Xigmatek Aquila Micro ATX PC Chassis Review

A CLOSER LOOK – INTERIOR FEATURES – CONT’D

With the cage removed you have room for a 120mm or 140mm radiator and fan assembly.

Installing a 240mm radiator in the top requires removal of the 5.25″ bay assembly but this is much easier. Simply remove these two screws from either side of the case then remove the front panel and then the two screws securing the tray to the front of the case.

Once the tray is out of the way you can easily fit a 240mm radiator and fans up top. Depending on your configuration you may need to remove the rear exhaust fan as well. A 280mm radiator MAY fit here depending on the model and overall length as the power button might be in the way.

SYSTEM INSTALLATION

SSD mounting in the Aquila is pretty easy and straightforward. First you install four screws and grommets to the SSD as shown here.

Then you slide it into the SSD cage as shown. To remove teh drive simply lift the lever on the backside and pull the drive out.

Power supply mounting was very tricky with the be quiet 1000W unit. It’s long and fully modular to boot so squeezing it in was an exercise in patience. Be sure to get a PSU that’s not too crazy long or you’ll run into issues here.

I had to mount the Nepton 140XL with just a push fan as the pull fan would have interfered with the graphics card.

Here we have a full system installed. Full system specs are:

• ASRock Z77-E Mini-ITX
• i7-3770k
• 8GB Mushkin DDR3-1600
• 96GB Kingston SSD
• Cooler Master Nepton 140XL
• Gigabyte HD7970 Windforce
• ASUS DVD-RW
• be quiet Power Zone 1000W PSU