Clearance is an important aspect of case design for the enthusiast as it establishes whether certain hardware will be compatible with a chassis or not.
Looking at the CPU cooler first, this is extremely tight on space. Installed is the Noctua NH-U12P which is 158mm in height, Aerocool actually specify that the maximum height for CPU coolers inside XPredator X1 is 158mm so we can just about get away with the test system being inside here – otherwise the side panel would struggle to fit. Bigger coolers such as Noctua NH-D14 will unfortunately struggle to fit inside the chassis.
Tight on clearance for CPU cooler
The graphics card clearance is generous and unlimited thanks to the fact that it slots into the HDD cage.
Moving onto the cable management, behind the motherboard tray itself there is no clearance whatsoever so we will be measuring the other side of the HDD cage, near the front of the chassis. Even here there is very little clearance between it and the side panel – 1.3cm. With limited space here this presents some constraints for the cable management, having redundant cables routed behind and out of the way is a normal practise yet trying to get the side panel on is troublesome because the cables take up the space. This issue is made worse by the need for Molex cabling from the PSU for the fan controller.
Rosewill THOR V2 uses a similar, if not the same OEM yet there is more than enough room inside the chassis to manage cables. Aerocool should have made better use of space with their design.
Clearance behind HDD cage is limited, behind motherboard tray non-existent