Ok, when are any of these cases HDPlex is playing "Tease" with going to be available? The H10 SPCR reviewed back in February is still unavailable. I just sent them a query, but maybe, others here, have already done that.

Thanks

Availability update from Larry at HDPLEX. Here's a copy of the query and reply:


When are your products going to be available for shipping? I notice that the h10, reviewed by SPCR is still in limbo.

Hi,

H10 batch eta is early Aug. Current batch is H5.S and following by H3.
Thanks

Larry

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 11:53 AM

Does that mean that the H5.S and H3 will be out before the H10 or after? And I wonder if both H3s will be made at the same time?

Sorry. Your guess is as good as mine .... Which is why I copied the reply from HDPLEX to this thread. I think ... 5 and 3 precede 10; 10 being available in August. Purely a guess however.
hbm

For people desperate for a passively cooled mini-ITX system that looks good, you could always look into getting one from atechfabrication.com at three times the price.

i got a request for which colour I wanted from HD-plex the other day. I understand they are in final anodizing stages.

I got that request as well - but that was over a month ago as we are now into September. How long does this final anodizing stage take?

edit - I sent Larry an email last week asking when the caes are shipping and he has not responded.

I haven't had a colour request yet, but I was told the H3.S are "on the ship" ETA to the US is Sept 15 and the H3.Sodd are "two weeks behind that"

A lot of memory sticks these days have heat sinks that can be fairly large. Anyone have any idea on whether those would be an issue with this case that has an internal height of 55mm?

I have started buying components for my build, including a Zotaz H6 mobo and I am wondering what memory to buy that will fit in the case.

Until users finish builds and can provide advice based on personal experience, the best advice you'll get is from the OEM but this photo from their website should provide you some clue:


Look at the memory stick in the foreground and the height of the fins of the CPU heatsink directly behind it. Note that the memory in that build is SO-DIMM but even so, it does provide guidance.

On the specs the i3 2120 is stated to have a tdp of 65 w. In your test, on full load, system power is listed as 60 w???

Could it be that you are using i3 2120 T (tdp of 35 w) in this test? Or am I missing something?

Short exaplanation: most Intel CPUs consume a good bit less power than their rating would lead you to believe.
If you look at mainstream CPUs in isolation, the TDP ratings are close to worthless as a guide to how much power they consume. SPCR has a review where they compare the actual power consumption of 95W, 65W and 35W Sandy Bridge CPUs.

I also don't think SPCR tried to get the CPU to work as hard as it can.

Picking up this thread again following the recent SPCR review of the Streacom case...

MikeC, I'm probably being dim, please could you clarify the power draw results using the Asus board? It draws 25W idle using the HDPlex PSU and 21W idle using your stock testing PSU (in the Asus P8H67-I Deluxe review). Is this 4W difference at idle due to the HDPlex PSU, which is less efficient at lower loads? Or why else might it be 4W higher in the HDPlex case?

cheers

The 21W cited is estimated DC power. AC power draw during the board test with our standard old 400W Seasonic was more like 30W.

OK so we need to compare 25W (HDPlex PSU) with 30W (Seasonic PSU in SPCR test rig)? So the open-frame PSU in the HDPlex is pretty good.

But I'd still appreciate a comparison with a Pico PSU on AC draw. In part that might contribute to an updating of the Pico PSU review from back in 2006!

HDPlex do a Pico PSU option, but haven't gleaned any info on comparative efficiency from their user forums.

The efficiency of the picopsu is highly dependent on the AC/DC adapter it is used with because the 12VDC line comes straight from that, and the pico converts the lower voltage lines from the 12V. So there's no need to update the original review. The open frame PSU in that HDPlex sample is quite efficient, at least 80% as I indicated in the review. Even if you use a more efficient AC/DC adapter w/ picopsu, the difference in real watts at these low levels is quite small, in the order of 1-2 watts even for >5% difference in efficiency. In practice, it's not possible to find AC/DC adapters much higher than 87% efficiency at full rated output (that's class "V" efficiency). Turning on one of your lights 5-10 mins later in the evening would be enough to make up any difference, you know?

First off, hello all. First post here.

Second, anybody out there using this case yet? Would like some personal feedback on it good or bad.

I'm planning on using the H3.S for my next case. I was going to go with the SODD model, but thinking about it more and more, it's hard to justify the extra cost given that i don't use my current blu-ray drive that much. I own a total of 1 blu-ray disc, though still have about 250 dvds.
I should probably stop procrastinating and rip them all before this next build.

So my current system is a Phenom X3 95W, 4GB mem, 1TB disk, asus m3n78-vm mobo w/geforce 8200 iGPU, blu-ray, omaura TF8 case, win 7.

For the H3 build i'm planning this:
H3.S
80W open frame fanless PSU
i7-4770T 45W
Asrock Z87E-ITX
G.skill Ripjaws X 8GB 1866 (i don't really need 8 but i plan on doing a 4GB ramdisk for temp files, video encoding and such)
Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240GB SSD
1TB (current system drive)

The 1TB will be temporary until i can afford a large nas to do DLNA. Then i'll yank it.
The only thing that is concerning me right now is if the iGPU in the i7 will be powerful enough.
I haven't messed with the intel HD chips much.
Right now my geforce 8200 does well. I don't do any gaming. Mostly 720/1080p mkvs locally and netflix HD. Pushing 1920x1080 over HDMI to my LCD.

Any red flags stand out in the proposed build?

Thanks,

-Tony

Tony, your build looks fine both thermally and performance-wise.

HD-Plex are developing some new more compact models which may be of interest, including for Thin Mini-ITX.

More info here: http://www.hd-plex.com/forum/showthread.php?t=841

ooo, very nice. thanks for that. so the H1 should be in full swing by the time haswell prices start coming down a bit.

-Tony