AOpen G325 Casing

Dressing Up the Cube

There seems to be two distinct design schools when it comes to the aesthetics of small form factor (SFF) casings. One opts to focus on the media center functionality of a SFF, which invariably draws its inspiration from consumer home electronics and their penchant for black and silver. The other lesser-trodden path is to target another market niche, namely young, hardcore gamers who travel with their systems to LAN parties. These designs usually have a more brash, extroverted look as opposed to the understated media center-class SFF systems. Of course, small form factor systems are basically computers so they usually serve more than one purpose, but merging both may result in a schizophrenic appearance that fits in neither category.

Shuttle, the pioneer in the SFF genre, takes the first route with its elegant and classy models, so that is certainly a proven strategy. The neutrality of these SFF systems means that they can double for gaming besides serving as media hubs. The second approach is debatable as while LAN gamers do appreciate portability, performance is more desirable. Ask any serious gamer and you'll know where their top priority lies – frame rates. Therefore, the gaming niche is likely to be much smaller and though it's not a faux pas by any standard, many of the gaming oriented casings we have encountered look out of place in the living room.

Judging by the many media oriented SFFs in the market, this is the more popular approach as it guarantees a larger audience. AOpen's latest SFF casing chooses the alternative and hopes to appeal to gamers with a design that loudly proclaims its allegiance in bold red and black. Presenting the AOpen G325 and its specifications:

Exterior Design

Taking a cue from the sporty enhancements favored by wannabe car enthusiasts, AOpen has added decorative arches to the sides of the G325, giving it a rocket like appearance. (Or maybe we were just influenced by the packaging, which had a trail of exhaust and fire emerging from the back of the G325.) These arches are made of plastic and the ends and corners can be quite sharp and pointy so be careful or you may get a few unpleasant grazes. Naturally, our first instinct was to lift the casing out of its box by one of these arches, which seemed appropriately like handles. That was until we saw a tag hanging by one of them, warning us not to use them as handles. With a weight of around 4kg when empty, the fragile arches on the AOpen G325 can probably be misused in this fashion for a while but you really shouldn't try it when it's loaded with your precious hardware, as these arches are just mere styling and not properly attached to the chassis. The lack of a carrying handle does dampen our enthusiasm for this light casing somewhat and you would probably end up hugging it as the most comfortable carrying position.

The front bezel is slightly curved and made out of plastic while the drive bays are all hidden behind bay doors. Only the top 5.25-inch external bay has an eject button to accommodate an optical drive; the others are opened manually if required. The entire front bezel can be removed rather easily and you will need to do so to install your optical or floppy drives. This being a SFF casing, you can only have one external 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch drive. There's just the one button for power and reset and it glows blue when the system is running. The lower front panel opens to reveal the standard ports, which are two USB2.0 ports, audio and microphone jacks and a FireWire port.

Simple ventilation holes are found at the sides of the casing. These are no meshes for them so expect dust to gather quickly in your system. Unfortunately, there are also no front ventilation holes so these are the only pathways for outside air to enter the casing. Hence, regular cleaning is probably necessary to prevent dust buildup from affecting your system temperatures. With no allowances for attaching cooling fans, the PSU fan is likely your only source of moving air. We expect it may get rather warm inside in the casing, as PSU fans are generally not the best system ventilators.

The external housing for the PSU is perhaps the most distinctive feature of the AOpen G325. Putting the PSU outside helps to save valuable space inside the casing for your components so it's not a bad idea. In principle, it's similar to the external power bricks that are found on the Xbox 360 or the Mac Mini. Removing the plastic shroud to install the PSU is relatively straightforward, requiring only a screwdriver.

Interior Design

As you can expect from a SFF, the interior is not the most spacious of environments but considering that the PSU has been 'outsourced' externally, your hands should have more space to work within. Unlike Shuttle SFF systems whose motherboards are of a proprietary design, the AOpen G325 will take any standard Micro-ATX motherboard. The stands for the motherboard have been helpfully installed so you can get right down to fixing the board at once.

Before you can install the motherboard, you have to remove quite a few components first. This includes the PSU housing and the drive cages. We recommend that you follow the order stated in the user manual. The drive cages for both the 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch devices are all removable, though you will need a screwdriver for them. Obviously, AOpen did not buy into the whole tool-free concept and the process of removing the cages to attaching the hard drives or optical devices requires screws, and quite a lot of them. The user manual did illustrate the process quite clearly so while the installation took more screwdriver work, it wasn't particularly difficult; just more attention.

However, even adding in expansion cards would require a screwdriver as the single piece locking mechanism for all the expansion slots are secured with screws. Four expansion slots are the maximum, which is also the standard complement for a Micro-ATX board. Maybe we have been spoilt by the tool-free casings so popular in the market now. For we took some time to get everything installed as slowly but inevitably, the extra screwdriver work wore us down.

The cables for the front USB ports and audio jacks seemed exceedingly long for the small casing and took up more space than we would have liked. Adding to the clutter were the power connectors and again, spoilt as we are, we wished that the cables had been pre-routed but alas, that was not the case. However, AOpen did include cable ties along with suggestions on how to route the cables in a neat manner. Of course, it's all up to the end user whether to follow but given the limited ventilation, we would advise you to keep clutter at a minimal. However, by the time we were done, the 'space' that we once thought available, was unfortunately practically non-existent. Modular power supply units with lesser cables are highly recommended unless you're a neat freak with a fetish for cable management. Overall, the cramped environment of a SFF becomes quite apparent once everything was fixed and done.

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.

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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