I skimmed the review, so I may have missed the answer to this, but -- is there an option to use heatpipes to cool a high powered video card using the left side heatsink?

afaik, no. I don't think any high power vga card -- say 150W tdp or maybe even 125W -- could be cooled this way. Perhaps a 100w card -- but that's not high powered by current standards.

Thanks for the review. I like the way the case looks, but I'm not sure how functional it will be. It is rack sized...but does it have rack mounting? Or is it meant to sit on a rack shelf?

Unless it's the top item on a rack or shelf:
- (As pointed out) the power button/led indicator will be obscured.
- temps will be higher than shown. Especially if put in media center furniture with a door.

Such a nice and flat case Is it just me, or does it actually look like one could fit a full size atx board inside?

Or would that board collide with the power brick...?

Probably. The power brick could just be moved outside anyway.

The caption beneath the first photo on page 2 reads:

Like most fanless cases, a series of aluminum fins stick out at the sides to dissipate heat. They are 5.0 cm thick at the base and 3.1 cm at the tip.

I think that should be 0.5cm and 0.31cm

Or rather mm, rather than cm.

Quite so. Thank you.

Love the noiseless design. I want something like this for mini-ITX minus an Optical DiscDrive, nope, not even a slim disc drive!

I love mini-itx, I don't see the real need for micro-ATX anymore (aside from an ATX replacement). Furthermore, the more I think about cases for mini-ITX, the more I feel like they should really fall into 2 categories:
A. Big enough to house a good sized video card for gaming, which implies a Full sized PSU, and might as well fit in a few HDD's. The way manufacturers could differentiate is by the number of drives more than anything, as well a in efficiency of design/build quality,etc. This is sort of the gaming/server section of the market.
B. Small enough to fit just the board, and a HDD or two (2.5"), with a power brick PSU. This would be for client-type uses.

Anything in-between to me feels like a stopgap to one or the other (not unlike this case reviewed here), and still a lot of room for innovation. Furthermore, I completely miss the point of mini-ITX builds/cases that use a full-sized 5.25" Disc Drives. It's like saying, I want a tiny system, tiny board, tiny HDD/SSD. Oh and as for an optical drive, get me the biggest one available!

Edit: They also have an H3.S which is what I'd go for =)
http://www.hd-plex.com/H3.S.html
Though I still think they could have gone a tad smaller =P.

So you think, I could fit a Core i7 Sandy Bridge (95W) and a passive VGA card of the kind of a 5770 (108W) into this and use it purely fanless?

That would be crazy good!

Edit: Stupid thought, PSU is limited to 150W.

Probably, if you took advantage of all the cooling surfaces available in the case, but you'd be on your own to fabricate or mod a heatpipe interface to the GPU. Just don't run thermal stress tests, and be prepared to run a house fan over the machine if you game in hot weather.

Naturally, you would have to run it all off an external PSU -- I'd use something like a Seasonc X400, with custom length cables if necessary.

On the other hand, if you approached HDPLEX with this idea as a custom product you're willing to pay for, they might just take you up on it, as there's probably a market, even if small, of people who'd pay big enough bucks for something like this.

Not directly related to the review, but am I the only one who sees an issue with their 80W PSU from this picture?


E: And this one:

Not too sure on what your seeing.. thought maybe ATX power might be a tad short.
The 4pin CPU power would need an extension on my boards.
No SATA power plugs and you would need one that wasn't angled based on where the SSD is in that photo (or mount the drive upside down I guess).

I have a few P5N7A-VM's and would love to put one in one of these cases.

It's listed as compatible on their website for the H10 but I know from experience that it needs some air flow on the chipset HS (however slight) when the board is running horizontal.
Wonder how this was tested out.

The fact that there's no earth connection. The PSU's earth pin is connected to the chassis but nothing earths the chassis. Being an open frame PSU, that's an invitation for a 230V surprise when you go to turn the system on.

Most open frame PSUs use a mounting bolt/screw for this.

Take a closer look at the picture. There's a cable from the earth pin on the PSU (the PSU, not the power connector) to the chassis. There's no cable from the earth pin on the C14 inlet to the PSU or chassis..

You're right, there isn't. The earth pin just isn't connected at all, and the plug connector is plastic. That's in contrast to, say, the Antec AR-350 SFF which has a grounded metal plug connector, or the picoPSU.

MikeC, does the H10 have any certification marks?

No. Cases don't have them unless the PSU is integral.

I doubt this is an issue tho. Surely HDPLEX would test the psu w/ the case to ensure compatibility & usability before selling them together. They don't make the psu, it's just one they selected.

I think they might be sending me a 3 or 5 chassis sample, and maybe this psu will be in there.

Makes sense. I am a bit concerned though - take a look at their PSU page: http://www.hd-plex.com/power-supply/ The top photo is what looks like an unbranded picoPSU. See http://www.mini-box.com/site/mini-box-counterfeit-products-alert.html

If they sell the PSU as it's shown on their site, it's an unsafe product to use in any case. I'm hoping someone picked up on it after those pictures were taken.

thanks for the review SPCR, as a user of HFX fanless cases for 5+ years, I've been looking forward to seeing the HD plex series.

HOWEVER, as an HTPC enthusiast and with experience with the HFX cases, I don't agree with the "improvement" suggestions you noted.

the only real issue I have with the H10, and I've already shared with Larry, is I'd rather have a taller case that can support multiple PCI/PCIe card slots instead of forced to use risers and only have access to 1 or 2 slots. A taller case also would allow for better hard drive placement, including possibilities to mount 2.5" drives in a variety of ways. Fortunately, HDPlex has plans in that regard (taller case) already.

Regarding the comment about the internal mount for the power brick, I actually think that is great for living room HTPCs and count that as an advantage over HFX's designs. For a living room HTPC, I want small, quiet, unobtrusive, stylish, etc. An external power brick would just be one more thing you would need to hide...

The C14-5PIN molex cable has a ground cable from C14/IEC connector which needs to screw attach to the chassis bottom plate for grounding.
The C14 connector will also has rubber wrap to protect the +/- input.

The cable on the picture is supplied by Magic Power, it was supplied in a hurry. They forget to connect the ground PIN from IEC/C14 to the 5PIN molex.
So the picture only show the ground cable from 5PIN Molex which plug on the 80W open frame.

Thanks for pointing this out. I will change the picture when the batch cable order arrives.
For 150W DC-DC converter, I tested them for over a year which quality is solid.
Also, to match the FSP 150W adapter, 4PIN mini-DIN connector is used instead of the cheap 5.5/2.5mm single PIN connector as seen on all PicoPSU.
FSP use 4PIN mini-DIN on their >135W adapter.

Last, FSP, a reputable PSU supplier with rev>500m, also offer DC-DC converter. mini-box could say all the DC-DC converter are counterfeit, but I guess that is another topic.

Disclaimer: I resell 160XT from mini-box.com. Difference is that I add 4PIN mini-DIN connector and 5VSB for the IR on the 160XT.

I do think external adapter is ugly. Apple's new Mac mini also use internal PSU.

Sadly, most mini-ITX case rely on external adapter with cheap 5.5/2.5mm single PIN connector.

Thanks for clarifying that, I was somewhat concerned that they may be shipping with no earthing.

Here is the picture of the cable with ground PIN.

Now do I start grumbling about the inappropriate colour coding or not..