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SkyHawk Galaxy PSR4616B1


Date
: 11/7/02 – 08:30:17 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cases

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer: SkyHawkUSA
Price: $65

Introduction

By now many of you should have heard of SkyHawk's cases. They've been in business for over a decade producing network and other equipment for the PC and over the past year we've seen them invade the budget case market. Today I look at the SkyHawk Galaxy – PSR4616B1 case w/the optional 400w PSU.

What enticed me about this case and what will surely grab the attention of many of you is it's made of a thin anodized aluminum. This makes this guy cheaper to produce and cheaper to ship. However as you read on, you'll learn these are part of trade offs made as with most budget cases you'll find.

What can you gain from reading on? I hope for you to get a good idea of what you're getting in terms of quality and value. After all is said and done I'll give my opinion on some of the better uses for this case.

Time to get this show on the road…

Page 2 : Specifications

Specifications

The case I am looking at today is called the Galaxy – PSR4616B1. This case comes in a few varieties: with or without side window and with 300w or 400w PSU. The one I look at today has no window and is sold with a 400w PSU that is Pentium 4 ready.

- PC-6089A
- Dimensions: W201xH412xD490mm
- Weight: +- 9.0kg
- Drive space: total of 10 device bays
- External bays: 4×5.25" bays, 2×3.5" bays
- Internal bays: 4×3.5" bays
- Cooling: 2x80mm fan (front intake & cpu blower), 1x60mm fan (rear exhaust)
- Supports all ATX & Micro ATX motherboards
- 2 front USB ports (USB2.0 compatible), 1 firewire port, & headphone & mic audio ports
- Comes with 400w PSU
- Features front bubble tube lighting
- Thumb screws

The Galaxy (as I'll refer to it in the rest of this review) is a mid-tower for those who don't want to pay $100+ for an aluminum case without the PSU. The case measures W201xH412xD490mm, which puts this case into the average of what most consider a mid-tower. With that size you could imagine there's plenty of room for expansion: it features 10 expansion bays (internal and external) in all. On the outside you have access to all four 5.25" bays for any cd-roms, dvd-roms, etc you may want to outfit in your system and then you have access to two 3.5" bays for the usual floppy or zip disk drives you may want to throw in. Aside from those six bays you have four more 3.5" internal bays to hold any additional hard drives for your storage pleasure.

What struck me initially was the weight of this case. The case itself is well under 9.0kg, the total package you receive is 9.0kg (PSU, Case, Screws, packaging). The aluminum is only 1mm thick (!) and with that not only makes this case incredibly light, but as a trade off incredibly flemsy feeling. What does this mean to you? Don't sit on this thing. I mean it. Is that bad? No, it makes this case great for any mod work (easier to cut) and also great for taking to LANs as it will not break your back.

One of the big concerns with any case is how well it can keep your system cool. To help SkyHawk has included a lower front 80mm intake fan with fan grill, a rear 60mm exhaust fan (don't underestimate this little guy ;) without a fan grill, and a rear 80mm fan for the cpu blower (much like ABIT's OTES) with a fan grill. The front intake is placed just in behind the bezel of the case and helps to move air across the four internal 3.5" bays for your hard drives. The nice thing about the blower is that you are free to move it farther down your case so that it can exhaust the heat over your GPU – very handy. Overall the cooling is above par, but I would have liked to have seen a spot for another 80mm (however this could be done easily with a quick mod).

Onto the front bezel you'll see a door with "USB" engraved into it which hides the front two USB ports (USB 2.0 compatible), a single firewire port, and headphone & mic ports. I think this case has Tim's LAN box beat in terms of connectivity ;) These front ports are perfect for LANing and those of you who use digital cameras, mp3 players, and even digital camcorders will also find these ports convenient – I do.

Aside from all that I've mentioned so far, you also get a sheet that shows how to hook up the front port wires, a bag filled with screws, the typical io shield, two PCI expansion covers, the 400w PSU and powercord.

The power supply is nothing to write home about as it is part of a budget solution. It comes at 400w and you can check it's specs above. Keep in mind the amperage on the 12V and the 5V rails. If you plan on using some high performance equipment (ie: higher Athlon XP models, high draw video cards like the 9700, or overclocked components) in here then you may want to consider a different PSU to put in here.

Page 3 : Installation & Testing

Installation & Testing

As with most cases installation is a breeze. This board does not feature a sliding motherboard tray, and as I have never had one to use it's no big deal to me. Anyway, installation of the motherboard goes as follows: remove BOTH side panels by means of thumb screws, put in gold stand-offs, attach motherboard. Cool, you're almost done. Now you just need to install the CPU, RAM, drives, and your PCI/AGP cards. You may have to remove the blower for certain configurations for the installation, and in the case of having a full ATX motherboard you'll need to remove the 60mm fan also to install. You can rest assured you won't cut yourself as all the case edges are well rounded.

Here's a list of what I installed:

- Supermicro P6DLE Motherboard
- Intel Pentium 2 400 CPU
- ATi All-In-Wonder Pro
- Linksys Etherfast 10/100 LAN Card
- Canyon3D 2 Sound Card
- 128MB Generic PC133 memory
- Seagate 3.2GB 3400RPM ATA hard drive

Antiques are fun, right? A lot of this stuff was what I had around and have been using as a TV on the floor and now it has a box. Maybe now that it's got a nice box around it I'll begin to update it little by little… :)

With installation complete it's time to power up this setup and gawk at the lights. The nice blue lighting effect in front is quite nice. Here's what you can expect from this when you turn them on:

Page 4 : Conclusion

Conclusion

Good

- Looks nice
- Price
- Aluminum
- Front Ports

Bad

- Flemsy
- Cooling could be better

The SkyHawk Galaxy – PSR4616B1 case is without a doubt a fine budget case. The only flaw I found with the case itself is that it is flemsy due to the thin 1mm thick aluminum. This does have a couple advantages though: it is easy to cut for mods and it makes this case very light. So who do I recommend this product to? Modders, LAN gamers, and those wanting aluminum but are on a tight budget. SkyHawk brings a good solid aluminum case to the masses with this product, the Galaxy – PSR461B1.