ID Cooling T60-SFX Mini Gaming Chassis Review

1. Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing
2. Packaging, Accessories, and Documentation
3. ID Cooling T60-SFX Mini Gaming Chassis
4. Inside the T60-SFX
5. Case Build and Finished Product
6. Final Thoughts

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

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There isn't really much information to be found about ID Cooling; even when it comes to their own introduction page, all we can really ascertain is that the group is built of experienced people from other companies that came together under a parent company. However, that is not to say that ID Cooling is a side project - their intentions are much different than that. From what we can gather, they are all about using top-tier materials and processes to deliver products that should stand up to the majority of options already out there. Also, with ties to major companies that they have worked with in the past, they elude to the fact that they are on top of quality control, and offer dependable products.

Here at TweakTown, this is our maiden voyage with ID Cooling, and to be honest, all we have seen up until now was news some time ago about the release of a very small form factor chassis that happened to look really cool. Today, we are going to be looking at one of the five available versions of ID Cooling's latest SFX chassis to hit the market. In these five versions, it is all about color options, much like the BitFenix Prodigy cases.

Whether orange is your color of choice, or if it is all red, red and black, all white, or all black, ID Cooling has you covered. There is also a possibility that more color options will come later on if this chassis stands up to what it is supposed to be on paper. The chassis in question is the T60-SFX from ID Cooling - not to be confused with T60 from Lian Li (although, if we stretch real far, there are some similarities to be found). Now, let's find out just how well the T60 from ID Cooling compares to all of the other offerings out there.

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We do like that ID Cooling takes the time to spell things out in the specifications chart provided on their site; the chart leaves little to question once it is all absorbed. First, the dimensions are provided; we find the T60-SFX is only 251mm tall, 328mm deep, and sits 160mm wide, weighing in at only three kilograms. While they do cover the Aluminum alloy used, they do not mention that it is 3mm thick, or that the top, front, and bottom all interlock. They also do not mention that the back of the chassis and the motherboard tray are made of a much thinner steel plate. However, they do mention that on any color option we choose, there is an oil based paint applied to all surfaces, inside and out.

With such small chassis, we don't typically expect a lot of offerings on the inside, but the T60-SFX actually offers room for quite a lot considering its size. Inside, there is room for a single 3.5" drive at the top of the chassis, and down the left side is a removable rail that will house a pair of 2.5" drives. Of course, this is made for Mini-ITX motherboard compatibility only, but there is still room left for a SFX or Micro-ATX PSU. There is also 263mm for video card placement, and even 125mm worth of room for a smaller tower-style CPU cooler. The last thing to mention is the inclusion of a fan in the one and only fan location in the T60-SFX; that location is filled with a 92mm black framed fan with clear blades.

What ID Cooling has going for them, on top of using nicer materials and offering it all in a stunning package with the design of the chassis, is that in all the news and previous reviews, we were lead to believe that this chassis would retail for $79.99. While that pricing is somewhat doable for a chassis like this, even without looking into it, we feel that pricing is justified. However, the real problem comes when we look to actually buy one. The only listing we could find has this chassis retailing for $139.99, and that is at Amazon. Even thus far, we find it hard to justify an additional fifty dollars over the MSRP. By the time we are done, will we find the ID Cooling T60-SFX worthy enough to justify the price hike?

PRICING: You can find the ID Cooling T60-SFX for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing, but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The ID Cooling T60-SFX in WHITE retails for $139.99 at Amazon, the ID Cooling T60-SFX in RED retails for $139.99 at Amazon, the ID Cooling T60-SFX in RED and BLACK retails for $139.99 at Amazon, and the ID Cooling T60-SFX in ORANGE and BLACK retails for $139.99 at Amazon.

Packaging, Accessories, and Documentation

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The packaging is small, but aggressive. ID Cooling was sure to show their company and chassis names, but rather than show the chassis in any way, they used this battle scene with a tank taking center stage. Along with an award for this chassis off to the right, at the left, we find four features this chassis offers.

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This smaller side of the box offers the company name at the top, followed with the "T60-SFX Mini Gaming Case" naming. Below those monikers, we see the thoughts and ideas that went into making this chassis in the first place.

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The background on the back of the packaging is identical to what we saw on the front of the box. However, this time the features have been replaced with a specifications chart, and there is some company information over to the bottom right.

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The sides of the box are also nearly identical. This time, rather than offering any sort of information below the chassis name, it is blank, with only the ID Cooling web address at the bottom.

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Inside of the box, we found the chassis is first surrounded in a thin foam and plastic liner to keep the paint finishes in good shape. To keep the chassis in the middle of the cardboard, and to protect it from drops and getting crushed, ID Cooling chose a dense foam to protect this chassis, rather than Styrofoam. Even though the box looked to be in pretty good shape, we did get a chassis with a bit of damage, and unfortunately, it is somewhat dysfunctional.

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Inside of the chassis, you will find a small bag containing four black standoffs, and sixteen screws to be used for SSD, hard drive, PSU, and motherboard installation.

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The guide provided for the chassis starts off by explaining what you should have in front of you, how to open the chassis, and how and where to install all of the components inside of this design. The guide features good images and descriptions to get the parts into this chassis with little trouble other than the limited space you have to work with.

ID Cooling T60-SFX Mini Gaming Chassis

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In our first glance at the T60-SFX out of the box, we see a lot of red for sure, but the aluminum face is not flat. In fact, it is bent back at the bottom above the venting, and it is angled again as the I/O panel meets the top of the chassis.

