In a country like ours, PC hardware needs airflow like a fish needs water. Sure, those small form factor PCs are cute and awesome, but when it comes to temperatures, mid-tower cases are the way to go. This time, we look at the Xigmatek Aquarius Plus RGB mid tower case. Just like in our last post, we’ll go through the journey of building inside the Aquarius Plus with the same components last time.
Again, Xigmatek has been quite generous with their offerings what with the Poseidon having 4 ARGB LED fans out of the box, the Aquarius Plus comes not with 4, not 5, not even 6, but 7 120mm ARGB fans. Also included are HDD screws, add-on card screws, extra motherboard stand-offs, 2.5” drive screws and a couple of cable ties.
Design
The Xigmatek Aquarius Plus is a mid-tower case with a seamless left and front tempered glass. It’s like an aquarium where you can showcase your hard-earned PC parts in new angles. It can fit a mini-ITX up to a full-sized ATX motherboard. Sorry, e-ATX users, the glory of this chassis is for up to ATX users only. It can fit 158mm-tall CPU coolers and up to a lengthy 360mm GPU. Out of the box, you have 7 fans already installed, but if that’s not enough for you, there are still 3 available mounts on the top. It comes in black and white, but the one sent to us was the black one. The quality of the materials is a step higher than the Poseidon and feels hefty and solid.
The case is partitioned and you’ll only see the motherboard upfront. The PSU and drive mounts are at the back, making for a cleaner look. You’ll see that there’s lots of room for cable management at the back and the partition makes it easier to close the backside, leaving the front neat and clean.
On top, you have the power button, reset button, power and HDD activity LED, 3.5mm slots for mic and headphones, 2 USB 3.0 Type-A and 1 USB 2.0. You also have a magnetic dust filter that’s easy to slide in and out if ever it needs cleaning. You also have dust filters on the right side of the case and on the bottom giving you excellent protection from dust bunnies.
The Experience
Building in the Aquarius Plus is a wonderful experience. You have so many options on where and how you configure your fans. It’s especially easy to plan water-based cooling builds in this case because of its layout and spacious front partition. You can mount 240mm or 360mm radiators on the top and side panel, and another 240mm on the bottom. That’s more than plenty to cool your system down on a hot summer day. Do note that if you plan on putting a radiator on the right side panel of the case, you may block some rubber grommet for cable routing.
Building inside the case is pretty straightforward. Mounting the motherboard was easy enough. The more challenging stuff lies behind the second partition where you install all other components from the PSU to the drives to RGB fan controllers.
The drive mount is on a strip of metal as you can see in the picture. This was a little troublesome because if you don’t have a modular PSU, you have to remove it first to fit your power supply with the cables attached. You can also mount 2.5” drives at the rear slots of the case, provided that you won’t be using that slot for an exhaust fan.
I thought it was by design that you would remove it first to mount all your drives, but as you can see here, the clearances are very tight to be able to mount the drive strip back. You can position it wherever you like, but I found the farthest left slot to be the best place for it. The default mounting position is too close to the PSU that it’ll be hard to insert the SATA cable plugs to the drives. The drive mount can accommodate 2x 3.5” and 2x 2.5” drives.
Routing the cables was easy enough with all the rubber grommets in place. Pardon the spaghetti of wires, the more fans you install, the more unruly the wiring could be, especially if you don’t have daisy-chainable ones. All the important cables going to the motherboard are easily attached and accessible.
Voila, here’s the finished product. As you can see, the unruly cables are tucked neatly behind the second partition along with your drives. The Xigmatek Aquarius Plus showcases your components beautifully with its seamless front and side tempered glass panels and makes for one heck of a centerpiece in your room.
Conclusion
Priced at 7,999 php, the Xigmatek Aquarius Plus is something I would consider buying if I wanted to showcase my themed build in a clean and functional chassis. Given the price, it’s a bargain with its 7x addressable RGB fans and an addressable header. The case does a good job of helping you hide the ugly cables around the back and keeping the front of the chassis nice and clean. It’s also a good choice if you’re planning to do a water-cooled build as it has all the space for your creative juices.
For a list of stores where you can purchase the Xigmatek Aquarius Plus, follow the link here.