Aerocool Strike-X Air - Exposed in its Entirety

Open House

Some designs are so ingrained in our heads that it is hard for us to think about it in other terms. For example, if you were asked to draw a sports car, you would probably draw something resembling a Ferrari. Likewise if you were asked to draw a house, many people would draw a box with two windows, a door and a triangular roof with maybe a chimney billowing smoke.

If you were asked to draw a computer chassis, chances are you would draw a rectangular block. Even chassis that are deemed “unusual” like the Thermaltake Level 10, have the same rectangular, blockish design like so many other chassis. The Aerocool Strike-X Air, however, is very different.

Design & Features

The Aerocool Strike-X Air does not fall into the traditional categories of mid-tower or full-tower chassis because it has what the company calls an “open concept”. This means that it has no panels and that all of your components are fully exposed. This is vastly different from the majority of chassis that are out there in the market right now. As you can guess, such a concept will appeal to frequent upgraders and overclockers who like to fiddle around with their system, thus not getting bogged down with a traditional casing, nor have a messy and fully open bench-test platform.

The Strike-X Air can be described as having two compartments, one that houses the motherboard and another that accommodates the optical and storage drives and devices as well as the PSU. The Strike-X Air has three drive bays for 5.25-inch drives and devices and another three for 3.5-inch drives. The latter can be converted to accommodate smaller 2.5-inch drives such as SSDs.

The Strike-X Air is constructed using a combination of plastic and black SECC steel of the thicker 0.7mm variety. The steel structure feels sturdy, but certain sections that are made out of plastic feel a tad flimsy. For example, the giant top panel is held in place by only a single support on one side and is prone to tilting on the other.

To give the chassis more visual impact, it is decorated with red accents on the “front” panel and also given red grilles. We think that the combination of red and black is attractive and very fitting for a chassis targeted at enthusiasts.

Above the motherboard tray is a large panel that comes preinstalled with a large 200mm fan that blows cool air onto the motherboard and its components. The fan also come with red LED lights, which is a nice touch and fits the overall red and black scheme of the chassis.

Moving to the rear, we can see 10 expansion slots, which have red slot covers - again a nice touch. There are also four rubber grommets for users who want to have liquid-cooling setups. The radiator has to be installed on a bar above the grommets with pre-drilled holes and it can fit up to 240mm large radiators. However, the bar itself feels flimsy, furthermore, since the bar only runs above the grommets, this means you could only secure one end of the radiator to the bar, therefore, we would advice against using it on a long-term basis.

Installation & Ease of Use

The Strike-X Air is unique because of its open concept design and because of the open nature of the case, the Strike-X Air does not suffer from the same limitations as regular casings. For example, it benefits from have lots of headroom for tall CPU coolers. There is also more room for cables to run to over components such as the CPU cooler and graphics card.

That said, do not be mistaken that the Strike-X Air can accommodate all manners of motherboards and graphics cards, it is still bound by certain limitations. For example, it will only accommodate micro-ATX, ATX and E-ATX motherboards. Also, the motherboard tray is large enough only to fit 330mm long graphics cards, which should be plenty considering most graphics cards, even the high-end aftermarket ones, typically top out these days at around 300mm to 310mm.

We found that it was odd for the motherboard tray to have a cut out for quickly changing CPU coolers. Bearing in mind the orientation of the chassis, changing the CPU cooler on an already wired system would mean placing the chassis on its side, something that we do not recommend doing considering the open concept nature of this chassis.

Installing the components was straightforward, as we would expect from a casing that has its innards exposed. The motherboard standoffs have been pre-installed for a ATX motherboard, so installing the motherboard was only a matter of using screws to secure the motherboard in place.

Optical drive installation was a little cumbersome because users would first have to remove the 5.25-inch drive cage, slot the optical drive in place and then use screws to secure it before replacing the drive cage in its place.

It was the same story for installing storage drives. Instead of the common tool-free drive trays that we have become so accustomed to, installing both 3.5 and 2.5-inch drive requires screws as they are not of the tool-free variety. That said, the tray itself does slot into the cage nicely without the need for additional screws. On the flip side, the HDD bays are hot swappable as they feature SATA power and data connectors.

Because of the unusual open concept of the chassis, the PSU needs to be installed in a different way and is easily the most cumbersome and tedious procedure of setting up. First, there is a PSU bracket that needs to be secured to the rear of the PSU. Thereafter, you just slide the PSU into the PSU bay.

This is simple enough but what comes next is not. Because the PSU bay is located directly behind the HDD cage, the various power cables would need to be threaded through a cut out in the bottom of the bay and then back up again through the grommets in the motherboard tray. This is slightly easier to achieve with a modular type PSU, but even so, it is extremely tedious to do since the cut out is at the base of the case and it is not big. Furthermore  it is not easy to put the casing on its sides either, making this process even harder. Doing this will ensure a neat and tidy setup, but apart from being tiresome to accomplish, one would also need long power cables.

Otherwise, the work around is to simply thread the cables through the opening on the motherboard tray side of PSU bay and simply connect it directly to the motherboard and components. This is an easier procedure of setting up your system, but the downside is that it makes everything look really messy and it obstructs airflow from the cooling fan mounted underneath the top panel.

Double-edged Blade

Users often complain that computer chassis are boring and that there is not much differentiation between one from Brand X and another from Brand Y. They are, after all, just black boxes that house your components. Well, the Aerocool Strike-X Air with its "open concept" is certainly not one of these chassis.

While the Strike-X Air is unique looking, its “"open concept" does bring about its share of pros and cons. Let’s begin with the good stuff. To begin, for users who often upgrade and swap components, this concept is a boon. Swapping graphics cards and memory modules cannot be any simpler. We have easy access to the optical and storage drives too, but we would have preferred a tool-free installation procedure, as opposed to using screws, since this is fast becoming the norm, even for entry-level chassis.

However, this ease of installation and swapping of parts is negated by a number of disadvantages of this design. To begin, the ease of which components can be swapped also means that dust can easily collect and settle on your system. Thus, frequent upkeeping is required, especially if you have pets in the house. The design of Strike-X Air also means that it takes up a lot of space - it measures a whopping 61.3cm in width and about 53cm in depth. Best be sure you have a large table set aside for it. We were also disappointed by the halfhearted bar that is used for installing radiators for liquid-cooling setups, it is certainly not ideal and we would recommend against using it on a long-term basis.

But the thing about the Strike-X Air that we dislike most is how difficult it is to install the PSU and manage the clutter of cables thereafter. There is simply no easy way about it. Users either have to ensure their cables are long enough and then tediously thread them through the bottom cut out and through the grommets on the motherboard tray, or simply tread them across from the PSU bay and into the motherboard tray area. Either way, both methods are equally undesirable - the first is far too cumbersome to achieve while the second results in a messy looking setup.

Despite all of its quirks and shortcomings, the Strike-X Air, with its unusual design, is a breath of fresh air. We also noticed that it has been fairly well received by chassis modding community. With a decent pair of hands, tools and lots of imagination, one could use the Strike-X Air and create designs such as this and this.

Clearly, the Strike-X Air is a chassis that will probably only appeal to a niche group of users. However, if you have a large enough desk and enough patience, then at S$155, the Strike-X Air offers pretty decent value for the money.

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