Cubitek Mini-Tank - Miniature Collossus
The Cubitek Mini-Tank is a casing designed specially for Mini-ITX boards and gamers. We check out the diminutive casing to see if it lives up to its bold claims.
Little Dynamo
Mini-ITX boards, though still decidedly niche compared to the established ATX and mATX formats, have been gaining much popularity thanks to wider adoption by motherboard makers. In the past, Mini-ITX boards were almost exclusively restricted to only Intel’s Atom and NVIDIA’s Ion platform, but with the release of Intel’s new H67 chipsets and the , Mini-ITX boards are now more accessible and appealing than ever.
Founded in 2002, in Taiwan, Cubitek was initially a OEM company, and only became a branded manufacturer early last year. With the rise in popularity of Mini-ITX format motherboards, Cubitek has created the Mini-Tank casing, a Mini-ITX casing designed with gamers in mind.
The Cubitek Mini-Tank is a specialty case built for Mini-ITX board owners who want a gaming grade casing.
On first impressions, the Mini-Tank certainly isn’t the smallest Mini-ITX casing we’ve come across - the shoebox-size Antec ISK300-65 we reviewed almost two years ago is much smaller. But that is understandable when you consider that the Mini-Tank boasts more features and, crucially for gamers, has been designed to accommodate full length graphics cards, up to 340mm long.
Read on to find out more about this interesting casing and don't forget to check the for the technicalities.
Short and Stocky
On first impressions, the Cubitek Mini Tank looks functional and business-like - eye-catching and sexy, it is definitely not. The casing, which is made out of anodized aluminum, has a sort of “brushed aluminum look” about it, which certainly ups the cool factor a bit, but overall, the Mini Tank certainly won’t send heart beats racing.
On the flip side, the Mini Tank is sturdily built and has a good feeling of solidity about it. We also liked that it has no less than three fans - a single intake front and two exhaust fans. How many Mini-ITX casings have this many fans? And as you'll see from the following photos, the Mini Tank has all the basic ingredients required to setup a decent gaming rig.
There's nothing fancy about the casing or eye-catching about the Cubitek Mini Tank. Note the two 5.25 inch external bays and the 140mm intake fan at the bottom.
All in one neat column: the power and reset buttons, two USB 3.0 ports, an eSATA port, headphones and microphone jacks.
At the rear, there's a 120mm exhaust fan, grommets for liquid cooling setups, and two expansion slots. The bottom-most gaping hole is where your PSU will sit. Careful though, as it will only take the standard sized units and not the extra long ones that are common on high capacity PSUs like a 1KW unit.
Looking down from the top, one can see the top 140mm exhaust fan.
Before we delve within the chassis, we would like to point out that the side access panels are of an unconventional design for two reasons. Firstly, the screws used to secure the side panels aren't thumbscrews, but they have just enough girth to unscrew with your fingers. However, if they are accidentally tightened too much, you can't use a normal Philips screwdriver as the screw heads are compatible with only a torx driver. Why not use proper thumbscrews or standard screws? We've no clue. Secondly, the panels themselves aren't the typical side panels that sit fairly well even without securing them in place. The Mini-Tank's side panels just sit on the sides and will require careful handling and alignment to screw them in place once you remove them. These aren't grave issues, but they are troublesome enough that we had to make a mention.
Sound in Theory, Bad in Practice
In theory, the Mini Tank has its internals well sorted. There are three main areas - to the right there’s the drive bays for both 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch devices; and to the left, the motherboard tray area; and below it, the PSU bay. Each of these areas are well sized, for example, the HDD drive cage can accommodate up to four hard drives, which is plenty for a Mini-ITX board, while the PSU bay will accommodate ATX-sized PSUs of up to 200mm in length.
