Spire Pininfarina SP-ATX-PALU/S ATX Case Review

Cases by piotke @ 2006-08-18

Pininfarina is responsible for the design of some of the world?s most exclusive sports cars including Ferrari. Spire has hired their gifted design team to come up with a computer case which they hope will give them the edge in the heated race between case manufacturers. We take the Pininfarina SP-ATX-PALU/S for a test drive around our noise,temperature and performance track.

Introduction

Introduction

For those of you who are interested in cars, and specially the expensive and speedy ones, the name Pininfarina might sound very familiar. This Italian company has helped design several Ferrari?s and other well known cars.

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Everything you want to know about Pininfarina !

But from time to time to time they design other things as well, such as computer cases for example. Spire called for the help of Pininfarina to design a special case. Already two years ago I saw a wooden prototype of this case at Cebit, and this year they had the finished product on display. Now Spire has offered me the possibility for a test drive.

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The full product name is Spire Pininfarina SP-ATX-PALU/S, but I?ll refer to it as the Pininfarina. It comes in several colors to suit your flavor. While the main body is always black, the front/top/rear panels can be had in silver, metallic blue and black. My personal preference goes to the silver colored one, I must be lucky; because that?s the one Spire send over.

First looks

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The first thing that drew my attention is the streamlined design. It almost seems that it?s also optimized for perfect airflow on the outside. You surely can recognize the hand of master Pininfarina.

At first sight there don?t seems to be a button or led on the front side. A door covers the three 5,25? bays and the two 3,5? bays. The power and reset button as well as the two status LEDs (power on and HDD activity) can be found at top of the case.

Let's see what more this case has to offer. ->

Features & Installation

Main Features:

Stylish curved Italian design

Aluminum Alloy Bezel & Metal SECC Chassis

Full folded edge, full screen, radiation protected

Front USB/IEEE1394/SOUND connections

Removable HDD Cage

Removable Motherboard Tray / Side-Panel

Tool-less side panel access for fast and easy upgrade

120mm Fan duct system on the side panel for maximum airflow

Dimensions: 495x200x450mm (L x W x H)

Material: Aluminum Alloy Bezel & Metal SECC Galvanized Steel Chassis

Cooling: 3x 80x80x25mm fans (rear included, right included, left not included); 1x 120x120x25mm (front included); 1x 120 Fan Duct (left included)

External Connections: USB 2.0 x 2 | MIC x 1 | Earphone jack x 1 | IEEE 1394 x 1

Features: Lightweight aluminum & Durable metal frame. Italian Stylish design.

N.W. Weight: 13.50 K.G

Spire made a nifty flash animation where you can take a closer 3D look at the case:

More specifications can be found here.

Installation

Before you start the installation make sure you?ll have some space in your room. This case has no side panels that can be removed, as with a normal case. So how do you open this case? Some of you might already have worked with Dell or Apple desktop tower computers, you open de sides of the case as a door..

To keep the panels closed a multi point lock secures it to the chassis. With a handle on each side of the case you can open it. The advantage of this is that you don?t need screws all the time to open the case. But it does make access very easy at LAN parties, you can screw the panels tight if you want to make it harder to get into.

So now that we opened the case you see why you needed some place. Both the panels cover a large part of my floor. You have easy access everything. Under the lowest hard disk cage there is a little piece of plastic sticking out. Pull it and a little box will appear. Inside you?ll find:

A bag with the screws

The rails needed to install hard disks

Speaker to connect to the motherboard (for error and post beep codes)

A clip with double sided tape, this can be used to keep some cables together and route the through the case.

Pin alignment of the front panel connections

Now you have everything needed to start installation. Let?s get going with the motherboard. The I/O bracket, which add a finishing tough to the I/O ports (such as PS/2, USB, LAN, ?) should be installed first. Push out the one that?s already installed because it won?t fit most recent motherboards. Once that?s done you just pop in the I/O panel that comes with your motherboard. Put the motherboard on the stands, these are already installed and screw it tight. Now that this is done you remove the rear PCI brackets that block PCI slots, insert add on cards in the supposed slots and screw that together as well.

There?s room in this case for:

Three 5,25? devices (such as Cd-rom, DVD, ?)

Two floppy drives

Five Hard disks (If you don?t use floppy drives you can stack up to seven hard disks)

Installation of 5.25 inch devices is fairly easy. Slide the drive into its desired position. Push the special lock into the screw holes and turn it into locked position. There is no need for screws or screwdriver, in just a few seconds a drive can be installed.

Now we?re moving down in the case. The middle cage can house 2 floppy drives and one hard disk (or three hard disks). The installation of those is similar, so that?s easy to do.
In the lowest disk cage there is room for 4 hard disks. Installation is slightly different.
Remember the black box which contained some rails? Well, there are eight of these rails to be precise, two for every disk. You just take a disk and push the rails into the screw holes. Now that this is done you push the disk into the cage. When you?re almost at the end you?ll hear a click and the disk sits secured. To remove it you push the two lips and then you pull the disk back out.

To further easy the installation of the hard drives (or make room for some water cooling components?) you can remove the bottom hard disk cage. To do that you remove the thumb screws at the bottom then you can pull the cage a few cm backwards and rotate it.

In a regular case the power supply installation is quite easy. Put the unit in the desired place and screw it tight. This case isn?t different, until I wanted to place the screws, you see, because of the stylish rear I couldn?t reach some of the screws. The rear ?panel? can be removed by squeezing the push pins. This way the panel comes off. Now the PSU can be installed without any problems and when you?re done you click the rear panel back into position.

