Raidmax Iceberg mATX cube

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burnin8r

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 19, 2006
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156200

Newegg just got these in... the styling is tasteful, and the interior resembles the NZXT Rogue in that it has the familiar QPack layout but without the obstructive braces. The mobo tray looks like it still has the clearance issues that all QPack clones have. The Iceberg has room for 4x internal 3.5" hard drives, two on either side of the 2x 5.25" drive bays, with a single external 3.5" bay centered underneath those. No windows, but knowing Raidmax, I m sure it is being developed. Overall I would say its a pretty good effort.


 
Aesthetics are nice (personally I don't like windows at all), and it seems to have some nice features - the ability to take tall CPU coolers which is a definite plus. The dimensions are only a little different than the MicroFly (16.8" x 9" x 11.8" vs. 15" x 9" x 11.25") and should fit in the Sugo Pack, however looking at the interior shots, I'm having a hard time figuring out if it can take large video cards like the 8800GTX... it looks like the 5.25" bays/devices could interfere.
 


from the top down view, I would agree that the drive bays may intrude on the 2 inner most PCI expansion slots.



whether it fits in the sugo pack or not, it does come with a rogue like carrying harness.
 
Only one 120mm fan. Not sure that'll be sufficient. I'm a big believer in having intake and exhaust fans even on SFF cases. Not fair to prejudge it though before seeing a proper review. I'll with hold final opinion till then. :)
 
Shaman said:
Ahm.. where are the intake vents???
Click to expand...

My guess is that they are in front, to the left and right of the bays, behind the vertical metal metal fins/ridges. That's the only thing I can figure, and it would make sense to put them there if you wanted to pull cool air across hard drives mounted in those drive bays. It would be nice to see a shot of the inside front of the case...
 
nray said:
My guess is that they are in front, to the left and right of the bays, behind the vertical metal metal fins/ridges.
Click to expand...

if you look really close towards the front in both of the side shots, it does look like light is coming through. I would say it is very possible those ridges are there for more than decoration.
 
burnin8r said:
from the top down view, I would agree that the drive bays may intrude on the 2 inner most PCI expansion slots.
Click to expand...

I emailed [email protected] asking about video card clearance in the case last week, haven't gotten a reply yet. I'm not sure what to make of the fact that the case still isn't up on their website.
 
looks like its ment for water cooling you see those two rubber holes in the motherboard tray. i think those are so you can pass tubing through them right where you would mount the 120mm fan like those h20 qpacks
 
I just bought one of these cases and it is right now sitting in my family room. I will take some pictures shortly and post them but I will share some things about this case.

1. The fit and finish of this case is amazing. I am blown away by the little details they did to make it look and work very well. I would not have expected this from this company however it did come in a white box and I am thinking it is an OEM from another company.

2. Everything is tool less so there is no need for any sort of tools and all round edges. Lots of room inside for a very tall HS for the CPU. The parts that require strength are much thicker in aluminum.

3. The front of the case is brushed and looks just very nice with exposed aluminum. It does look like it will fit large graphics cards but I would have to look again.

If I compare this to say the rogue, the fit and finish of this case is much nicer. It looks very much like a shuttle.

Now the bad part - There seems to be no type of air intake into the case. There are holes in the inside of the case in the front but not on the outside. I think what needs to have happen is either something on the side needs to be created or in the front. The motherboard tray does not have the same type of fit and finish as the rest of the case and is very thin. I am thinking about replacing it.

The size of the case is not too big and not too small it is a very good size for what you get.

Overall If I were to compare this case to all the other options out there, I would give this case about a 9 out of 10 until I can figure out the air intake issue.

One last thing, I am going to replace the feet as they should be brushed aluminum. :)

If anyone has any questions let me know.
 
it is disappointing that the case has no vents in the front or on the sides, I have a new build coming together and this was on my shortlist along with the SG-02 as wel as the M-40. The customer wanted a quad core but even with a tall heat sink, I think ambient case temps would be a concern.

phxcoop - what are you running in your Icebox ? I am really looking forward to your photos.
 
This is just a built of computer parts from an old computer. I think it is a 2.8 gig p4. So really not much of a powerful computer. The front of the case is very nice and most of the case is also nice. But the motherboard tray is like a thick as tin foil. That part I am not happy with at all. I think if they would have spent a little more money in the tray it would be a great case along with some kind of vent holes on the side or front. But it does offer a lot of nice features. I am trying to find a different motherboard tray and I might do something on the sides to allow for venting as the front of the case is just too nice to change around. Another interesting feature is the hard drive bay. This is attached to the case with a thumb screw but does have huge rubber shock protectors between this and the case. It seems to prevent vibration of the hard drive. Again, I do not get these companies as they do some really nice things but drop the ball on common things you would think would be required in a case.
 
pffff said:
looks like its ment for water cooling you see those two rubber holes in the motherboard tray. i think those are so you can pass tubing through them right where you would mount the 120mm fan like those h20 qpacks
Click to expand...
Wow, good observation. I'm not sure that's what it was intended for, but it's an interesting idea. The problem is the spacing is too narrow for most 120mm rads and there is no way to mount it. So they're really just breathing holes.

