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AKASA ZEN CHASSIS
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Akasa are now running from strength
to strength throughout the International
market as suppliers of some of the most
awesome coolers, PSU’s and Chassis.
Picking up market share world wide when
new offices open, primarily Akasa
focused on European and Far East markets
but their growth now is being felt
throughout the US and other markets
ringing a few alarm bells from other
makers who thought their market share
stance was firm.
The AKASA ZEN chassis (ZEN - The
Japanese word meaning incremental growth
and improvement by doing "little things”
better.)
from
the first impressions is aimed squarely
at the budget end community; the unit
arrived here in a secure well packed
box. Once out of the box we were
greeted with a really neat aesthetically
looking chassis that will look good in
any household room or office. This
took us totally by surprise as you can
imagine! |
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Specifications
 Optimised
cooling with Intel recommended chassis
airflow
12cm
front and rear fans are included to
provide maximum airflow and super silent
operation
Direct
HDD cooling
Rear
and side vents for maximum airflow
Concealed
easy access I/O panel in the front
Digital
lifestyle front panel
Tool
free 5.25 inch drive installation
Two
front USB ports
Front
audio I/O ports
Internal
speaker
I/O
backplate
Screws |
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Dimensions |
450mm x 200mm x 500mm |
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Motherboard Type |
ATX and Micro ATX |
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5.25"
external bays |
4 |
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3.5"
external bays |
2 |
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3.5"
internal bays |
4 |
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Fan
dimensions |
2 x 12cm fans (one in
front and rear) |
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Fan
airflow |
47.98CFM |
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Fan
noise |
23.1db(A) |
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USB
ports |
2 at Front |
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PCI
backplate |
7 |
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The AKASA ZEN
chassis comes in a variety of 6 colours
which will appease all of us looking for
something different but maintaining
colour co-ordination of our set-up and
look of the room which it will be used
in. |
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The front
panel neatly pops off allowing the user
full access to the drive bays hidden
behind it. Side panels slide off
neatly once the large thumbless screws
are removed giving you a good workable
area to work and build your system.
The top
front 5.25” panel allows you to neatly
hide away your DVD burner and maintain
colour synchronisation, though thought
will have to be given to your other
parts that are placed into the slots.
A visit to the local hardware store for
the matching colour paint for the
chassis will have to be made; but
honestly it will be worth it. The
standard floppy drive bays are placed
right in centre like most builds of
chassis of this nature. The bottom
120MM fan blows directly though the
chassis onto the internal 3 ½” drive bay
which holds 4 drives neatly.
The 5.25”
drive bays are all fitted with screwless
mounts which do work extremely well!
Though for the older die hards Akasa do
supply 4 long mounting screws which
allow you to screw your high speed
burner into place. |
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As
previously discussed the bottom of the
chassis holds the internal mounts for
the 3 ½ drive bays allowing 4 drives to
be firmly screwed and mounted into
place. The 120MM fan has been
positioned accurately facilitating near
equal airflow across all mounted drives. |
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Testing
How did it perform? For the test we
utilised major products that require
significant cooling for the system build
and the Benchmarks used most certainly
stretching the full I/O of the system
producing considerable amounts of heat.
In this instance to observe the best
results and see what the biggest HSF the
Chassis could comfortably hold we
removed the shroud.
Utilising the following system build
below the results speak for themselves
in the charts below.
1 X AKASA ZEN Chassis
1 X
AKASA
Green Power 80+ 500
Watt
PSU
1 X MSI K8N
Diamond Plus SLI Mainboard
2 X 1GB (2GB Total) 4400PRO Corsair
TwinX Memory
1 X AMD Opteron 180 with AKASA EVO 98
AMD HEATPIPE COOLER utilising Akasa
HI-Spec Pro-Grade + 5022
Thermal Compound, with PaxPower 92MM Cooling Fan
1 X NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 Professional
Graphics Card
1 X Western Digital 74GB 10K Raptor with
8MB Buffer
Throughout
the tests featuring SiSoftware 2007 with
SP1 applied; you can see from the charts
below the system within the AKASA ZEN
Chassis showed remarkable stability both
in maintaining optimal CPU and System
temperatures. Whilst the CPU voltage
remaining remarkably stable throughout
both a 5 run and 10 run burn in
procedure. We can confirm that the GPU
temperature remained extremely stable at
48C underload. Throughout the tests
the ambient room temperature was a
steady 24C. |
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We next threw at the system SPEC
Viewperf ® 9 the system once more ran
remarkably quiet with the CPU and System
temps running at 44C and 41C
respectively. The GPU temps of the
graphics system showing a resounding 48C
whilst underload, demonstrating just how
effective the overall cooling of the
chassis is. |
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Conclusions
The chassis is flash,
neat and should appeal to the end users
that have restrictive budgets, sitting
in any room looking the part and not out
of place in today’s furnishings. For
£30 - £40 you most certainly have got
the part you are looking for. Within
the corporate market and high-end user,
no limitations here as there is plenty
of space to hold almost all
accoutrements which most users will
have. Once more if you are looking to
freshen up the office surrounds then
stop right here as this will most
certainly add a quiet and fresh
appealing look. |
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Overall a neat finely
built chassis with the addition of 2
super quiet 120MM fans for intake and
exhaust. The inclusion of the small
array of vent fins at the top of the
chassis will allow the natural heat
build up from the top of the chassis to
dissipate out with the expected internal
pressure flow. Acoustics will be no
issue as the light whir of all the fans
are reminisce of an old P200 stock
cooler running. How acoustics have
changed over the years!
If you are looking for a budget case
that looks and feels the part cheap,
then look no further as this chassis has
it. As we stated in the introduction
the AKASA ZEN chassis will look good in
any household room or office.
Not withstanding; the AKASA
Green Power 80+ 500
Watt
PSU this showed remarkable stability
throughout the tests maintaining
voltages at critical points in test.
The addition of this PSU into the
chassis will mean that the end user has
a reliable stealth system maintaining
optimal performance whilst under load.
Finally, it’s always a pleasure to see
equipment arrive of this nature; the
construction and attention to detail
(even the finer points) are well thought
out. Taking into account the usage of
the name for the Chassis and its
Japanese meaning, all of these features
AKASA really do excel in. |
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3D Professors
Award - for the AKASA ZEN Chassis
5 out of 5 -
Editors Choice for Entry Level ATX
Chassis |
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