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Aerocool X-Predator Case White Edition

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#1 ·
Aerocool X-Predator Case White Edition

Description:
This XPredator is finished in striking white with black highlights for a unique and aggressive design. It has exceptional cooling performance with two powerful 230mm fans, and has the provision to mount an extra six fans if needed. Supports graphics cards up to 330mm long as well as the latest XL-ATX form factor motherboards.
 

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#2 ·
Aerocool X-Predator Case White Edition Review

review by vengeance47

Right off the bat I'm gonna say that this is one hell of a case. Aerocool have done a fantastic job with the white X-Predator case. The case is big enough to fit XL-ATX motherboards, it can accommodate up to 12" GPU's, 6 hard drives, each HDD tray has the ability to natively support 2.5" drives, it has 10 expansion slots, USB3.0, cable routing grommets, bottom of chassis PSU mounting, has room for up to nine 120mm fans and comes with two built in fan controllers in the control panel on the case that allow for up to 6 fans to be controlled. It is fashioned out of 0.8mm and 1mm Japanese steel.

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As you can see, its a pretty well equipped case. Without further to do, lets start with the aesthetics of the case.

The thing that initially drew me to this case was that it was white. I'm don't know about the rest of you but I am sick of all black cases. So it was nice to see a case that looks classy and is a little different. One of the things you may notice from the photo of the case is the vents on the top of the chassis. Apparently they are inspired by stealth bombers. Personally, I don't really see the point in them as they don't really serve any purpose other than aesthetics but in saying that, I actually quite like the look of them. I should note that there is a slider on the top of the case so you can open and close the vents. I don't know why anyone would close the vent seeing as there is a 230mm exhaust fan up top but who knows, I'm sure there are people that close it for one reason or another. I would hazard a guess and say there are two advantages of the vents however. First of all, because they only open to about a 25 degree angle, the warm air being exhausted is being directed out the case and towards the back. Reducing the likely hood of other fans sucking that warm air back in. The second function I guess would be to reduce dust. Since as I mentioned, they only open about 25 degrees, so that would mean less dust getting in the top of the case.

Another thing that I like about the aesthetics of the case is the front panel.The black and white contrast nicely and personally I think it looks much better than a lot of the other gaming cases in its price range (I'm looking at you CM HAF932).

Then you get to the interior of the chassis and the white motherboard tray with the black cable routing grommets really does the trick. The black and white theme continues for the hard drive bays and 5.25" bays as well. To summarise the aesthetics, its just a classy looking gaming case, which is a rarity these days.

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However, aesthetics are all good and well but what about build quality? I must admit, being a previous HAF932 owner, this case is leaps and bounds ahead of the HAF932 as far as build quality is concerned. The snap locks for the expansion slots are solid and I have total faith they will support my GPU(s) for years too come without any issues. Thankfully this isn't a totally tool less case either. The hard drives are mounted with good old fashioned screws, not those stupid pin locks that CM tried with the HAF932. The way the HDD trays slide in and out of the case is also far better than the HAF932 as in the X-Predator the trays are made of metal and not flimsy plastic. Next we get to the chassis build quality. Its a pretty solid chassis, a few areas of concern may be the sections of metal between the expansion slots, which look like they would bend rather easily as they are quite thin.

Next port of call is the finish quality. My example has no blemishes in the paint work, there are no glaring issues with the finish at all to be honest. The chassis feels a little like plastic rather than metal but overall the finish quality is more than reasonable. Especially at this price point, I don't expect the same quality as a $300+ case.

Now lets go to the installation. This case is freaking huge! Which is great as far as installation goes. It was a painless process to get my ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, i5 2500k, Antec Kuhler 620, Gainward GTX570, G.Skill Ripjaw X and ASUS PCE N-15 wireless card installed. Admittedly, the Z68 Pro3 is only a small motherboard, however there is still 4" of clearance from the end of the GTX570, which is just utterly astonishing. Looking at the case from the outside you would never know there is that much room. I will also mention that I have been able to acheive the cleanest cable management ever in this case. I am no god of cable management, I must admit. However everything is nice and clean on the inside and there is plenty of room behind the motherboard tray to tie off the cables and make sure its neat and tidy. So as far as installation goes, it was the fastest I have ever been able to assemble a PC and I have assembled quite a number over the years.

What about the noise from the case you ask? I am please to say that the stock fans are incredibly quiet. The only thing I could hear when I first got the system up and running was the terrible stock Intel cooler. The case fans are inaudible and there is plenty of room to add in additional fans if you want a boost to the cooling performance.

Which leads me to the next point, the performance. Without taking any hard data, I can say that you can expect roughly the same cooling performance as a HAF932. My temps for both CPU and GPU are more than reasonable and due to the cleanliness of the design, the cooling performance is more than adequate to cool high-end hardware.

As mentioned in the intro, there is plenty of room to add fans, and as a result, there is definitely room for an enclosed water cooling loop should you decide to head down that road. There is room for up to a 280 rad to be mounted up top and a 140 on the exhaust fan at the back of the chassis. There is plenty of room in the case to house your pump and reservoir and route your tubing cleanly and efficiently.

In summary, this is one hell of a case for its price point. I picked mine up for $140AUD which is about $20 under retail and $10 cheaper than the HAF932 (Here in Australia) and I couldn't be happier. Its a much better case than the HAF932, with better build quality and being in the same price bracket. If you are looking for a good looking, clean, elegant gaming case. Then you can't beat the X-Predator.

Overall, this case gets 5 flames out of 5. Its a good all-round package that offers everything you need for a reasonable price.

*UPDATE*
Information courtesy of Conero

I just wanted to point out though because you write that is can support up to 9x 120mm fans, when it does much better than that.

Side panel supports either 4x 120/140mm fans or 1x 200/230mm (Aerocool don't state this, but the BitFenix 230mm Spectre Pro will mount).
Top can support either 2x 140mm or 1x 200/230mm depending on fan mounts or 280mm rad.
Bottom supports 1x 120/140mm or 140mm rad (with custom mount).
Back supports 1x 120/140mm or 140mm rad.
Front supports 1x 200/230mm.

I wanted to point this out because you don't need to use 120mm fans at all, 140mm are much better and it supports 140mm in every fan mounting position.

What's also interesting is you could easily custom fit a rad in the optical drive bay cage or at least a 140mm fan. You could fit another rad on the floor also if you wanted to drill your own mounts and remove the 140mm fan plastic mount meaning enough room for 4 rads total.

ProsCons
Size, build quality, price, noise, colour, value

Ratings
Overall5
 
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