SUMMARY: The most popular range of aluminium cases would have to be the ones made by Lian-Li. These cases were light, innovative, attractive and appealed to frequent LANers. Skyhawks, a Taiwanese company which has long been regarded for producing cost effective casing designs with bits of translucent plastic, steps into the aluminium case foray. SkyHawk were kind enough to send us their ATX-4378C-IV aluminum PC chassis for review. Continue reading to find out our verdict about this case.
Don't be lead to believe that aluminium cases are feather weight, they're not. Although they obviously utilize the lighter and stronger aluminium, the weight difference is debatable. The aluminium case was obviously a bit lighter but unless you are a frequent lanner, I doubt you will mind too much.
As you will notice by the top picture, the case sports a shiny, polished finish. If you have seen pictures of the Lian-Li range of cases before, most notably the PC-60 then you would have already noticed that they are much less shiny than the SkyHawks range. The reason for this is because the ATX-4378C-IV is painted with gloss, protecting it from dents and scratches. When touching or picking up the case I suggest you wear gloves or something of the sort because the laquered case is extremely prone to finger prints.
Similar to Lian-Li cases, almost all the 4378C's screws are thumbscrews. You may not think this is much but if you do not have a screwdriver handy for example at a LAN party, these screws come in handy if you need to get inside your case and fiddle with the hardware. The case features four 5 1/4" drive bays and three 3 1/2" drive bays (one of which is internal). This was quite disappointing since the Lian-Li PC-60 which is also a mid-tower, features not only four 5 1/4" drive bays but six 3 1/2" bays aswell (3 internal). The 4378C also features ventilated drive bay covers to help move the hot air out of the case.
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