Product Listing

AOpen G325 Casing

By Vincent Chang - 5 Jun 2006

Conclusion

Conclusion

The exterior appearance of the AOpen G325 is one that may polarize opinion among your friends. Some may like its aggressive and brash looks while others may view it as crass. Both viewpoints have their merits and as with these casings, trust your own instincts, as you are the one living with it, not your friends. That being said, the AOpen G325 is not something that would compel us to open our wallets, though it certainly opened our eyes.

If you're game for some heavy duty installation, the AOpen G325 promises greater flexibility than SFFs using proprietary boards. However, AOpen could have made it a lot more user friendly.

There are not that many small form factor casings around and those that use a standard Micro-ATX motherboard instead of a proprietary design are even less common. We could probably attribute this to the influence of the leading SFF manufacturer in the world, Shuttle and its practice of integrating the boards with the casing. The advantage of this is that all the cables are already nicely routed for you. The downside is that you don't get the same flexibility that you expect from a standard casing. One is stuck with the specific motherboard chipset once you choose a particular SFF from Shuttle. There's no way you can change it from an Intel to an AMD and vice versa, short of tearing out the motherboard and implanting it from another Shuttle SFF.

AOpen's G325 allows this flexibility but the cost is in the manual labor needed to get everything right. This was not helped by the extensive use of screws in the design as there was no sign that AOpen even realized that tool-free is now widespread among casings. Overall, the installation process took longer than usual. AOpen's simple manual was quite useful and the design is pretty straightforward so one should have no problems with installation. Rather it was the post installation work, of trying to get all the cables properly routed in order to improve casing ventilation that may take some time. And that may be too much for users bred on the tool-free designs that have been sweeping through the industry. Screws seem like a throwback to an older era and while they are proven solutions, look a bit stodgy compared to the newfangled mechanisms replacing them.

The reliance on the PSU fan as the only source of moving air in the system is also another concern. The cramped interior also means that there could be pockets of warm air trapped here and there. So, proper cable management is very important if you are considering the AOpen G325. Another major consideration of course is the price and while we have no official quote from the vendor, the prices we have seen online range from US$92 to US$100. It's not too expensive and it shouldn't be, as the materials and build quality is average at best. For those who like the flash, the looks of the AOpen G325 should overcome its drawbacks but it could be a hard sell to anyone else.

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