes and we need innovative modular pieces but on the flip side of that coin how much functionality do you sacrifice to be unique there was a clear priority on the elegance factor as the chassis is absolutely beautiful and you are given a choice of how you move things around inside the case but what would have been fantastic is orientation choice as I love this tower look and more mounting links right behind the front panel so you have extra options despite all that though the biggest challenge here is cable management as there's absolutely no way to tidy up your cables unless you go in and mount your own clips or reroute some cables behind the motherboard or talk to them underneath some fans or something like that but that's not really the solution even though there's a closed side panel I want to know I want to feel like my job where the system assembly has been complete when I'm satisfied with cable management and we already knew that the f12 C would be a challenging case to work in I mean streak I'm admitted that themselves but I really wish that there was some type of cable management system in place to give more points for this premium aluminum chassis and make it a bit more user friendly and that concludes this review we hope you enjoyed now the main question is I use a type of builder who would appreciate the f12 C and what it has to offer in the elegance department and the build quality department and be able to be okay with the fact that there's some functionality elements missing so let us know in the comments below thank you so much for watching make sure to subscribe for more similar content and we'll see in the next one you