XC Cube (cont’d)

Cooling

One criticism that was leveled towards first generation small form factor systems was their lack of case airflow. Since these systems didn’t feature intake or exhaust vents, stagnant air could become a problem, especially if the system was outfitted with high-end components such as the ATI RADEON 9700 PRO. Fortunately, the newer generation of SFF PCs don’t have this problem and the XC Cube EZ65 is no exception.

Cooler in place

Copper plate, aluminum fins, and one massive fan

An intake vent is built into the right side of the chassis, opposite the CPU right near the graphics card. This is important, as many of today’s graphics cards can get pretty toasty, especially under load. On the opposite end of the chassis (right behind the processor) is a second vent. Hot air from the CPU in particular can exit here.

AOpen’s CPU cooler is a conventional design based on air cooling. An aluminum heatsink is grafted to the cooler’s copper base. The heatsink is 3” tall, and is mated with several fins for increased surface area. A fan is held in place perpendicular to the copper base, which serves to blow air across the fins, this keeps heat that is drawn off the processor down.

Installation of the cooler is seamless, no tools are required. Simply mount the cooler over the processor and snap everything in place with the metal clips. You should probably do this and install the system memory before installing the drive tray so you’ll have more room to work within the case. This lesson applies to all the small form factor systems.

If for some reason you want to install additional coolers inside your XC Cube system, AOpen includes two additional fan headers, in addition to the CPU fan header. While additional fan headers are common on many of today’s motherboards this is quite unusual to find in a small form factor chassis, where space is at a premium.

Air vents on both sides

The AOpen motherboard

Delivering power to the CPU is a 220-watt power supply, which is capable of dishing out 12 amps on the 12V rail. This is better than some 300-watt ATX power supply units!

Dual SATA ports and ICH5

AGI/PCI slots, FireWire and network controllers

Audio and networking

While the XC Cube EZ65 can boast Gigabit Ethernet among its list of features, it’s not based on Intel’s Communications Streaming Architecture (CSA). AOpen utilizes a GigE network controller from Broadcom, the BCM5705. This means that the controller sits on the PCI bus, which peaks at 133MB/sec, well below GigE standards. Since the 865G chipset doesn’t offer native FireWire support, AOpen has integrated an IEEE-1394 controller from Agere, the FW323. Audio duties are handled by Realtek’s popular ALC650.

BIOS

Unfortunately, you won’t find any PAT-like settings within the BIOS of any of these small form factor setups. AOpen tempted us with an enhanced performance setting, but we didn’t notice much of a performance improvement with it enabled. All 865 systems also offer the ability to lock your AGP and PCI devices to certain clock speeds, which can be handy when overclocking your system bus.

BIOS main menu

Advanced BIOS features menu

AOpen’s XC Cube provides more bus speed options than any other SFF we tested; bus speeds up to 400MHz are available in 1MHz incremements. CPU voltages top out at a more conservative 1.85V, which is pretty much the norm for SFF. Remember, we are dealing with a smaller case and power supply, so cooling and power becomes more of an issue. Memory voltages range up to 2.778V, while the AGP voltage maxes out at 1.85V.

400MHz bus setting

AGP voltage adjustment

Inside the box

Also included in the XC Cube’s packaging is a bag of screws, a Serial ATA data and power cable, and round IDE and floppy cables. You’ll also find a manual and the easy installation guide. This chart walks you through connecting peripherals to the XC Cube EZ65.