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The front I/O is rather basic, offering only the pair of USB 3.0 ports for connectivity. To the left, we see the ID logo, which is also the power button, and ID Cooling has put their name here as well.

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In our version of the chassis, the left side offers black side panels that have ventilation cut at the front edge, as well as near the bottom of the chassis. These vents allow as much air into the chassis as possible. We also see that the side panel is bent heavily at the top right, with no real explanation as to why.

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At the back of the chassis, there is the rear I/O to the left, with a pair of expansion slots at the bottom. To the right, we find a power plug, since the PSU installs at the front, and a grill over the exhaust fan.

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The right side of the chassis is built to look identical to the left side; this simplifies tooling, as they can just flip the same panel to this side, and again, it is ventilated. To get either of the panels off the body, you will have to remove the four large screws at the corners.

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Under the chassis, we find feet that are large for the chassis. Each of the chromed plastic feet has a rubber pad on the bottom. As for the floor, it is ventilated as much as possible. The screws are holding in a SSD plate at the top, and along the bottom, there are screws holding in the motherboard trays.

Inside the T60-SFX

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With the left panel off of the chassis, we can finally see inside of this compact design. Of course, we do immediately have to remove the red SSD plate to view the rest.

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This steel plate used to hold a 3.5" drive is screwed to the roof of the chassis. There is no need to remove this unless you do not plan to use it, as the motherboard tray is drilled to access the mounting screws.

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The motherboard tray is solid from the left until it opens up to accept the PSU at the right. While the bottom is ventilated to match the panel that covers it, there are only the four standoff holes to fill, and no CPU cooler back plate access.

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The rear of the chassis has the back side of the outlet and the PSU extension cable running across the top; under it is the clear finned fan that offers silence and powered ventilation.

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All of the wiring terminates in these ends here. There is the native USB 3.0 connection, the angled PSU adapter end, a three-pin connection to power the fan, and leads for LEDs and the power switch.

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Behind the motherboard tray, there is less than 3mm of room between it and the panel, so there isn't going to be any wires hiding here. The panel really only needs to come off this side to allow you to mount the PSU at the front of the chassis, and connect the extension cable.

Case Build and Finished Product

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While our SFX PSU at the front has no PCI-e power leads, that does not mean we can't fit in our video card, and the PSU is high enough to clear longer ones. We didn't have too much trouble getting the motherboard in, but connecting the wiring was challenging due to the limited space.

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Once everything else is wired and ready to go, that's when you should mount the 2.5" drive plate back into the chassis, as it will block off most access to the motherboard.

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While our Mini-ITX test system does not have a dust shield, we had no issues fitting one. Our issue came was when we installed the GPU, and found it necessary to find help to force the back of the chassis in far enough to align the screws.

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With no room for wiring, and only the PSU to screw in and connect, we pretty much have it all covered.

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That is at least until we went to replace the panels. We thought it was tough to get the screws out, but it wasn't until we tried to put the panels on and realized that neither side panel aligns well with the chassis that we realize exactly how hard it was. In fact, you can see where the threads ate the side panel just getting them out of the chassis.

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While we usually would show the chassis in this context, all ready to test, and then again powered and lit up, we found the damage went as far as breaking the switch. In fact, even after jumping the motherboard and getting the system running, the LEDs did not function, but the USB 3.0 ports were functional.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to the ID Cooling T60-SXF mini gaming chassis, we get the point of the design, and we do like the layout and out-of-the-box external design. We even found that with just one fan, and all of the passive slots cut into the front, sides, and bottom, the CPU remained chilly inside. Had we been able to power the card, we may have seen a slight raise in temperatures, but with very little noise heard from the chassis, color us impressed.

The real issues for us really seemed to over shadow all of that ingenuity in the design. Unfortunately, the chassis obviously took a very good hit in transit, or even at the factory prior to shipping, which is more where we feel things went wrong. The left side panel was pushed outward, yet the panel was forced onto the chassis, and with the forgiving nature of the dense foam used, it won't push back enough to bend this metal as it is. Also, we found aligning the side panels to the shape of the chassis to get them back on correctly was almost impossible.

Just like with the GPU, it was a ballet of forcing the chassis, holding the component, and finding help to get the screws in place and tightened down. What is really sad about all of this is that when we found the I/O port was bad too, we went back to see if the chassis was even square to begin with, and surprisingly, the frame of the chassis was still in line. The damage really is a mystery.

Typically, we would make contact with the company and ask for another sample to see if it was a fluke, or just give the manufacturer a chance to fix things in general. The reality is, we just saved all of the work and shipping fees, because even if everything was pristine, there is no way to justify the cost found online. Hand building a chassis with screws, and without a single rivet present takes time and money, and using thick aluminum panels and new tooling stacks the price pretty fast. At $79.99, the T60-SFX is definitely sellable.

However, the fact that the only place on this side of the pond that offers the chassis is asking $140 is really a deal breaker. As such, we just cut to the chase and brought it forth as-is, because at that price, people are just going to pass it right by. With that sort of money, you could get just about any other SFF chassis worth its salt, and not have the potential for the silliness we had to go through.

PRICING: You can find the ID Cooling T60-SFX for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing, but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The ID Cooling T60-SFX in WHITE retails for $139.99 at Amazon, the ID Cooling T60-SFX in RED retails for $139.99 at Amazon, the ID Cooling T60-SFX in RED and BLACK retails for $139.99 at Amazon, and the ID Cooling T60-SFX in ORANGE and BLACK retails for $139.99 at Amazon.