The Best Open Case I've Seen - XPROTO

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enopen cases are not something that we've taken a look at on the channel yet because let's face it they're not really cases they're not enclosures is what i mean they don't kind of protect your hardware from the elements from pets or any potential damage for whatever reason though this style of case is definitely trending and i'm seeing them become a lot more popular this one right here is called the x proto and it's one of the best ones that i've seen so far and it approaches this open case layout a lot differently to the other ones that i've seen so today we're going to discuss why you might want to go for an open case design like this and some of the big drawbacks of an open case design so i've passed on reviewing quite a few open-air cases out there but the x-proto is one of the more unique ones that i've seen so far it does need to be assembled out of the box but the building procedure is very brief and fairly rewarding there's just something about building up a nicely machined cnc build that makes this something that you actually look forward to and not dread they also include a couple of screwdrivers a neat screw box and i'll note that the x proto does come packaged very well it's exactly what you'd expect from a premium product and that does add to the user experience once it's built up you've got this symmetrical vertical design with your motherboard and power supply on the left side and your graphics card on the right the x proto is constructed of four millimeter thick aluminium and this creates a very solid base for your itx system the only color available is what they're calling dark silver but it's more of a medium silver with a blue tint if you're familiar with the color payne's grey that's basically what this is now the cnc machining is excellent but there is one big drawback of working with and specifically bending these four millimeter thick aluminium panels and that's that you'll inevitably get these stress marks on the outer edge and also relatively harsh creases on the inside you will notice these imperfections when building on the case but unless you're really looking for them they might not bother you there are cable management cutouts on both sides of the x proto to allow you to easily route your sfx cables with the majority of cables being routed through the center which i thought was pretty creative if you need two and a half inch drive storage you can mount one directly behind the power supply and they do include a bracket for another one that mounts directly behind the motherboard overall the build process is very easy just as you would expect from an open design it's just like building on a two-part open test bench the only thing worth noting is that if you want fairly clean cable management i'd recommend installing the power supply first along with routing the cables and then installing your motherboard and graphics card afterwards now in terms of hardware compatibility the standard design here is limited to air cooling only although you can pretty much go as tall as you want seeing as this is an open design they are working on some creative expansion modules that will allow for larger liquid cooling setups one that can accommodate a 240mm aio and one that allows for a full custom loop two slot graphics cards up to 330 millimeters in length are supported with no real restriction on graphics card height two and a half slot cards will also fit without a problem so long as it only uses two pci expansion slots and this leads me to one of the big benefits of an open design like this and that's that thermal performance is extremely good you don't have to worry about airflow or thermal design with an open case which also means that there's no need for additional fans and the noise coming from those so both thermal and noise results here are pretty impressive however this ties directly into one of the biggest drawbacks of an open case design and one of the main reasons that i've never really took them seriously and that's of course dust the amount of dust here that's going to settle on your components is not something that you really want to think about but it is a reality with one of these designs the x-proto does mitigate this to some degree because it is vertical so the amount of dust is mostly going to be settling on the top and not say on top of the cpu cooler or the graphics card still though it's a very serious consideration and drawback of an open case design so just make sure you're aware of that before buying now since this is a vertical build that means that all of your i o cables will be coming out from the top of the case which isn't the most pleasing thing to look at they recommend feeding those cables through the center gap of the case which will mostly overcome this but i honestly find that hard to do seeing as most of that space was already taken up by the power supply cables the x proto also works well as a horizontal case if you prefer to use it that way and they do include a power supply extension plug which you can install on the gpu side so overall my thoughts on the x proto the build quality is really good the thermals are really good it's an open case design and of course it's a really creative and unique design as well which i really appreciate because there's not much of that in the case industry but i think that's where the review ends because my thoughts on open cases in general haven't really changed after working with the x proto it's still an open case it's still not really practical as a portable system it's not really practical as an open test bench because i mean the streetcom open bench table mini is a much better solution for that and then when you factor in the price 170 usd here for the x proto i just can't recommend this over say a dan a4 or an encase m1 however if you are interested in building in something like this or on something like this then feel free to check out the link down below and also let me know what you think of an open case like this they are a growing trend and maybe i'm just slow to the party but i'm not really sure i would ever build a main even a gaming system on this uh but let me know your thoughts down below as always a huge thanks for watching and i'll see you all in the next one\n"