However, in practice, it’s quite hard to get things to fit. For one, because of the way the PSU bay is designed, PSUs can only be installed via the back and considering how close the HDD drive bays are behind, it's hard to route the cables to where you need them. Also, even if there's enough space (lengthwise) for graphics cards up to 340mm, there isn't enough depth. As it is, the bigger graphics cards will jut out from the motherboard tray area and we found that the drive bays behind are not recessed enough. This is not a problem for most cards, but we found cards with rear backplates - like a Radeon HD 5970- to be a real tight fit, as it would rub against the screws holding the drive cage behind. Fortunately, this problem can be fixed by removing the offending screw, but really, Cubitek should have taken this into consideration.
Another thing we didn't like about the Mini Tank is that there's little space between the PSU bay and the HDD cage. In theory, the Mini Tank will accommodate PSUs up to 200mm in length. In practice, however, users will find that with the HDD cage so close behind, it's terribly tiring to have to thread the various cables through to the components. Also, there's little in the way of cable management, so it's best to prepare some cable ties of your own.
Lastly, we also we didn’t like the Mini Tank that despite having USB 3.0 ports at the front, the casing lacks proper USB 3.0 headers and instead requires users to use an adapter instead. The adapter is pretty clunky and this causes unnecessary clutter within the casing.
The casing is actually pretty spacious and it uses a horizontal configuration, where the motherboard lies flat instead of being mounted vertically. The motherboard tray area is really big and can not only accommodate large graphics cards, it can also fit large CPU coolers, up to 160mm in height.
There two 5.25-inch ODD bays on the top. One of which can can converted to a 3.5-inch bay using an adapter. The adapter also lets users install 2.5-inch SSDs on it too.
There's space for up to four 3.5-inch hard disks. However, if you were to be using a long graphics card, chances are the top two bays would be unusable, because the card would extend out from the motherboard tray. Note that under the drive cage is space for installing an SSD drive.
Installing hard drives is a pretty primitive, but thankfully straightforward process. No elegant clip-on racks here, instead users are required to use a screw and rubber bushings.
The PSU is located at the bottom of the casing and for reasons beyond us, Cubitek has decided to "shield" the bay area, which makes it a hassle to install PSUs, because they have to be inserted from the rear. And with the drive cage just in front, it's hard to route the various cables through.
Frustratingly, PSUs can only be installed via the back, and while the bay can accommodate most PSUs (even this 750W one), the fact is that the PSU bay area is pretty cramped and that makes cable routing tiring.
With a Radeon HD 6870 installed, there's plenty of space left, but the fact is, the HDD drive cage needs to be further recessed so that cards with backplates can fit more easily. Right now, it's too tight a fit.
Interesting but Flawed...
In general, the Cubitek Mini Tank is an interesting concept that we think will be a hit with LAN party enthusiasts who want to a build a relatively portable gaming rig to bring around. In theory, it has all the things that an enthusiast would want from a casing, but built into a compact enough form factor to be lugged around for LAN parties. However, in practice, we found that it has its fair share of quibbles that prevented us from giving our whole-hearted recommendation.
Perhaps the two most glaring annoyances we have with the Mini Tank is the fact that while there’s sufficient length for large graphics cards, there’s not enough width. The HDD cage behind gets in the way, especially with larger graphics cards with backplates. The other thing that annoyed us has to do with the HDD cage again, and this time it’s because it’s too close to the PSU bay. This means that while the PSU bay is long enough for large PSUs, you still have to factor in space that it required for the various power cables.
Considering that the Mini Tank is already large by Mini-ITX standards, why not just make it that little bit larger to position the HDD cage in such a way that is less obtrusive? Or for that matter, be able to house a mATX motherboard since this is not a petite case we're talking about.
The Cubitek Mini Tank is interesting, but the poor position of the HDD cage hampers its user-friendliness in large graphics card installation and cable routing.
Furthermore, the Cubitek Mini Tank is not exactly what you’d call affordable, bearing in mind its asking price of US$145, which reaffirms the case of aluminum-made chassis commanding a premium.
All in all, the Mini Tank is a decidedly niche casing designed for enthusiasts and gamers who are also hardcore LAN party-goers. Compared to desktop replacement notebooks, which offer little in the way of upgradability, the Mini Tank is a more interesting proposition, since the components inside can be easily upgraded, provided you are willing to overlook its various quirks.
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