Looks like basically a Microfly layout, without the side support rails. I wouldn't complain too much about the motherboard tray, because honestly how often are you going to use that? Says it uses 2mm aluminum, which would be about double the thickness of most aluminum cases.That's great they use the rubber spacers for the drives! The Microfly design is inconvenient and horribly noisy. I modded mine similar to how they have theirs laid out.

Biggest concern I see is it will have the same problems with long video cards. The X-Qpack and Microfly have the same mediocre cooling design. You sort of have to live with it if you want the front to look normal.

Not a bad case at all, just not really an improvement over existing designs.
 
I got this case in a few days ago. I'll provide another mini review (basically echoing phxcoop)

I don't have a pcie video card in the machine, but you have about 1" of room from the edge of the motherboard to the main drive bay. mATX specs state the board is 9.6"x9.6", so...

The main drive bay is held on by a couple of rivets. The other two drive bays are held on with a thumb screw.

The front panel (part that looks like a wanna-be heatsink) just pulls off. There are several little vent holes behind the panel, but very little room to get air in the case. The front panel is also very thick/solid. I don't have any ruler here, but it's about the same thickness as 3 US quarters stacked together. No vents in the front panel.

Using the I/O panel as reference:
The PSU extends about 1½" inwards to the I/O panel. Something like the Thermalright extreme 120 would probably not fit if mounted parallel to the back panel of the case. It will fit fine if perpendicular. I could pull the Thermalright out of my main system to test...but I really hate mounting that thing.

For large HSF's, you'll need to mount while the tray is in the box.

The front panel matches very well (damn near perfectly) with the 5.25" blanks from the lian-li pc-v series (who uses 2 optical drives any more?) It's a tight fit...but it fits and looks stock. Should also match well with the Silverstone MFP51 (if anyone cares).

The power LED is "light up my room and keep me awake at night" bright blue. HDD LED is green.

As for the finish: the front of the case is Lian-Li type quality. The rest of the case is Raidmax type quality :D

When phxcoop complained about the motherboard tray, I thought, "Pft. How bad could it be". He stated, "thick as tin foil". He was being nice. Really a "WTF were they thinking" situation...

The system I currently have in it:
Asus p5e-vm hdmi
e4500 w/ stock hsf
8gb of some patriot ram
5400 2.5" sata HDD (ie. laptop) I had laying around in a scythe silent box.

Yes...I know...strange build. CPU was bought for another machine - currently using it to test. This box will be used as a VMWare playground - hence the RAM. Later it will be moved to HTPC duties - hence the board. The drive...just because :D

I have an old MB tray I keep around for building systems. Once tested I transfer into the case.

On the mb tray, the cpu idled @ ~32c. Got up to ~45c doing ubuntu updates.
In the case, idle @ ~45c. Haven't noticed it going above 51c yet, but haven't really paid attention.

To put it in perspective, room temp was ~78-80f

Ran w/ no bay covers, the temps dropped a few degrees. Point being...if anyone is thinking of putting highend stuff in the case, you're going to need to cut some vents in it.

I'm using a 120mm fan pulled from an old system as I wanted a 3pin connector (whatever brand lian li uses). The fan it comes with uses a molex and has a pass through.

More importantly...

There is a TON of room in the front of the case under the drive bay. You modder types are going to love it. I could see someone cutting 2x120 holes in the bottom of the case, putting a 240mm radiator under the main drive bays and cutting a couple of vents on the side panels. You would have room to mount a pump/reservoir vertically where those extra drive bays are.

Hows that for a first post?
:eek:

I'll add a few pics. Sorry for the quality, they are from an old camcorder and my cell phone:




 
I was thinking that maybe you can use the motherboard tray from the nzxt rogue?

Also the power supply tray needs to be replaced as it does cause certain power supples to put too much stress on the back of the case.

I am trying to figure out if I want to add some holes on the side panels and what the best way to do it is.

The other thing is that I did manage to fit in a Scythe Ninja Rev. B without a fan.
 
Great. I was going to order the mini, but now I'll settle for the normal one. If only the copper version wasn't so expensive.
 
I've been looking hard at this case for a small server build, with a 3 into 2 SATA hot swap rack you could put 7 hard driver in it. However I'm concerned about the comments regarding the vents for the hard drive bays. So I have a question, what is the gap between the cover and where the hard drive bays are?
 
brycejones said:
I've been looking hard at this case for a small server build, with a 3 into 2 SATA hot swap rack you could put 7 hard driver in it. However I'm concerned about the comments regarding the vents for the hard drive bays. So I have a question, what is the gap between the cover and where the hard drive bays are?
Click to expand...



Are you talking about the gap between those two parts? The front panel and the body of the case? Basically none. I could slip 3 sheets of standard 20# paper between the panel and the body :D
 
doctah said:


Are you talking about the gap between those two parts? The front panel and the body of the case? Basically none. I could slip 3 sheets of standard 20# paper between the panel and the body :D
Click to expand...

Ok. So basically it needs to be modded to provide enough airflow for drives in those positions.
 
I picked up this up to build a file server since it could house so many hard drives. I was rather surprised by its size. Its much larger then any other cube case that I have worked with. The case is nearly the same size as my BIC H-100 sub, just a few inches shorter. Ill post more once I get the system going, just waiting for a hard drive sale.
 
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