The installation is nearing done, but before we close the case there?s one more thing that drew my attention. In the middle of the case there is an ?enforce bar?. Next to it you can install a 80 mm fan , there is also a module to secure larger PCI(e) or AGP cards. This is ideal for video cards with larger coolers.

You can choose whether you install the PSU cables with the motherboard panel opened or closed. I would recommend doing it closed. This way you can nicely route the cables. You?ll also need quite long cables if you want to install them with the right panel opened.

You might have seen that this case has quit some fans. Let?s take a look what they?re for and how they perform. ->

Cooling

Cooling

In this section of the review I?ll take a closer look at the cooling aspect. Although the package says the case comes with four fans I only found three of them. All of these fans have a 4-pin molex pass through connector. This way you can connect them directly to your PSU without loosing a connector on the motherboard.

Rear 80 mm case fan ? already installed

The rear 80 mm fan removes the air from inside the case and pushes it to the outside. The rear side of the case has not a regular 80 mm grill but a stylish pattern of pill shaped holes ensure the airflow. Positioned just behind the CPU cooler this should give better thermal results.

Front 120 mm case fan ? already installed

The front 120 mm case fan ensures airflow through the entire case, and cools especially the lower hard disk cage. The front panel has ventilation holes on each side so that air can easily be sucked in. There?s an extra opening on the bottom of the front panel to help draw in fresh air.

Side 80 mm case fan (HDD) ? already installed

A second 80 mm fan in installed on the right side of the second hard disk (and floppy drive) cage. This fan also takes care of the general airflow and supplies extra cooling for the hard disk installed in the middle of the case. When the side panel is closed you see that a pattern of holes with a total diameter of ~80 mm nicely covers the position of the fan.

Side 80 mm case fan (VGA) ? not supplied

As already mentioned on the previous page there is an ?enforce bar? placed in the case from the front to the rear. There is a bracket installed where you can click an extra 80 mm fan in place. This fan isn?t supplied but once installed it should blow fresh air over your VGA card(s). On the outside you can see that also here there are some holes provided for the air intake.

Looking at the left panel from the outside you see a lot of square holes with a total diameter of ~120mm. Inside there?s a little fan duct installed, positioned just above the CPU area.

Near the bottom of both side panels there a strip with additional ventilation holes.

Time for performance testing ->

Testing: performance and noise

Test Setup
CPU	AMD Sempron 3000+ AM2 @ 2.3 Ghz
Mainboard	Asrock AM2NF4
Video cards	Powercoler X1900GT
Memory	2 * 1024 Mb DDR2 PC7200 EPP OCZ
Other	Nec 2050 DVD writer Seagate 120 gig 2x Seagate 200Gb SATA Silverstone Zeus 750 Watt PSU

Noise level was recorded with SmartSensor SL4001A. The sensor was placed ~65cm away from the front of the case. The lowest dBA reading in the test room was ~37,8 dBA.

First I measured the Ambient noise level. Secondly I booted the computer without any fans running, except the power supply fan (and the hard disks spinning up). But as you can see this wasn?t very loud. Then I tested every fan separately and finally all the fans together.

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As you can see the rear fan adds no extra noise.

Now that we know what the noisiest fans are, it?s surely interesting to find out if they are needed to keep the system cool. Just as the noise evaluation, I?ve tested the case with different fan settings.

Without any case cooling.

With only the side (HDD) 80mm fan

With only the rear 80mm fan

With only the front 120mm fan

All three fans powered on.

I had 6 temperature sensors I could monitor:

Processor

Chipset - nVidia GeForce 6100 chipset ? passive cooled

X1900GT vga card core.

HDD1 ? Seagate 120 gig ? installed in floppy drive cage

HDD2 ? Seagate 200 gig ? installed in HDD cage, top position

HDD3 ? Seagate 200 gig ? installed in HDD cage, bottom position

First I did some idle testing.

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You can see that the loudest fan (the front 120 mm intake) has the most influence on all the temperatures.

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Under stressed conditions the outcome is pretty much the same except for the VGA card which seems to profit a lot from the fresh air coming in from the Side panel 80mm fan.

Let's wrap things up ->

Pricing and Conclusion

Pricing and Conclusion

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I really like this case. It looks very good and has a stylish design. On the outside there aren?t too many gimmicks. A straight forwarded design. A front door is hiding possible ugly external drives.

The installation went very smooth; I almost didn?t have to use a screwdriver. Most of the pieces, except for the main board and add on cards, could be installed without the use of any tools.

The case cooling is abundantly present and can be set up to suite your needs, the side panel 80mm fan really helps for VGA cooling, while the 120mm front panel fan is quite noisy but does help keep HDD temperatures down. But even without any active fans (except for the silent on in the power supply) our test system did not risk overheating. With only the rear 80mm fan activated the system will remain quite and cool, providing the best noise/performance option.

Priced at ~130 USD (Froogle) it?s not the cheapest case. But compared to other custom design cases with this level of finishing and extras it?s surely reasonable priced.

Yes, it?s a quality case. The steel chassis is very strong and well constructed and has no sharp edges. The paint has a high quality finish with different colors available for the front/top and rear panels. If there?s one gripe I have with this case, it has to be its weight and difficulty to get a good grip on it, as the custom design and curves don?t make it easy to carry it around, a carrying bag or other solution would be most welcome for the LAN party people. Its 13kg empty weight will provide you with a nice work-out.

Overall though I?m left feeling quite impressed with the Pininfarina which doesn?t only look good, but packs some power under the hood as well.

I would like to thank Mark from Spire for his patience and cooperation.

Questions/Comments: forum thread