Installation and Performance
Installing our test components into the XFX Type01 was actually a smoother process than I expected. The tooless hard drive trays and disc drive bays make quick work of the small stuff. Installing our motherboard/cpu/ram/heatsink combo would have been almost as easy but I did have to stop and go in and install all of the motherboard standoffs, I would have preferred at least some of them be pre-installed. Our GTX 780 installed with almost three inches of clearance as well.
The biggest part of the installation was installing the power supply and wiring everything up cleanly. The power supply was of course the easy part, requiring the standard 4 screws to be installed. Our V700 is a fairly short PSU so when installed I had room to get my hands in and hook up all of the modular power cables. Routing what I could out behind the motherboard tray went smoothly due to the grommeted holes all over the Type01, I do however wish there was a little more room behind the motherboard tray. With ¾ of an inch of space it wasn’t too tight, I would consider it average, but you do have to be careful to not overlap cables or you will run into issues installing the side panel. I loved the small wiring holes directly at the bottom and top of the motherboard that makes hiding the 4/8 pin power cable and front panel audio cables very easy.
With everything installed, I double-checked to make sure the Nocuta tower heatsink would clear the side panel without any issues. As you can see below, there is still a little less than an inch of clearance.
With everything installed and up and running I really didn’t run into any issues. The noise level of the Tyoe01’s two fans was reasonable but not silent. With so much ventilation in the case this really wasn’t a surprise. I was happy with the cooling performance, running through 3DMark a few times to heat things up didn’t cause a noticeable change in the air temperature inside of the case.
Moving the case around wasn’t too bad, with the use of plastic it isn’t very heavy but it doesn’t fall into the lightweight category as well. What did throw me for a loop was figuring out where to hold the case when picking it up. My first instinct is to pick it up by the arches on the top but if I do that I’ll break the case. This left me fumbling around for a second until I got a good grip on the underside of the case. It’s obviously not as simple to carry as the CM Striker or some of the Mini-ITX cases I have taken a look at, but getting it to and from a LAN shouldn’t break your back.