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First of all, this isn't exactly a professional review. I didn't measure system temperatures or fan noise. It's all pretty subjective.
So I got my Xigmatek Elysium a few days ago. I thought I'd share my thoughts and some photos. I was able to get it from newegg for $186.00 shipped thanks to some coupon stacking that probably shouldn't have happened. Newegg customer service made a mistake by telling me to order the case and use one coupon code and then contact them and they would refund me for the second coupon code that wouldn't stack. Thank god I saved that chat session. Believe it or not they weren't thrilled about honoring it, but eventually they did come through, so props to newegg.
I should also give a shout out to Xigmatek customer service. When I got my case, the box of parts had come lose from the twisty tie that held it in place inside of my case. I'm guessing this is what caused the 3 inch long scratch inside of the side window. Not something that thrilled me. However, I emailed Xigmatek support and got a response within an hour. A day later they asked for my address because they are shipping me a whole new side panel. They apparently don't want the old one back, which means I'm probably going to have to mod it at some point this summer. Anyway, I couldn't have asked for a better outcome.
So before the photos let me share a few thoughts. This is a really interesting case in that Xigmatek got so many things right, but also got some really obvious things wrong.
Also, keep in mind that the following list of cons aren't all that bad. It's enough to knock off 1 point out of 10 or so in terms of grading, maybe not even that much. However, I also suspect that some of these issues might be more important to some of you. For example, I know a lot of people really like a bunch of hot-swap bays. I personally could care less about hot swappable bays.
Cons
1. Annoying HDD mounting system. This case shares the drive by system that we have seen in cases like the Antec 900 and 1200. However, believe or not, the one in the Elysium is worse. The drive bays in the Antec cases have lips on the inside that you set the HDD on and then screw it into place. Well the Elysium doesn't have those lips. So you place your HDD in it and then have to try to keep it lined up with the screw holes while screwing in the screws. Installing my 3 HDDs and one SSD took longer than anything else in transferring my rig over.
2. Weird HDD mounting screws / mounting design. This relates to point number 1. The hdd bays have rubber grommets in the screw holes that suggest that it is meant to be a screwless design. I've seen some cases where the screws don't have threads, but instead just push through the rubber grommets and hold the hdd in place. This seems like what Xigmatek had in mind here, but they put threads on their hdd screws, which means that instead of just pushing into the side of the HDD, you have to actually screw it into place. It's just strange considering that they could have made things easier by not putting threads on the screws.
3. No SSD mounting options. Seriously, I had to go out and buy a a bracket to attach to the side of my SSD so that it was 3.5" wide. It's hard to believe that Xigmatek did this. I mean honestly, for a flagship case this is just incomprehensible. While there is a hot swappable drive slot on the I/O panel on top of the case, I don't want to have my main OS drive sticking out of the top of my case all the time.
4. No way to mount 3.5 devices in the 5.25" slots. Seriously Xigmatek? Even my old Antec 900 had an adapter so that I could mount a card reader in one of the 5.25" slots. Even worse, they don't include a front 5.25" slot cover with a cutout for 3.5" devices. So even if I get a bracket to mount my card reader in a 5.25" slot, it is going to have empty space all around it. This again is weird since even my crappy old Antec 900 came with one of these. Though this still isn't a huge deal since the only thing that I plan to install in one of the 5.25 slots is a fan controller.
A forum member mentioned how funny it would be to put an ITX board in this case, so I did.
Here you can see one of the HDD bays. Each bay holds up to 4 drives. You can see the rubber grommets that I mentioned previously. I should not that the middle two drives are not that difficult to mount, however, the top and bottom holes are very frustrating because those holes are located under a layer of metal. You can see what I mean.
Another shot of a drive bay. As you can see, there are no "lips" or anything to guide the HDD. So you have to try to line it up with the holes and then blindly try to screw the screws into place. Very frustrating.
Like I said, besides the top hot swappable bay, there is no SSD support here which certainly perplexes me. Last time I checked it was indeed 2011.It's stuff like that which makes me wonder if maybe I'm just missing parts. Anyway, as you can see I had to get a bracket for my SSD.
Shot with the front panel taken off. The front panel comes off without any trouble.
Just about done moving everything over. I still haven't ordered any water cooling stuff yet, but eventually I plan to throw a triple rad up top and a double on the bottom. I've heard that Xigmatek is supposed to release a mounting bracket so that you can mount a rad in the front. If I remove the unused drive bay I will have another 300mm for a rad there.
Side panel on.
