Product Listing

Cubitek Mini-Tank - Miniature Collossus

By Kenny Yeo - 7 Apr 2011

Exterior Design

 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.

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7.5
  • Aesthetics 8
  • Functionality 8
  • Usability 7
  • Value 7
The Good
Able to accommodate large graphics cards and CPU coolers
Sufficient cooling fans
Large motherboard tray area
The Bad
Poor position of HDD cage
Side panel access and design could be better
Pricey
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