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SUNBEAMTECH.COM: Quarterback PC Case


Author:  Matthew Homan
Date:  2008.03.27
Topic:  Cases
Provider:  Sunbeamtech
Manufacturer:  Sunbeamtech






SUNBEAMTECH.COM

Quarterback

Header

Close up look at the design

The run through the case with a camera to give you an idea of that the mid case fans design entail are shown below.

mid-case
Click on photo for a larger view

Here you can see the mid-case fan placement, case fans in all their glory. The power sources are standard molex power cables which for those of you who do not have a fan controller, the fans will be running at 100% for the duration the system is on. this ensures maximum performance, and of course maximum noise. With all four case fans running at 100%, the noise was noticeable, and could be a little annoying to those of you who run the system all the time especially if it is located in a room where you don't want to hear a constant humming sounds.

The two snapshots below show off the case fan mounted to the rear of the case to assist with blowing the heated air from the CPU out of the case. The second photo if of the case fan mounted to the side window of the case which assist the with the exhaustion of heated air from the PCI cards. The norm on PCI card with heat is usually not one of a gamers concern. The heat generated by a sound card is for the most part not enough to make a game run any slower even if the case temp around the card is well over 150 degree F. The CPU, chipset and GPU(s) are by far the ones which are of most concern to gamers to keep cool, not sound cards, network cards. Consider that the average 3870 or 8800GT idles at a rather warm 40-45C for a moment, then think cranking up the heat even further playing an hour of your favorite game and you might be at a sizzling 75C or warmer. Think you might have need of a fan or two to get rid of that hot air? Yeah we think so too.

This is where case design is critical, no fan placements or incorrect fan placements can harm your PC. There's no such thing as too much airflow in a PC case, if you can tolerate the noise.


Click on photos for larger view

 

Patented mid-case fan
Here Sunbeamtech is taking pride at informing other companies with a bold engraving showing the mid-case fan concept is patented.

The photos of the rest of the case are shown below. The rest of the case isn't much for out of the ordinary. The case comes with a large amount of hard drive slots for all the possible drives one may want to connect. The case is tool less in design which is always nice, so you won't have to deal with small screws coming loose or trying to find a screw driver to add or remove a peripheral on the fly. The front side of the case like most other cases on the market comes with two USB and audio in/out. We particularly like the side mounted hard drives which we find becoming both more popular and leading to much more usability.

inside
Click on Photos for larger view.

Finally the last point about the case is the front. The case comes with a gate-like door which is made of plastic and very flimsy. The door is purely cosmetic as without it on the front of the case there would be nothing to grab your attention. There are those out there that are just looking for a non-flashy, flat black case, well disconnect the front grate from the Quarterback case and there you go.


Click on photo for larger view

So let's wrap this up.




« Introduction and Design
Testing and Conclusion »