Next to my desk on the stand that I built for it. Unfortunately my DVI cables aren't long enough to reach that far so I've had to move it onto my desk until I get some longer ones.
Side shot.
Powered on. The LEDs are actually white, not blue, and they look very nice. However, my camera really struggles in the dark, so this is the best that I could provide.
So, overall I really like this case. I've always wanted a lot of room and boy did I get it with this case. I personally really like the way it looks. The cable management is great. The only real down side to me is that the HDD mounting system is obnoxious, but then again I am pretty unlikely to move my drives again at this point. The fans look good (at least I really like white anyway) and move a decent amount of air. They are pretty quite as well. Xigmatek could have included more fans, but then again I plan on water cooling, so it doesn't really matter. Xigmatek Customer service has been great (assuming that they do follow through with sending me a new side panel).
One nice feature that I should point out is the fan power system. At the top and the bottom of the case there are spots to plug in up to 5 3pin fans, each point is power by a molex connector. So if you have a lot of fans and don't enough connections on your motherboard, you can connect up to 10 fans to these points. Additionally, Xigmatek includes a wire that lets you connect one connection point to the other so you only need to connect the first one to a molex connector. Additionally, there are several spots that you can mount these connectors on. It's a pretty nifty feature.
One thing that I wish that they had done differently would be the bottom of the case. There is room on the bottom of the case for a triple rad (120mm or 140mm, either will fit). However, because you can move the hdd bays anywhere you want, they could have extended the mesh on the bottom under the bays. If they had done that, I could move the drive bays up a couple slots, install the PSU on the top of the case, and then have room on the bottom for a quad rad and room on the top for a dual rad. Of course, i could always just mod the bottom of the case myself. It wouldn't matter how it looks since no one would ever see it. However, it is a shame that Xigmatek didn't think about this themselves because it would have made a great case that much better. I mean think about it, how many cases out there in this price range can support a quad radiator out of the box. This one could have, but doesn't.
So that's about it for now. I still have some cable management tweaks to work on. And of course there is still water cooling gear to order and install. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have. I'm happy to take photos if there is something you would like to see.
Update: 7/13/11 I got a whole new side panel from Xigmatek today. I had asked for just a replacement piece of acrylic to replace the scratched one but they sent me the entire thing including a 200mm fan. They didn't make me pay for shipping or anything. Bottom line is their customer service was great even if their English was not perfect.
So I got my Xigmatek Elysium a few days ago. I thought I'd share my thoughts and some photos. I was able to get it from newegg for $186.00 shipped thanks to some coupon stacking that probably shouldn't have happened. Newegg customer service made a mistake by telling me to order the case and use one coupon code and then contact them and they would refund me for the second coupon code that wouldn't stack. Thank god I saved that chat session. Believe it or not they weren't thrilled about honoring it, but eventually they did come through, so props to newegg.
I should also give a shout out to Xigmatek customer service. When I got my case, the box of parts had come lose from the twisty tie that held it in place inside of my case. I'm guessing this is what caused the 3 inch long scratch inside of the side window. Not something that thrilled me. However, I emailed Xigmatek support and got a response within an hour. A day later they asked for my address because they are shipping me a whole new side panel. They apparently don't want the old one back, which means I'm probably going to have to mod it at some point this summer. Anyway, I couldn't have asked for a better outcome.
So before the photos let me share a few thoughts. This is a really interesting case in that Xigmatek got so many things right, but also got some really obvious things wrong.
Also, keep in mind that the following list of cons aren't all that bad. It's enough to knock off 1 point out of 10 or so in terms of grading, maybe not even that much. However, I also suspect that some of these issues might be more important to some of you. For example, I know a lot of people really like a bunch of hot-swap bays. I personally could care less about hot swappable bays.
Cons
1. Annoying HDD mounting system. This case shares the drive by system that we have seen in cases like the Antec 900 and 1200. However, believe or not, the one in the Elysium is worse. The drive bays in the Antec cases have lips on the inside that you set the HDD on and then screw it into place. Well the Elysium doesn't have those lips. So you place your HDD in it and then have to try to keep it lined up with the screw holes while screwing in the screws. Installing my 3 HDDs and one SSD took longer than anything else in transferring my rig over.
2. Weird HDD mounting screws / mounting design. This relates to point number 1. The hdd bays have rubber grommets in the screw holes that suggest that it is meant to be a screwless design. I've seen some cases where the screws don't have threads, but instead just push through the rubber grommets and hold the hdd in place. This seems like what Xigmatek had in mind here, but they put threads on their hdd screws, which means that instead of just pushing into the side of the HDD, you have to actually screw it into place. It's just strange considering that they could have made things easier by not putting threads on the screws.
