This case gives the reviewer a console game feeling and is slightly larger than the average “PS BOX” and that does put it high on the gaming console appeal and space category. Small form factor cases are made to conserve space and to fit in where a gaming console would normally go and the orientation of this case finds that convertible appeal as well. Its looks just as nice standing upright or laying horizontally and the laptop type DVD drive requirements gives you that gaming console feel to boot. Except most gaming console can not game half as well as the properly built m-itx build could do.
Outer Look
Starting from the face of the unit we see from the first two pictures that the AZZA Z is comfortable laying down or standing and the breathing of the unit does not change that much in the variations, but laying it down horizontally like so allows for the good cooling and the ventilation of this unit was made to be Omni-directional and that gets high marks in this reviewer’s ratings, but I can’t help but like the old school look of it laying down flat like this picture shows.
Standing upright the case looks fine as well. The stand that comes with the unit allows for it to stay firmly standing on its pedestal with out tipping over. Also the two hottest heat creating units, the video card and the mechanical hard drives are situated in a way for maximum cooling and convection current since the output is larger than the input the air naturally flows from the bottom to the top of the case creating a quiet cooling that works more efficient and quieter than any fan in some situations.
As the reader can see from this side the unit all the holes are lined up nicely is for the discrete video card and the mechanical hard drives to be mounted. These are the two hottest parts of any case and it’s good for the heat to leave the machine as fast as possible and be replaced by cooler air. The top of the case houses the video card and it easily breathes in the cool air from the side of the green vents and these multitude of hole gives great heat escape so that air can bottom to the top of the machine.
The bottom or the other side of the AZZA Z case is where the motherboard and the power supply are located. The four bumps in the case at the front is to help with proper fit for the power supply and the back part has air holes to help the microprocessor cooler to do its job efficiently. One of the biggest reason why the reviewer likes the vertical position of this case the best.
The stand or pedestal is very well made and has that stealth fighter theme with sharp diagonal bends that look very futuristic. The overall look and functionality of this piece works well together both for ascetics and most for functionality.
The back of the case is pretty interesting if engineering is to your likeness. Here you see the plug for the power unit is centrally located and this is just a bypass plug to extend the power to the front of the case where the power supply is mounted. This plug has a wire that goes from back to front to plug the front power supply in as usual with a 90 degree offset plug into the power supply unit to make it all fit nicely in the front and allow the best configurations of parts.
The large dual video card space is laying down and also has a PCIe extension to allow the laying down of the card. this allows for a very large discrete video card to fit into this almost gaming console size. Without that PCIe extension you would be forced to use a low profile video card that can be quite a pain for the gamer that needs the speed and frame rate to game with the best. After all AZZA Z wants to be able to play with the big boys and hide in plain sight, so you can have up to an 11 inches video card that a seasoned gamer needs to have at his or her disposal.
This side of the case would be the bottom or underside of the motherboard tray and the ventilation slots on the case side panels are made different to accommodate for the best cooling possible for each part of the build.
The top or the right side is the side that you would take off to change component or if it had a window this would be the windowed side. Since this case is engineered as a true gaming m-itx unit it is engineered a lot differently than your average tiny computer case and we like that. It’s not just a scaled down copy of a bigger case as some have engineered. This case takes the best of the old school cases of the 1990’s and the needs of today heated video and melds them together for a form and function that makes real building sense.
