Aerocool P7C1 Project 7 Mid-Tower Chassis Review
Peter Donnell / 8 years ago
A Closer Look – Exterior
I would normally say “the first thing you’ll notice is…” but there’s so much going on here! There’s a huge tempered glass side panel window eating up the left side, and giving a great view of the interior of the chassis, lots of funky ventilation slots at the top and bottom edges, and that freaky front panel housing design. One thing is for certain, this chassis really does look unique.
The tempered glass side panel comes fitted using large aluminum thumbscrews over rubber washers, so it’s easy enough to remove/install as needed.
There are two long rails at the base for the legs, which look great and give the bottom air intakes good ground clearance.
There’s a towering ventilation section on the front, which is perfect for getting cool air into the chassis and with room for 3 x 120mm fans or a 360mm radiator behind it, keeping your system cool couldn’t be much easier.
Wrapping all the way around the front panel ventilation is a white plastic strip, which comes LED backlit and is finished off by the air-scoop black border that gives the front panel its unique shape.
The right side panel is just a solid panel, held in place by two thumb screws at the back. There’s also more ventilation on the top and bottom edges, matching those on the left side of the chassis.
Around the back, you’ll find the only pre-installed fan, seven expansion slots, and the PSU cut-out. One thing that I noticed quite quickly is that six of the seven expansion slots have snap-off covers, which really suck, but aren’t much cause for concern for most system builders.
There’s lots of ventilation on the top panel, and we’ve got that aggressive fin-like design, similar to what we’ve seen on Aerocool chassis’ in the past.
The front I/O is very nicely equipped, packing audio jacks, two card readers, lighting controls, power controls, dual USB 2.0 and dual USB 3.0.
Finally, the base of the chassis has a good amount of filtered airflow for the PSU, as well as some firm rubber grips to prevent the chassis from sliding around or scratching hard surfaces.