The Streacom F12C Aluminum Desktop Case Review
by E. Fylladitakis on September 14, 2015 9:00 AM EST
Introduction
Today we are getting acquainted with a relatively new manufacturer of advanced PC cases, Streacom. The company originates and has its head office set up in Holland, although their manufacturing base is based at, as always, China. For the past few years, the company was focused entirely on premium SFF and passively cooled cases, always made from aluminum. Today we are having a look at their first attempt to diversify a little, the F12C case, which measures in at 44cm long by 18.4cm high, despite looking large in some of these pictures.
The F12C is a desktop case made out of premium grade aluminum, but it neither is a SFF-class product nor passively cooled. It is a premium HTPC case with advanced cooling capabilities and capable of housing up to even Extended ATX motherboards and any ATX PSU. Furthermore, the company is boasting a new and unique mounting system, allowing free choice of where and how internal drives and fans are going to be installed, such as here:
On paper, it sounds as if Streacom designed the perfect modular internal configuration and did so for an HTPC case. We are going to thoroughly examine Streacom's latest and greatest creation in this review.
| Streacom F12C | ||
| Motherboard Size | ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX | |
| Drive Bays | External | - |
| Internal | Up to 12 × 3.5" (ITX motherboard) Up to 24 × 2.5" (ITX motherboard) |
|
| Cooling | Front | - |
| Rear | - | |
| Top | Variable fans number and sizes (depends on system configuration) | |
| Sides | Variable fans number and sizes (depends on system configuration) | |
| Bottom | - | |
| Radiator Support | Front | - |
| Rear | - | |
| Top | - | |
| Sides | Variable up to 240 mm (depends on system configuration) | |
| Bottom | - | |
| I/O Port | None | |
| Power Supply Size | ATX | |
| Clearances | HSF | 135 mm |
| PSU | - | |
| GPU | 305 mm | |
| Dimensions | 184 mm × 440 mm × 320 mm 7.24 in × 17.32 in × 12.6 in |
|
| Prominent Features | · Premium Grade (6063) All Aluminium Chassis · Remote Control: FLirc or IRRC Solution (Not Included) · Unique Fan/Drive mounting system |
|
| Price | £167 ex VAT (UK. Equivalent to about $300 at the time of this review) | |
Packaging & Bundle
Streacom supplies the F12C Aluminum case in a relatively small but very sturdy cardboard box. The artwork is minimal and essentially reduced to just the company logo. There are no pictures of the case or any information about it printed on the packaging. Inside the box, the lightweight case is very well protected between two thick polyethylene foam slabs.
We received one of the first samples Streacom had to offer and thus, unfortunately, we cannot comment on the bundled items, simply because we received none. We received just the case, without a manual or even the necessary screws. Retail samples of course should ship with the necessary hardware.
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E.Fyll - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Sorry, lost a sentence there.You may be right about dB(A)/W (although it does not work quite that way) but it is not useful to provide noise graphs for three specific fans that I chose for a test that was done just for illustrative reasons. If I chose two fans, four fans, or any other fans from the hundreds of the available models, the results would differ. There is no point to provide you with a "dB(A)/W" rating when that will change based on your selection.
Landiepete - Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - link
Caveat. I've used their SFF passive case (8c) in the past. These are rated upto 95W TDP hardware, however, even using 65W TDP, cpu and mobo temperatures crept up to around 60°C, and I wasn't even pushing the hardware very hard.Using a 45W TDP unit in it's current incarnation keeps temps generally around 45°C, every once in a while it goes up to 50.
I also use a SFF an active unit (7C), and, using a 65W TDP unit, it can't keep the unit cool when only the CPU fan is installed. There is not evough room inside the case to use anything but a low profile fan, and it needs help from a small (size limit again) evacuation fan. This works, but the noise at load is quite horrendous.
So far I have NOT been impressed with Streacom efforts.
Wwhat - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
It doesn't look very attractive to me, but I think a person with some talent doing some slight mods can make it look nice. But default it just looks bad to my eyes.Haravikk - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
Interesting, but some very strange decisions here; while I like that there's an option for using the sides as intakes/exhausts, I can't help but feel that the case should still have mounts for a more traditional front to back cooling setup with vents for intake fans at the front, since this is the only side that should be completely clear at all times. The sides and top could easily be obstructed in many HTPC setups, which limits the usefulness of a case that can only be cooled from these sides. While I don't like using the rear panel for exhaust due to the necessarily small fan mounts (once you take up space for PCI slots and I/O), not offering it as an option still seems a glaring mistake.Likewise the lack of front USB ports; that limits its usefulness for gaming (nowhere to plug in wired controllers or charge wireless ones) and eliminates a useful means of connecting install media or providing media files that you already have.
So yeah, as much as I like well made aluminium cases, there are just too many issues with this one to make it really useful IMO.
Sertis - Friday, October 9, 2015 - link
I rather think it's a nice htpc case. I currently use a node 605 and if I had silver components id rather have this. All I need in an htpc is a very good looking case about the same width as my amp and space for a full size vide card. Optical drive? I can rip to my nas from the nas itself or my desktop, or my laptop. Tuner? HD homeruns in the garage. USB in the front is an affront to the senses especially with the blue plastic in 3.0 ports. I just run an active USB repeater cable to a pop up panel in the floor and a coupler into the leg of the coffee tabletable to a popup panel. Htpc controls are via a mce receiver in the back with a harmony ir blaster. Some people just want things to look clean. They should offer 19" rack mount ears to go all the way for custom installs.