Cubitek ATX ICE Case Review

Last year we looked at the impressive Cubitek Tattoo Fire case which offered a winning combination of a generous feature set, good build quality and aesthetics that made it stand out from the crowd. Despite being quite a new player in the PC case market, Cubitek have been hard at work developing new models. Today we are going to look at the ATX ICE case which is one of the most recent additions to the Cubitek range. Cubitek are aiming this case at the top-end of the market to compete with other all aluminium offerings like those from Lian Li. We look forward to seeing how it compares. Specification Motherboard Support: Mini ITX, Micro ATX, ATX PSU Support: Standard ATX PSU (Max. 300mm) GPU Support: Up to 330mm long CPU Cooler Support: Up to 180mm Material: Aluminium 5.25” Drive Bays: 4 (external) 3.5” Drive Bays: 7 (internal) 2.5” Drive Bays: 2 (internal, converted from one 3.5” bay) I/O Connections: 2x USB3.0, 2x USB2.0, Headphone, Microphone Expansion Slots: 8 Cooling (front): 200mm Blue LED Fan(57.76 CFM, 24.45 dBA) Cooling (top): 140mm Blue LED Fan (49.05 CFM, 21.35 dBA) Cooling (rear): 120mm Fan (38.83 CFM, 17.34 dBA) Cooling (bottom): Optional 140mm Fan Dimensions: 230 x 508.5 x 513 (WxHxD) Weight: 7.1 KG The Cubitek ATX ICE is supplied in a substantial cardboard box which is decorated in a black and ice blue livery. The front of the box is almost devoid of any pictures or information and only features a small Cubitek logo in the top left corner and an icicle emblem in the center. Turning the box around reveals a selection of images of the case which illustrate some of the key features including the airflow design. Inside the box the case is suspended using a polystyrene block in each corner. These aren’t as substantial as the blocks of polystyrene we usually see so there is an increased possibility that the case will be damaged in transit. All of the included accessories are supplied within a small cardboard box inside the outside box. The bundle is sparse and only features the required screws, an installation guide, a buzzer and a hex key. Cubitek have chosen to use aluminium exclusively in the construction of the case which keeps weight down to a minimum. The surface has been anodised black and brushed which gives the case a very high quality appearance. The front, top, back and underside of the case are formed from two pieces of extruded aluminium that has been bent into shape. There are two joins, one on the roof off the case and one on the underside. These aren’t ideally placed as they are quite obvious and don’t look great. We think Cubitek would have been better locating them on the back and underside of the case. On the top of the case we find the front panel connections which include two USB2.0 ports, two USB3.0 ports and headphone and microphone jacks. There is also a 140mm fan vent cut into the top of the case which features the same cheap feeling mesh as the vent in the front of the case. We find the power and reset buttons on the front of the case to the right of the four 5.25” external drive bays. These don’t have a very refined action but thankfully feel robust. Cubitek has cut a large section out of the front of the case to accommodate a large area of steel mesh to provide airflow for the 200mm intake fan. This is probably to keep costs down but it feels cheap and detracts from the otherwise sleek aesthetics of the case. We would much prefer to see Cubitek drilling holes directly in the aluminium in a similar fashion to Lian Li. Cubitek have chosen a rather unusual method of securing the side panels of the case. Rather than using screws in the back, each panel is secured with four hex thumbscrews, one in each corner, which screw directly into the side panel. This gives the case a slightly industrial appearance. Moving round to the rear of the case, everything is in the usual place. There is a 120mm exhaust vent located next to the I/O panel and there are eight vented expansion slots which mean that the case supports quad graphics cards. At the bottom we find the power supply cut out. After removing the side panel from the ATX ICE we are greeted by the vast expanse of space inside. The first thing that we noticed was they haven't painted the internals completely black, which is disappointing. The motherboard tray, expansions slots and all of the drive bays have a bare silver aluminium finish. The inside of our sample was covered in finger marks when we opened it up and, as far as we can tell, it hadn’t been to another reviewer previously. We are also a little disappointed at the number of cooling options available in the case. There are only four locations in the entire chassis and they don’t have the flexibility to take different sized fans. For example, there are no 120mm mounting points in the roof of the case where there is a 140mm fan installed. If you are looking to build a water cooled system then you’ll be sorely disappointed. Without significant modifications to the case there is no way of installing more than a single radiator in this case. That also means that you can’t use the Corsair H100 in the ATX ICE. Considering the vast width of the case compared to most models on the market, we were a little surprised at the lack of room behind the motherboard tray for cable routing. There are also no points for securing cable ties which makes cable routing more complex. Cubitek have cut a sufficient amount of holes into the motherboard tray for cable routing but the rubber grommets fall out far to easily and are difficult to put back in. Cubitek have also cut a large hole into the motherboard tray to facilitate the installation of a CPU cooler. This is very large and should be compatible with the vast majority of motherboards on the market. None of the included fans have any kind of vibration suppressing grommets which immediately raised a red flag. Cubitek include a concise installation sheet in the box which guides us through the various parts of the installation process with a series of diagrams. These are quite small and, for the most part, aren’t annotated so they aren’t that easy to follow. Cubitek thoughtfully separate all the different types of screw into different, clearly labelled bags which makes it much easier to find the correct ones. We installed the Biostar TZ77XE4 motherboard into the system. This was a rather painful process as we first had to install all nine motherboard stand-offs. Cubitek don’t supply an adapter for screwing these into place so we tried to screw them in by hand. This was next to impossible so we ended up using an adapter that we received with an old Lian Li system. Once the stand-offs have been installed, we can then screw the motherboard down using the provided screws. We were a little confused when it came to hooking up the front panel connections to our case. Presumably by mistake, Cubitek