XClio Godspeed One Advanced Mid Tower Case

Introduction

It has really been a while since I got to look at something from XClio. The last time I reviewed something from them was of the 1000 Super Tower. This chassis had all the bells and whistles; multi-colored lighting, adjustable fan speeds and a unique design set the outside of the chassis apart from the crowd. Inside it had some well appointed features as well, but all of this came at a hefty price tag. Currently the chassis goes for just under $180, but at that time it was a lot closer to $300 USD.

This time around XClio sent me a chassis with the budget builder in mind. Keeping a few tricks from its much larger brother, the chassis I'm about to show isn't a completely stripped out shell. I have seen quite a few sub $50 chassis' that aren't much more than four walls, a roof and a floor. Sometimes they have fans, sometimes they have a window, and when you get really lucky, you can even get some LED lighting. This chassis from XClio isn't just budget, it houses all three of those things and still leaves you a bit of change for drinks after the build.

Today we are looking at the Godspeed One Advanced from XClio, one of four chassis' in the Godspeed lineup. Two of those are more basic builds and concepts, while the Advanced chassis keeps a few tricks of the more expensive chassis, and still can be had at a reasonable price. Is this chassis for you? Let's get to the chassis, get this build underway and hopefully answer that question for you.

Specifications, Availability and Pricing

This mid tower chassis's body is built from 0.5mm thick, SECC steel. This includes the main body and both doors. There is a shroud that houses the front I/O and the actual front of the chassis (panel) that are both made of black, ABS plastic. The entire outside of the chassis is a combination of shiny plastic and a flatter finish on the metal. Speaking of the front, the Godspeed One can house up to four exposed 5.25" drives, and one 3.5" drive. Inside the chassis is capable of holding up to five 3.5" drives. Jumping to the rear, this chassis has up to seven expansion slots, although one is already taken up by a controller which you will see later in the review.

As I mentioned, the Godspeed One Advanced houses a few tricks of its bigger brother. This chassis houses two, 180mm, blue LED fans in the door. These are both wired together and controlled by the controls found in that seventh expansion slot. Once you get the air in, you need to get it out. XClio chose to do this with two, 80mm, and no LED fans. These take the air and blow up into the bottom of the shroud that also houses a controller that can change the speed of these two fans. From what I remember of the 1000's 180mm fans, these should do quite the job of providing good air flow into the Godspeed One Advanced chassis.

Sub $50 pricing isn't that hard to find in a chassis, it can be done via Google in just a few clicks of the mouse. Finding one with any optional equipment or tool-less hardware makes the choices a lot slimmer. Looking around on the wide, wide internet, I was only able to locate one e-tailer that stocks the XClio Godspeed One Advanced chassis. Want to take a guess at where? That's right! Newegg is the one holding current stock of this chassis. I know I said sub $50 pricing, and this XClio falls just under that. Following the Google link over, I found the chassis for $49.99 over at Newegg. Of course there is shipping involved, we can't get around that. Let's move on to the images and see just what the Godspeed One Advanced chassis is all about.

Packaging

The Package



The front panel of this box uses a grey on grey over a white background. There is a nice image of the Godspeed One Advanced as well as the title. Both the front and rear panels are identical, so I won't be showing the opposing side.



Same thing holds true with the side panels; both are identical, and both sides display the same specifications chart.



When I opened the box I was staring into the rear panel. Once the box was out of the way, I could orient the chassis in this fashion. XClio uses Styrofoam end caps and the typical plastic bag-like liner. Basic packaging is all that is needed; my Godspeed One Advanced got to me in perfect shape.

The XClio Godspeed One Advanced Mid Tower Case

Staring at the XClio face to face, we can see they incorporate four 5.25" bays and just below is a spot to house a 3.5" floppy drive. A plastic vented area breaks up the front panel and houses the XClio logo. Just below is a mesh covered intake, the same as the optical drive bay covering that allows airflow into the chassis in the front.



Setting the Advanced model apart from the more basic Godspeed One are the twin 180mm fans placed in a shroud in the door. These dual LED fans should provide adequate air flow into the chassis for they're being the only provided fans to push cool air into the chassis.



The rear of the chassis houses a top mounted PSU above the rear I/O panel hole. They do provide room next to the I/O area for a 120mm exhaust fan, but they don't send one with it. At the bottom are seven total expansion slots, but one is taken up with the fan controller and LED switch for the fans I just showed in the door.



The panel behind the motherboard tray is what you would expect to see on a more budget minded case. XClio does take an extra step here to vent the front area. This allows for a draw of cooler air into the chassis.



The top of the Godspeed One series has this cowling on them. This not only houses the front I/O, but it acts as a deflector and cover for the two 80mm fans placed underneath, which I will show a bit later.



Looking at the front I/O panel a little closer, there is a better view of what is included. At the top left there is an eSATA connection just above a fan control knob for the fans under the shroud. In the middle are the two 3.5mm jacks for the audio, with the power and reset switches just below. The outer edge of these switches is where the HDD activity and power lights are found. Last but not least, to the right, is a pair of SATA 2.0 ports.

Inside The XClio Godspeed One Advanced Mid Tower Case

Since I needed to remove this panel to see inside the chassis, I figured now is a good time to show off the back side. The twin 180mm fans are secured to a piece of clear plastic, mounted to the door. The inset image at the top is the connector that is found at the end of the wiring. There is the other half of this connection that is wired to the controller in the expansion slots.



The first thing I notice is the fully tool-less bay system; this should help speed up the installation process. Tied to the bays is the hardware bag I will dump out and show off later. The front I/O wiring is tied pretty securely and partially blocks the view of the motherboard tray. There are no wire management holes, nor are there the typical front intake and rear exhaust fan combination. If you would like air to flow in that fashion, plan ahead, as you need to purchase them separately.



