AOpen EZ18 XC

The cube PC has grown from strength to strength, from a curiosity in its early days to a real alternative to full-size desktop PCs. One of the latest barebone cube cases to appear is the EZ18 XC cube from AOpen.

Its pearl-white finish makes it look very Apple-like, and means the XC stands out from all the aluminium-finished cube cases. Being a barebones system, you get a motherboard already installed and a large CPU fan. There are both Intel Pentium 4 (EZ65) and AMD Athlon versions (reviewed here). The P4 version is more expensive and retails for £276.13 (£235 ex VAT).

At the heart of the XC cube is one of AOpen's own UK79G-1394 motherboards using Nvidia's Nforce2-GT chipset. The motherboard supports 200/266 and 333MHz FSB (front-side bus) Duron, Athlon and Athlon XP processors up to a 3000XP. In practice it might be a wiser move to use a less powerful processor than a 3000XP as the installed power supply is only 220w, so power problems could arise. The two Dimm slots support a maximum of 2GB of PC2100, PC2700 or PC3200 (DDR266, 333 and 400) memory.

As with all the top-end AOpen motherboards, the UK79G-1394 comes with a multitude of features and utilities including Silenttek, AOpen's quiet fan technology; EZrestore, which restores your system should it fail through virus infection or crash during loading of an application; Jukebox, which allows you to play music CDs without booting into the OS; and, perhaps the most useful of all, for those who like to tinker with their system, EZwinflash - a Windows-based Bios Flash utility.

Despite the cramped nature of the inside of the case - 300 x 200 x 185mm (w x d x h) - it's dominated by the large CPU cooler and fan, which is noisy to begin with but settles down to an acceptable level - the motherboard is well laid out and has plenty of room around components. It's easy to reach the single PCI and 8x AGP slots, both of which use full-height cards.

The inclusion of these slots is a real bonus, as you don't have to rely on the integrated graphics, which are fine for general office use but won't impress gamers. Any current graphics card can be installed, although care needs to be taken with top-end cards, as the same proviso for power applies.

While the PCI slot is welcome, it's only likely to be used for modem, as the motherboard has so many integrated features.

The IDE ports are placed thoughtfully right under the drive cage, which keeps the cabling as tidy as possible - something that's never easy with parallel ATA cables, especially in such a cramped space. AOpen goes one step further by providing specially shortened cables. The P4 version of the XC cube is better in this respect, as it supports Serial ATA drives.

To make fitting the hard drive easier, AOpen has cleverly designed the drive cage to be removed. By undoing a thumbscrew, the drive cage slides out at an angle, avoiding the side of the case.

A second 3.5in drive bay sits behind a dropdown panel in the front bezel just waiting for a floppy drive or perhaps, more useful these days, a Flash card reader. The single 5.25in drive bay has a door in front of it, hinged in such a way that it drops open when the drive's load tray ejects. It's a simple but effective way of preventing a standard optical drive from ruining the aesthetics of the case.

As with every cube PC, the rear I/O panel is a testament to what is integrated into the motherboard: the XC has PS/2, VGA, serial, S-Video, Firewire, Lan, two USB2 and three audio ports. In addition to these, AOpen has included another expansion plate that adds a parallel and coaxial RCA port. But if this isn't enough for you, at the base of the front bezel behind a drop panel sit another two USB2 ports, microphone and headphone audio ports, 4pin and 6pin Firewire ports and another optical port.

AOpen's first attempt at this style of cube PC is a good effort, combining a feature-rich design with a stylish overall look.

Contact: Mitek 01782 566 600
www.mitekcomp.co.uk

Specifications:

• Compatibility AMD Socket A
• Chipset Nvidia Nforce2-GT
• Two memory slots
• AGP support AGP 8x
• Audio support 5.1
• 2 PCI slots
• Two parallel slots
• 4 x USB2, 2 xPS/2, 2 x S-PDIF, 2 x 6pin Firewire, 1 x 4pin Firewire, serial, parallel, S-Video, coaxial RCA, 3 x audio