Back in August we took a look at the unique R-4 Bulldozer, a chassis from relatively new manufacturer GMC. We return to the manufacturer to examine another of their case offerings, the X7 X Station. The X7 is more conventional in appearance compared to the R-4, but it does offer many of the latter's features.
The X7 X Station is roomier than the R-4 Bulldozer and should allow for more airflow, so I am expecting to see some very good results from this case.
The X7 X Station is a gaming case with a decent feature set, including multiple zone LCD temperature displays and a built-in fan controller. These could prove more useful to gamers than expected, providing performance details from the outside of the case at a simple glance.
So let's dive into the X7 X Station and see how it performs and if it is worth your investment.
The front bezel is comprised entirely of plastic with louvered ventilation slots to allow for maximum airflow into the case. You will also find the first LCD temperature display, four 5.25" optical disc drive bays, a single 3.5" floppy drive or card reader bay, and the I/O panel.
To install your optical disc drive into the first bay, the front bezel needs to be removed, so both side covers need to come off. The first drive bay is a molded cover for that custom built-in look, and even features an eject button. Curiously, there is no need to remove both side panels if you wish to install further drives in the second, third or fourth drive bays. These covers can be simply removed from the front bezel itself and slid into position, though you'll probably want to leave one side panel off anyways to screw the drives securely in place.
The I/O panel is located at the bottom of the bezel and houses the first power button, 4 USB ports, mic and headphone jacks, and the reset switch.
The left hand side panel is where we will find the second LCD temperature display and the fan controller, as well as the 80mm fan it controls. Just below the 80mm fan is some more louvered slots to allow for more airflow. The right side panel is pretty basic with the exception of all of the louvers at the top and bottom of the panel for airflow.
The back of the case includes seven PCI expansion slots, a 120mm exhaust fan, the rear I/O panel access for motherboards, and a top mounted PSU; the top of the case is very basic save for the second power switch.
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Motherboard installation will be fairly standard, though expect to put in some effort to get it set up. For starters, the motherboard tray of the X7 is not removable, and there is no hole cut out for retention bracket of your CPU cooler on the other side of the tray. If you go and buy a larger heat sink that requires a bracket to be installed, be prepared to take your system out of the chassis. There are also no holes for a wire management system in the tray itself, so all the wires are going to sit in front of the tray.
As mentioned earlier, there are four ODD bays and all the drives are held in with screws. Nothing fancy. The hard disk drive bays are sitting front to back in old school form and there will be five or six available, depending whether or not you choose to use the top bay for a floppy drive or card reader.
The seven PCI expansion slots at the rear of the chassis are also held in by screws, and the covers can be replaced which is a nice feature in itself. One of my bigger pet peeves is when you swap out equipment on a regular basis and end up with holes because the covers had to be popped off rather than removed. Last to note is the 120mm exhaust fan and top mounted PSU bay, located just above the expansion slots.
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To test the GMC X7 X Station, I will be taking temperatures of our setup running inside the case at idle and in load states, in degrees Celsius. I will be using CPUZ hardware monitor to moitor the system, and OCCT to stress the system and create the highest temps possible. Each test will be run for 30 minutes. Ambient room temperature is 20 degrees Celsius.
System:
• Processor: AMD9650
• Motherboard: MSI K9A2 Platinum
• Memory: 2 GIGS Corsair CM2X1024-10000C5D
• Video Card: Sapphire 4850 HD
• Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S183L
• CPU Cooler: Buffalo Evercool
• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
• Power Supply: OCZGXS600
• Hard Drive: Western Digital 500 Gig
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The GMC X7 X Station performed relatively well as I expected, and has a aesthetic appeal that gamers should like. It does have some great features like the LCD displays for temperature readings and a fan controller, still not very common built-in features seen elsewhere. Two power switches is actually more convenient than expected, giving you another reason you may need to orient the case on its side.
Overall you get a pretty decent case that can compete with even a few of the full-sized towers out there. The cable management could be improved upon just by adding a few holes to the motherboard tray, and a tool-less retention system would make the X Station a bigger contender among cases in its price bracket. The only real issue I had with this chassis is the fact there were no dust filters and the intake fan louvers were already massive, possibly leaving the interior open to all kinds of debris.
There weren't too many obstacles encountered during the installation of all of my gear, other than what is typical for mid-towers. These issues are largely due to the smaller size of such cases.
The X-Station e-tails for around a $100 USD and is a worthy investment if you're on a budget, or just want a good case that will perform decently when you primarily want to upgrade a different piece of equipment in your rig.
