Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 thoughts...

Akira

Akira

Akira

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18 Oct 2002
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Quality. The thing is built like the Ark Royal. I can't help but keep opening and closing the door, which is a one-piece aluminium extrusion with a satin finish on the inside, it's just so satisfying. (I don't get out much.) With the 3 supplied fans it's virtually silent, and the amount of room inside and clever solutions make setting one up a pleasure. The only thing I didn't like was the engrish manual and the screwless card retention system, which ridiculously didn't take into account double-slot cards, or for that matter, SLi setups. Thankfully, you can ignore it and just use screws as normal but it does kind of miss the point. The projector is a silly diversion that doesn't work properly but the optional mesh/perspex window is a thoughtful inclusion, as is the little removable toolbox in the drive bay section. Well worth the money if you're looking in this price range. :)
 
I had the older version and liked the door and window but found because of the lightweight aluminium construction and the way that the hard drives are screwed directly to the case, it suffered a lot of problems with resonance produced from the vibrations from the hard drives. Is the new one any better in this regards?
 
No, the 570 has resonance issues as well, although mine seem to have gone away for present. It also suffers from profoundly average panel fits as well. But it is cool, and it is quiet. When it's not buzzing anyway.


M
 
I had one a while ago, I bought the whole computer to take the parts I wanted and sell the rest. I had looked at the case before I bought it and though - urrrgh thats ugly, aaaagh it can't be that bad really and i can always sell the case as well.
The case arrived and it was worse than I thought... It looks horrific!!!
OK I must admit there is tons of space and there are some nice features, but I couldn't stand to see that each day and as Akira said the drive bay system is just stupid.

Anyway thats my 2 cents.
 
Mine doesn't resonate and the drive bay system is brilliant (I said it was stupid? Where?) The drives sit in runners that clip into the well-vented bays securely and without transmitting any vibrations. Don't know if the other two posters have different models but I'd recommend the model I have to anybody. Virtually silent and acres of space with nice details.

edit - Although it's still aluminium, the build is far from lightweight. Extremely sturdy and well-braced. Resonation? Rubbish.
 
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mine didnt resonate, but I hated those plastic bracket things, and I just hated the look of it. Not saying its a terrible case just not my thing.
 
This is how I summed the case up, quoted from another forum:


Good points:

Big - there's loads of room inside - if you fancied 3-way SLI with 8800GTXs, this is the case to do it in. The HDDs are fitted cross-ways, so the amount of space for stuff on the motherboard is huge. Despite the size it is very light too - far light than the Coolermaster Praetorian it replaces here. There's plenty of room for the biggest coolers. Can't advise on WC though, as I don't use it. But it has two rear grommets.
Sturdy, and generally well-laid out. Finish is generally good, apart from the cheap colour-coordinated paint on the drive cover-plates
Quiet - I suspect the three default 120mm fans are quite low-power though. Cooling seems adequate, but I'm not pushing the rig hard yet.
Screw-free fitting for the drives. The HDDs use two clip-in rails (an idea stolen from Dell methinks) and then just slide in. The metal pins which actually secure into the screwholes on the drive are prone to not inserting properly. If the drive won't go in, it's because one of those pins is now sticking out. The CD/DVDs and floppy-drives slide in, then a plastic clip secures them. Fairly firmly too. Make sure the floppy is properly placed though - it needs to go back a little from flush. If it can be pushed in further, you got it wrong.
Plenty of screw-hole options for various formats of motherboard.
Locks for door and side-panel.


Bad points:

Big - no-one is going to miss it.
Some of the screw-holes don't quite line up. You'll mainly notice when you try to fit the door thumbscrews back, but if you take the front panel off entirely it's pig to get back. And the door scrapes on the top plate. Mind you , this is a bit cheaper than a Lian-Li.
Drive covers can only be taken off from the inside: you have to twist out the metal plate, then push in the end clips of the cover.
The manual is useless. I had to trace the wires to work out which connector you needs to make the fans work (it's the three-pin female) and to find out WTF the two molex connectors were for. One appears to be for the front light, but I still don't know what the other is for.
Tacky Power and Reset buttons.
The door sits proud of the lower part of the case, so even though you have front connections for firewire, USB and audio, you can't see them unless you open the door, or crouch down.
It really needs a second front fan, as an option to go with using the perspex side panel.




I'd add to that: cooling is actually very good, and yes, the overall look, especially the front, is cheap and nasty.


M
 
I'm liking the look of that case a lot. I have a major problem with cases with doors - just can't be doing with them, and finding a decent doorless case has proved to be difficult. The other thing I've struggled with is getting the usb ports mounted at a reasonable height rather than the extreme bottom or top of the case. This looks to be a great solution all round so thanks for posting that.

Only the PSU to sort out now - anyone used the gigabyte Odins?
 
Guardsmon said:
mine didnt resonate, but I hated those plastic bracket things, and I just hated the look of it. Not saying its a terrible case just not my thing.
Click to expand...




If you still have it, I may buy it off you...



Having thought about his case, I actually quite like it. I've been looking for a substitute to replace the three Antec SOHO 1040 cases use as BOINC crunchers, and these seems to fit the bill. The only catch is I can't afford to buy three of them new...

They're not pretty, but they do the job.



M
 
The 3D Mars I linked to above I think it promising. No door. Good airflow from front, good dedicated hard drive cooling. And you can change the direction off the hdcaddy so airflow is not blocked as it is slightly in the aurora. I've seen these cases online for around the 100quid mark. I wonder does the mesh grille on the side aid gpu cooling if you mounted a fan on a zalman bracket to blow cool air in, or does it upset the front to back airflow.
 
dunno why, but this got posted here rather than the thread I was reading!
 
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