The Streacom F12C Aluminum Desktop Case Review
by E. Fylladitakis on September 14, 2015 9:00 AM EST
Introduction
Today we are getting acquainted with a relatively new manufacturer of advanced PC cases, Streacom. The company originates and has its head office set up in Holland, although their manufacturing base is based at, as always, China. For the past few years, the company was focused entirely on premium SFF and passively cooled cases, always made from aluminum. Today we are having a look at their first attempt to diversify a little, the F12C case, which measures in at 44cm long by 18.4cm high, despite looking large in some of these pictures.
The F12C is a desktop case made out of premium grade aluminum, but it neither is a SFF-class product nor passively cooled. It is a premium HTPC case with advanced cooling capabilities and capable of housing up to even Extended ATX motherboards and any ATX PSU. Furthermore, the company is boasting a new and unique mounting system, allowing free choice of where and how internal drives and fans are going to be installed, such as here:
On paper, it sounds as if Streacom designed the perfect modular internal configuration and did so for an HTPC case. We are going to thoroughly examine Streacom's latest and greatest creation in this review.
| Streacom F12C | ||
| Motherboard Size | ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX | |
| Drive Bays | External | - |
| Internal | Up to 12 × 3.5" (ITX motherboard) Up to 24 × 2.5" (ITX motherboard) |
|
| Cooling | Front | - |
| Rear | - | |
| Top | Variable fans number and sizes (depends on system configuration) | |
| Sides | Variable fans number and sizes (depends on system configuration) | |
| Bottom | - | |
| Radiator Support | Front | - |
| Rear | - | |
| Top | - | |
| Sides | Variable up to 240 mm (depends on system configuration) | |
| Bottom | - | |
| I/O Port | None | |
| Power Supply Size | ATX | |
| Clearances | HSF | 135 mm |
| PSU | - | |
| GPU | 305 mm | |
| Dimensions | 184 mm × 440 mm × 320 mm 7.24 in × 17.32 in × 12.6 in |
|
| Prominent Features | · Premium Grade (6063) All Aluminium Chassis · Remote Control: FLirc or IRRC Solution (Not Included) · Unique Fan/Drive mounting system |
|
| Price | £167 ex VAT (UK. Equivalent to about $300 at the time of this review) | |
Packaging & Bundle
Streacom supplies the F12C Aluminum case in a relatively small but very sturdy cardboard box. The artwork is minimal and essentially reduced to just the company logo. There are no pictures of the case or any information about it printed on the packaging. Inside the box, the lightweight case is very well protected between two thick polyethylene foam slabs.
We received one of the first samples Streacom had to offer and thus, unfortunately, we cannot comment on the bundled items, simply because we received none. We received just the case, without a manual or even the necessary screws. Retail samples of course should ship with the necessary hardware.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
45 Comments
View All Comments
techxx - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Who in the world needs full-sized ATX nowadays? Case looks great, but too big.DanNeely - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Anyone doing 2-way SLI/XFire will benefit from being able to space the cards out without crowding the CPU socket by having the 1st GPU in the top PCIe slot.DanNeely - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
That said, I'm not sure why you'd want to for an HTPC though; and this case seems to've added it as a feature check instead of as a practical option anyway.hpascoa - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Replace "HTPC" with "Steam Machine" and it starts making a whole lot more sense.DanNeely - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
Not really. 4k is mostly pointless at TV viewing distances and a single GPU is more than plenty at 1080p.Bully242 - Friday, September 18, 2015 - link
So is 720p if you sit back far enough.. Don't see how your opinion makes 4k pointlessWwhat - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Soon a slew of VR headsets will ht the market.Although a card like the fuji nano should do OK in a single card setup even for the larger resolution that requires.
jardows2 - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
The size of the case does not bother me, as there a mATX cases that are as large in overall volume. This gives options for many hard drives or fans. The real question is why anyone would need a full ATX motherboard, unless they are using 3-way SLI or crossfire.joex4444 - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link
I have a full ATX motherboard that's well populated. GPU taking up two slots, a WiFi PCIe card, a TV tuner PCIe card, a USB 3.0 PCIe card (LGA775 - onboard USB2.0 only), and a PCIe 8 port external SAS RAID card.jardows2 - Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - link
Forgot about the TV Tuner. For an HTPC, that is a big consideration.