3. No SSD mounting options. Seriously, I had to go out and buy a a bracket to attach to the side of my SSD so that it was 3.5" wide. It's hard to believe that Xigmatek did this. I mean honestly, for a flagship case this is just incomprehensible. While there is a hot swappable drive slot on the I/O panel on top of the case, I don't want to have my main OS drive sticking out of the top of my case all the time.
4. No way to mount 3.5 devices in the 5.25" slots. Seriously Xigmatek? Even my old Antec 900 had an adapter so that I could mount a card reader in one of the 5.25" slots. Even worse, they don't include a front 5.25" slot cover with a cutout for 3.5" devices. So even if I get a bracket to mount my card reader in a 5.25" slot, it is going to have empty space all around it. This again is weird since even my crappy old Antec 900 came with one of these. Though this still isn't a huge deal since the only thing that I plan to install in one of the 5.25 slots is a fan controller.
A forum member mentioned how funny it would be to put an ITX board in this case, so I did.
Here you can see one of the HDD bays. Each bay holds up to 4 drives. You can see the rubber grommets that I mentioned previously. I should not that the middle two drives are not that difficult to mount, however, the top and bottom holes are very frustrating because those holes are located under a layer of metal. You can see what I mean.
Another shot of a drive bay. As you can see, there are no "lips" or anything to guide the HDD. So you have to try to line it up with the holes and then blindly try to screw the screws into place. Very frustrating.
Like I said, besides the top hot swappable bay, there is no SSD support here which certainly perplexes me. Last time I checked it was indeed 2011.It's stuff like that which makes me wonder if maybe I'm just missing parts. Anyway, as you can see I had to get a bracket for my SSD.
Shot with the front panel taken off. The front panel comes off without any trouble.
Just about done moving everything over. I still haven't ordered any water cooling stuff yet, but eventually I plan to throw a triple rad up top and a double on the bottom. I've heard that Xigmatek is supposed to release a mounting bracket so that you can mount a rad in the front. If I remove the unused drive bay I will have another 300mm for a rad there.
Side panel on.
Next to my desk on the stand that I built for it. Unfortunately my DVI cables aren't long enough to reach that far so I've had to move it onto my desk until I get some longer ones.
Side shot.
Powered on. The LEDs are actually white, not blue, and they look very nice. However, my camera really struggles in the dark, so this is the best that I could provide.
So, overall I really like this case. I've always wanted a lot of room and boy did I get it with this case. I personally really like the way it looks. The cable management is great. The only real down side to me is that the HDD mounting system is obnoxious, but then again I am pretty unlikely to move my drives again at this point. The fans look good (at least I really like white anyway) and move a decent amount of air. They are pretty quite as well. Xigmatek could have included more fans, but then again I plan on water cooling, so it doesn't really matter. Xigmatek Customer service has been great (assuming that they do follow through with sending me a new side panel).
One nice feature that I should point out is the fan power system. At the top and the bottom of the case there are spots to plug in up to 5 3pin fans, each point is power by a molex connector. So if you have a lot of fans and don't enough connections on your motherboard, you can connect up to 10 fans to these points. Additionally, Xigmatek includes a wire that lets you connect one connection point to the other so you only need to connect the first one to a molex connector. Additionally, there are several spots that you can mount these connectors on. It's a pretty nifty feature.
One thing that I wish that they had done differently would be the bottom of the case. There is room on the bottom of the case for a triple rad (120mm or 140mm, either will fit). However, because you can move the hdd bays anywhere you want, they could have extended the mesh on the bottom under the bays. If they had done that, I could move the drive bays up a couple slots, install the PSU on the top of the case, and then have room on the bottom for a quad rad and room on the top for a dual rad. Of course, i could always just mod the bottom of the case myself. It wouldn't matter how it looks since no one would ever see it. However, it is a shame that Xigmatek didn't think about this themselves because it would have made a great case that much better. I mean think about it, how many cases out there in this price range can support a quad radiator out of the box. This one could have, but doesn't.
So that's about it for now. I still have some cable management tweaks to work on. And of course there is still water cooling gear to order and install. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have. I'm happy to take photos if there is something you would like to see.
Update: 7/13/11 I got a whole new side panel from Xigmatek today. I had asked for just a replacement piece of acrylic to replace the scratched one but they sent me the entire thing including a 200mm fan. They didn't make me pay for shipping or anything. Bottom line is their customer service was great even if their English was not perfect.
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