Introduction

Ah cases. Remember the good ol' days when we had desktop cases? The kind that you placed your monitor on? Well cases sure have changed a lot since that age. Now we have micro, mini, mid, and full towers; aluminium cases, with windows, and without sides, amongst many other features. As "case-modding" is becoming much more common, there is a continual drive to stay unique, dare to be different! Have you ever thought of having a completely transparent case? Behold the beauty known as the acrylic case.

People started playing with the idea of 'seeing the insides from without' by putting acrylic windows in their cases. Now it appears that BeanTech took the idea to a whole other level, building a complete case out of the material! It's now like having one big window! Lets take a look at this very revealing *snickers* case!

Specifications

Before we start with this case, here are a few specifications I gathered:

• Transparent Acrylic ATX Chassis

• 4x5.25" External Drive Bays, 2x3.5" External Drive Bays, 5x3.5" Internal Drive Bays

• 80mm cooling fan x 3 (crystal clear)

• 30dB @ 2400RPM (fans)

• Front mounted USB 2.0 + IEEE 1394 ports

• Dimensions: 490mm x 205mm x 450mm (depth x width x height)

• Mass: 9.0kg

The Case

This case is truly unique. It is rather large, and gives you plenty of room for moving parts around. The side panels are screwed in the corners, which can be a problem if you like having easy access to your parts. Speaking of part installation, have you ever noticed that you can never find screws when you need them? BeanTech anticipated that, and provided a nice set of screws! Well I am personally thankful for that one!

The case itself comes equipped with Evercool crystal clear 80mm fans in the front, rear and side; keeping the clear theme, and airflow in check. Speaking of airflow, the placement of the side fan is very odd. It is positioned to blow air out, though I think it would be much more efficient if it sucked air in. It is also in the center of the side panel, which is a relatively non-important spot for a fan, compared to over the AGP slot, or CPU for example. On another note, the fans won't be able to move their maximum rated amount of air as the case cut-outs are quite restrictive. An easy solution would be to dremel out the fan area to allow for better airflow.

Some will miss the mainboard tray that comes standard in most cases nowadays. Although there is no tray, the installation was still very easy. You just have to align the mainboard holes with the wholes in the case and add the required attachments.

The Front/Rear

The front LED/Power buttons are a bright red colour and can't be missed. There are 2 USB 2.0/1.1 ports and 1 IEEE-1394(firewire) port. The faceplates that come with the case for both 5.25inch and 3.5inch drive bays don't pop out like other cases; rather, they are taken out via screws. Very nice if you want to put them back in later.

The rear of this case is very similar to other cases. It has a spot for a power supply, seven expansion cards and your mainboard I/O ports.

The problem with the area for the power supply is its lack of compatibility with two fanned PSUs. The bottom fan will be restricted due to the acrylic support in place to hold up the PSU. There is no way to place the PSU upside down either, since the screw holes wont line-up. This may cause heat issues with your PSU.

The mainboard I/O spot poses more problems too. If you have a new mainboard that favours extra USB ports to ancient PS/2, you will have a sheet of acrylic in your way. I think BeanTech should have left that spot empty, or provided a removable I/O back plate to use ones provided from your mainboard manufacturer.

A nice thing about the rear of this case is shown in thumbnail 10. If you want front IEEE-1394, you can use the supplied extention cable which plugs into one of your rear IEEE-1394 ports!

Usability

The BT-84 by BeanTech comes wrapped in a form of protective saran- wrap. If you find any scratches on this case, do not open it. BeanTech added a little sticker informing you to send it back if scratches are found. Keep in mind that this case is more of a demonstration case. I would highly recommend that you not take this case to a LAN party! The main reason being that it will scratch very easily, it was not designed for such abuse. (i.e. transportation, etc...)

This case was machined very well. It looks great, and had no scratches on it. The two acrylic rods running from rear to front had a few, but what can be expected - they're acrylic rods!

As we've clearly pointed out, this case is made of acrylic. Not to have a chemistry lesson, but metals have special properties that aren't present in Acrylic. They are meant to bend and can take a beating. They also shield out electro-magnetic radiation, which can't be said for acrylic. Metals also dissipate heat much better too. So a case made of steal or aluminium, will both protect and cool your computers innards better than acrylic would. That's a trade-off for pure absolute beauty.

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