Global Win YCC-S27 Mini Desktop Case Review

Cases by piotke @ 2006-02-11

With the introduction and growing popularity of Windows XP Media center edition, more and more people are putting computer in their living room. The HTPC (Home Theater PC) opened a new market for slick designed cases. Today we are testing the Global Win YCC-S27 Mini desktop case. Is it possible to bring fast desktop performance silently to your living room? Let?s take a look.

Introduction

More and more case manufacturers are offering unique cases for HTPC purpose. This rapidly growing market focuses on people who want to use a computer in their living room without having the ordinary tower case look.
Perhaps, a case that wouldn't look much different than VCR or DVD player would certainly be interesting for a lot of people. Luckily, today we'll be testing such a case from Glowal Win.

Madshrimps (c)

The first interesting thing about this case, not only it can be used as a desktop model, but also as a tower.

The package contains the following items:

Global Win YCC-S27 Case with 200 watt PSU

Power cable

Little bag with screws

Tower case stand

Specifications:

Madshrimps (c)

Looks

It is my opinion that this case has a very sleek design. With the look of a VCR or DVD player your friends won't notice a PC in your living room. Everything is nicely hidden behind the front covers:

Front USB and Audio ports

Optical drive

Floppy drive

When you look at the black front cover you might expect a little LCD or VFD screen, but this isn't the case. A pity, because it would give that little extra VCR or DVD look alike. It is by no means a bad looking case. The black aluminium body is a perfect finish, with little ventilation holes on both side panels.

The front panel is made of silver plastic. The power and reset button have a chrome finish. Next to them, the two status LEDs (Hdd activity and Power) are situated. They use the common colours; red and green.

The YCC-S27 is designed for micro ATX mainboard and half size PCI or AGP cards. You will notice some interesting configurations/features further into the review.

Just for the fun of it, I placed an Apple Mac Mini on top of the case so that you can see size is just something relative to ....

More pictures from the ventilation holes and the rear.

Let's build a system in it ! >>>

Installation

Installation

Naturally the first step is to "open" the case. This proved to be not an easy task as I thought .......

After unscrewing the two screws in the rear, the cover "should" normally come off, not in this case. After a lot of trying and testing I wasn't able to remove it. Time for some brute force! Finally the cover came off.

There was no manual supplied with this review sample. Glabal Win assures me that manual does come with every retail package. Accordingly, you need to the slide the top cover a bit forward and then it would come off, including the front panel.

Due to the tight fit, I had to exert more pressure for the top cover to get loose from the frame. Thanks guys, I was talking to myself afterward.

I did not get hurt physically and nothing was damaged except my ego was a little dented.

Once the case is opened, I found a "tower stand" inside:

I found no significant events further into the installation process. Everything went as it should. I didn't cut myself either, a good indication that there are no sharp edges.

Removing the rack housing the drives would make installation easier:

Once everything is installed, it's easy to hide your IDE cables underneath the optical drive. Speaking of optical drive... I'm using a Nec NC2500 DVD writer, nothing special. This drive is located just above the memory modules. However, memory with heatspreaders being taller, it touches the optical drive. The only way to avoid this is by using a bit shorter drive or normal memory (without heatspreaders).

With installation behind us, let's take a look at the included PSU. >>

Cooling & 200 Watt PSU

Let's talk about cooling

Small Form Factor case with much less air space inside requires more thermal management than full size case. Global Win puts in a couple features to extract warm air and enhance air flow within.

Both side panels have small ventilation holes.

A 60 mm fan is included.

The PSU has a exhaust fan.

A 40mm fan hole is provided on HDD rack (the fan is optional)

I do have my second thought about the 40mm fan provision. When the fan is installed with the case over closed the fan would be mostly blocked by the cover itself; while the other half of the fan would have to get air through a very small number of panel holes, making this an uneventful attempt.

200 Watt PSU

This case comes with a mini 200 watt PSU to match its size.

Specifications:

Madshrimps (c)

Don't expect a lot of 4-pin molex connectors from a 200 Watt PSU, and you really should not. 4* molex and 1* floppy should be sufficient for the intended purpose. Tests can be found on the following page, but first the test setups.

Test setup(s)

The sound and heat tests were done with the following configuration. The combination of low power consumption and great performance of the Pentium mobile makes it interesting for HTPC configurations.