have attached the wrong connector onto the end of the Power LED cable so there is actually two cables labelled power switch. It is possible to follow each cable back to the corresponding location on the front panel, but this is simply not acceptable for a £180 case. Next we installed a Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W power supply into the system. Cubitek have only drilled one set of holes into the rear panel of the system so we can only mount this with the fan pointing downwards. The large routing hole cut into the motherboard tray next to the power supply provides more than enough room for all the cables, though. The case supports power supplies up to 300mm in length. Next we installed our AMD Radeon HD 6670 graphics card into the system. The thumbscrews used to secure the expansion devices can’t easily be undone with a Phillips screwdriver so we had to break out our trusty old flathead. This case supports graphics cards up to 330mm in length so all cards currently on the market should fit without issue. We don’t feel it necessary to install optical drives into our test systems because they aren’t required anymore as most drivers and software can be easily downloaded from the internet or installed via USB drive. Those users who want to install an optical drive will have to screw them in with the thumbscrews, though, as there is no tool-less clip provided. There are seven 3.5” hard drive bays in total which use a tool-less mechanism similar to one we’ve seen on a number of Lian Li systems in the past. It requires us to attach two thumbscrews to each side of the hard drive and then slide them between the rails. There is a bracket at the front which secures the hard drives in place once they’ve been installed. Cubitek provide a 2.5” drive adapter which is pre-fitted into the bottom drive bay of the case. There is space here to install two 2.5” drives. In this review we are using an Intel Core i7-2700K based system to test the thermal and acoustic performance of the Cubitek ATX ICE. We will be testing the CPU at reference speeds and then when overclocked to 4.7 GHz using a voltage of 1.35V. The CPU is being cooled using the Phanteks PH-TC14CS cooler. Test System Processor: Intel Core i7-2700K Motherboard: Biostar TZ77XE4 Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14CS Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-3 Memory: 4 GB (2x 2 GB) Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600 Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6670 Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W System Drive: Crucial M4 256 GB SSD Monitor: Viewsonic VX2260WM Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) Software CPUID Hardware Monitor Prime 95 64-bit Furmark V1.9.2 To test the thermal performance of the Cubitek ATX ICE we loaded our test system for 10 minutes using Prime 95 and Furmark and recorded the maximum temperatures reached using CPUID Hardware Monitor. We then restarted the system and left it for 15 minutes before recording idle temperatures. Room temperatures were maintained at 20 degrees C for the duration of our tests. We are a little disappointed with the thermal performance of the ATX ICE. We tested the exact same system on our open test bench and the load temperatures were 5 degrees cooler at stock settings and 6 degrees cooler under load when overclocked. It would also be very difficult to improve airflow in the chassis due to the lack of available fan vents. To test the noise performance of the case we placed our digital dBA meter 1m from the front of the case and replaced the Radeon HD 6950 with a HD 5550 Silence. We also momentarily detached our CPU cooler’s fans so we were only taking the noise into account from the case fans. As you can see from the graph above, the acoustic results are less than impressive and this case is far from silent. This may be forgivable if airflow as good but the temperature measurements tell a different story. We are sad to say that we are very disappointed with the Cubitek ATX ICE. It has the potential to be a very good case but there are far too many issues that need addressing before we could recommend it in good faith to our readers. The aesthetic design is very sleek but Cubitek have ruined the smooth aluminium finish with two cheap steel mesh fan vents and an unsightly join in a very obvious place on the top of the case. Build quality is generally solid but, again, the fan vents feel flimsy and cheap. Many case manufacturers preinstall most, if not all of the motherboard stand-offs for a standard system. Cubitek however, supply them separately and don’t include a tool for securing them in place. We also question Cubitek’s quality control processes as the front panel connectors are incorrectly labelled. Even though Cubitek has cut a generous amount of cable routing holes in the motherboard tray, there is very little room behind this for thick cables. This is unforgivable considering the vast width of the case and it causes the right hand side panel to bulge when it’s reattached to the case. There are also no points to attach cable ties which makes routing even more difficult. Without doubt the most disappointing aspect of the ATX ICE is the cooling setup. If you’re looking to build a water cooled system then you’ll be sorely disappointed as there isn’t even room for a 240mm radiator in this case. There is plenty of empty real estate in the roof of the case where Cubitek could have cut vents for 3x 120mm but instead, there is a single 140mm vent which doesn’t even have 120mm fan mountings. The front of the case is a similar story as there is a single 200mm fan without any mounts for a different fan configuration. We wouldn’t even recommend the case for a high-end air cooled system as the airflow from the included fans is poor and they are also quite noisy. The temperatures we recorded were a significant amount higher than we recorded with the same system on our open test bench, both at stock settings and when overclocked. At a price of £190 from Overclockers UK, we cannot recommend the Cubitek ATX ICE to anyone. We would recommend the Lian Li PC-V1020B, which is available for £199.99 inc vat. At a price of around £90 we feel it would be much more competitive and would award it a Worth Considering award. But due to the numerous flaws and incredibly high retail price, you’d be much better off looking elsewhere. Pros: Brushed aluminium finish. Generally solid build quality. Cons: Loud fans. Poor Airflow. Cheap steel mesh fan vents. Silver interior. No tool for motherboard standoffs. No cable tie hooks. Limited room behind motherboard tray. Wrongly labelled front panel connector. KitGuru says: Best avoiding unless the price drops considerably.

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Cubitek ATX ICE Case Review

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