Addtronics 7896A
Written by Stein Magnus Jodal
Published 4 October 2000
This is the review of the totally awesome Addtronics 7896A. Problably one of the best cases ever made for overclocking. The first thing I have to say about this case is: It's big, bigger and almost the biggest. It's not a full tower, but a genuine server tower.
Another thing I soon realized: it's very well designed. To open the case, I had to unlock the front with the key you shall not miss - it took me two weeks to lose it. I loosened the two thumbscrews on each side in the front, and opened the sidedoors 10-15cm, I lifted a little bit up and voila! The sides are gone without needing several meters in each direction like with HX08... and yes, we do have a fix for that too.
To install or uninstall a harddisk you just have to release one screw and pull the 3½"-drive-holder stright out. Addtronics have a smart and simple system for 5¼"-devices too. You fasten a bracket on each side of the device, put it into the front, and fasten it with two screws. This is fast and nice for softcore ppl, without any risk of destroying anything inside your computer with the screwdriver.
When installing for the first time, installing a new motherboard or when you are modding, you disconnect all the cables attached to the mobo, release four screws, and slide out the mobo tray with all your add-on-cards. Nice!
Here you got some technical facts about this beauty: 6 open 5¼" bays and one hidden. 1 open 3½" and two or four hidden ones. The choice here is a holder for 80x80mm fan blowing on the mobo or two extra harddisks. In my case i got the extra fanholder, but the spec says you can have an extra harddisk holder instead. It has place for ATX, baby-ATX, full-ATX and Xeon motherboards with seven full-length add-on cards. It has holders for eight to nine fans, depending on the fan/harddrive-question. They are portioned like this: one 120x120mm and one 80x80mm in the front with a washable airfilter. Two 80x80mm on each side of the six 5¼" bays. One 92x92mm on the backside right over the mobo and one 80x80mm over the power supply. If you choose a 9th fan, it will be a 80x80mm, blowing right at the mobo and CPU. This should be more than anyone needs.
The size of this beauty is 67x21x44 cm. That should give you enough space to go camping. The weight is 17,3 kg excluding PSU, fans and everything else except the mobo tray and fan-holders.
A nice thing is that you can take out the powersupply and a plate surrounding it and the empty space over. That makes it possible to insert a double PSU if you have the need for it or just wants to make this case even more lovable and give it an even higher look-at-me-factor.
To end with the start (the opposite of what my teacher learned me): Addtronics 7896A is awesome, and problably one of the best cases ever made for overclocking.
If you live in Norway or somewhere close you can buy this tower from MicroPlex, it costs about 1100 NOK or 120 USD here, excluding fans, PSU and all the juicy stuff.
| Pros |
Cons |
- Large
- Lots of space
- Easy installation of new devices
- High look-at-me-factor
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- You don't have enought money to use all the fan holders
- If you do your family are going to kill you cause of the noise
- Heavy to transport to LAN-parties
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