Piotke's Test Setup
CPU	Intel Pentium M 715 (1.5 GHz / 2 Mb / Dothan)
Extra	Asus CT-479 CPU convertor
Mainboard	Asus P4P800-VM
Memory	2*512 Mb A-Data Vitesta DDR600

Yet, the low power consumption makes it less interesting to test the PSU. That's why I tested the CPU also on a different platform:

Piotke's Test Setup
CPU	AMD sempron 64 2600+ @ 2 Ghz
Cooler	Zalman 7000Cu - Fan @ 5 Volt
Mainboard	Albatron K8 Ultra
HDD	Maxtor 250 gig
VGA	Albatron GF4 MX480
Memory	2*512 Mb A-Data Vitesta DDR600
Optical	Nec 2500 DVD writer

The Sempron 2600+ @ 2000 Mhz and 1.6 vcore is putting out close to 100 Watt according to this online calculator.

All results were taken with room temperature at ~22°C. Due to room temp fluctuations, different mounting and user error can account up to 1-2°C of inaccuracy from obtained results. Please keep this in mind when looking at the results.

Noise level of each fan was recorded with SmartSensor SL4001A. The sensor was placed ~65cm away from the HSF. The lowest dBA reading in the test room was 35.7dBA.

System was stressed by running K7 CPU Burn for 30min (after Thermal Compound’s burn-in); this application pushes the temperature higher then any other application or game we’ve yet encountered. Speedfan was used to log maximum obtained temperatures.

Arctic Silver kindly send us their “Lumière” thermal testing compound which has the same colour as Ceramique, requiring a mere 30-minute of break-in time!

Testing and Conclusion

PSU

To avoid probable improper motherboard voltage readings, I use digital multi-meter for measurement. The PSU was tested in two different platforms: A very low power Pentium M and a normal desktop Sempron 64 processors:

Pentium M

Idle: 38 Watt

Stressed: 44 Watt

Overclocked Sempron 64:

Idle: 99 Watt

Stressed: 151 Watt

Madshrimps (c)

Using a low power setup the voltage rails remain very stable, hooking up the Sempron the power is up to four times higher while both the 3.3 an 5 volt line remain stable, the 12 volt line on the other hand drops to 11.79 V. Keep in mind that we have a load that is running 75% of the rated PSU output. At this end, this PSU is "doing very well".

Both noise and sound level tests are done using Pentium M platform.
Noise

I tested the case in two orientations; Desk Top versus Tower; With and Without the cover.

The sound meter was positioned on my desk about ~60 CM from the "TOWER"; and ~45CM from "DESKTOP" due to the limited space around my work area.

Madshrimps (c)

The assumption is a closed case would be quieter; not quite valid in this case. The 60 mm fan makes an irritating noise to my ears (higher frequency noise). The airflow through the holes makes a loud(er) noise. The best way to explain this is that it sounds like a wind turbine. There are many factors and interpretation of sound; objects around my room and how I personally preceive the sound in a particular frequency may not be received the same to another person. The digital sound meter does not reason; it just does what it is made for.

Heat

Next, I tested the case in both orientations; a desktop and a tower. Here are the results:

Madshrimps (c)

The extra noise of the 60 mm fan seems to be fruitful. This is best visible at the CPU temperature - significantly lower. On the other hand, the Pentium M runs just fine without that 60mm fan... The choice is yours.

Conclusion

I was very pleased with this case. The fact that it's a small case with two placements/ configurations makes it suitable for anywhere. Use the "stand" as a tower model comes in very handy when space is what you don't have. With a masked front cover, you don't see the DVD and floppy drives and never notice a computer is sitting there.

With the growing popularity and availability of Pentium M based platforms plus pricing being more affordable, and the performance it delivers at low power consumption makes it a perfect setup for this case.

Needless to say that a Prescott 3.4 GHz won't function decently in this case. First of all the PSU isn't powerful enough and secondly the thermal output of the Prescott could hardly be handled for a case twice the size.

Except for a little problem opening the case, I find everything can be installed fast and without much hassle, athough I must remind you the memory height clearance issue one more time. Otherwise, it's a great little case.

PRO
Stylish looks
Good finishing
Masked front panel

CON
Loud 60 mm fan
Difficult opening
No support for PCI riser

I like to thank Chung for sending in the review sample.

Question/Comments: forum thread