Both the front and back of the racks use the screw-less mounting. If you look closely, you can see the vented area in the door panel. This should be able to provide good cooling, passively to the hard drives. Speaking of which, be sure to install the 3.5" drives before the motherboard, there isn't a ton of extra room in here to fit them in later.



Inside of the rear panel is what we would expect to find except for two things. One being the lack of an exhaust fan, however, there is space to mount your own. The second is that XClio has equipped the chassis with a power, lighting, and speed control of the door fans that are plugged into the connection sitting on the floor of the chassis.



Case wiring from the front I/O has good length and there was no issue getting them where they needed to connect to my motherboard. There is a Molex connector for the fan controller at the rear, an eSATA lead, USB 2.0, and audio connections. To control the motherboard and power LEDs, there is the power switch, reset switch, LED, HDD activity, and a speaker connector.



With the rear door panel removed we gain better access to the installation process. The motherboard tray, as I said, has no accommodations for either wiring or CPU cooler access. There is sufficient room to hide wiring next to the racks, and still close the door.



Like I promised, I wanted to show the dual 80mm fans that blow air up and out through the shroud on top of the chassis. On the opposing end, we see XClio doesn't place the feet in the chassis. This is fine as they go in very easily, and allow for the addition of casters or something similar without having to remove the feet.



Removing the front panel was sort of a pain to do; even squeezing the tabs on the inside, the front just didn't want to let loose easily. After some persuasion and patience, here is what I found. The inside of the drive covers and the bottom intake area are backed with thin foam dust filters. The five bay covers simply remove by releasing the tabs on the inside and pushing the cover out of the frame.



Behind the front panel is a not very well ventilated panel. While XClio does provide room for the intake fan, it isn't what I would call an "air flow friendly" drill pattern. The bays are also blocked off, but these bits of steel can be easily twisted and removed to allow the drive bays to "breathe".

Accessories and Documentation

The bag that was tied to the drive rack contains what you see here. At the top are the four plastic feet next to a ferrite, EMI, shielding ring. Inside of the two bags there are the motherboard risers and screws. The bottom row contains a padlock loop for the rear and a self-sticking wire management tab that is used with the zip tie at the bottom. Lastly are the assorted screws for the PSU mounting, padlock loop, and four screws for mounting a fan, for one of those not included.



The manual is pretty basic, as it does cover four models of this chassis, both the Godspeed One and Godspeed Two models. All the standard points are covered, but there is very little specific information for either series.

The Build and Finished Product

Based on the fact I needed a good amount of power to run the components I chose for the build, I chose a PSU I had on hand that would cover my needs. Once I went to install it I ran into my first snag. My PSU of choice was a bit too large, and my PSU is by no means "large". Nothing to worry about, though, I will just remove the fans to allow a good fit for my PSU.



Installing a drive is quite simple. Just turn the purple center to the vertical position and pull out the clip, slide the drive in and replace the clip. Rotating the purple handle to the horizontal position locks the pins into the drive, and the clip into the side of the rack. The same procedure is taken to place the hard drive as well.



With no real wire management to speak of, I had to get pretty creative with zip ties. With everything installed I was able to hide quite a bit of wiring both here behind the drives and in the top drive bay. Keeping this build tidy can be done, but takes a bit of time to sort it all out and make it look nice.



Getting everything back into place, I had to snap on the front cover over the drive. It clears the drive really nicely, but the clips that hold the front on were just as tough going in as coming out.



Getting a lot of equipment into the Godspeed was relatively easy. I was even able to house my 9800 GTX+ with room to spare. Even here though, you have to think a bit ahead. The hard drives could easily cause issues with clearance of multi-card setups.



The rear of the chassis is clean and the I/O shield goes in really nice. Just a gentle push and it almost falls into a locked position. What I did find a bit scary, is when I was removing the expansion slot covers, I caught my finger pretty good on the sharp metal between the slots. Be careful when removing these!



Tying up all the loose ends, I closed up the Godspeed One Advanced and added power. The lights surrounding the power and reset switches are subdued and don't show up well here, but the five blue LED's per fan on the door really light things up.



The window the fans are housed in does give you a bit of a peek inside at the graphics card. With the fans running the view is a bit clearer than without. If you don't turn on the LED's the view is even easier to be had.



All the lighting needed to get quality images washed out the effect of the fans in the door. I turned a few off to show just how well they flood the chassis and surrounding area with blue light.

Final Thoughts

I was pleased to see the Godspeed One Advanced made it to me in great shape. I had heard some issues with the clear plastic in the door cracking during shipping that seemed quite common on that chassis. Not this time, I received a flawless chassis. My time with XClio is always nice. They build chassis' that are simple yet easy to use, and the tool-less setup of this chassis made this experience even easier, aside from the top fan debacle.

Speaking of which, that brings me to the down side of things. The fan placed in the top is a nice idea, but their proximity to the PSU really limits choices in power plants. Then there are the expansion slots, sharp as razors they are, and it got me pretty good. The lack of a front intake or rear exhaust fan was a bit of a disappointment, especially since I had to remove the top two. However, in XClios defense the two 180mm door fans create quite a breeze. Combined with the 120mm of my power supply, the three fans kept temperatures at normal levels.

I almost feel bad picking on the Godspeed One Advanced chassis as it is a lot of ideas packed into a mid tower. The controllers were top notch, the lighting is bright, and even after a bit of reorganizing it turned out to be all right. The reason I feel bad is due to the budget minded pricing of this chassis. While I wasn't able to locate it everywhere, as with most chassis, I was able to find the XClio Godspeed One Advanced for $49.99 over at Newegg, plus shipping of course. With all you do get, for under $50 I can overlook noise levels and the lack of a couple fans for all the options you get with this chassis from XClio.