GMC C70LCD Middle ATX Case Review

Main Menu

HardwareBistro Search

Login Form

Support Us!

Product: C70LCD
Manufacturer: GMC
Supplied by: GMC
Price: 89.99USD/RM320
Launch Date: NA

GMC is a Korean brand and they have been producing plenty of unique and interesting computer casings since 1996. After reviewed their R4; an interesting vertical ODD insertion case and A-31K; entry case, today we will take a look on their C70LCD. GMC C70LCD is totally different than previous GMC cases that we have reviewed; essentially it is a slim casing and comes with elegant LCD display.

Company Profile

GM Corporation Ltd is a manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Seoul, Korea and founded in 1996. The company offers a wide range of PC cases, power supplies, computer peripheral and service to customers worldwide. It is GMC's mission to be the best provider of the state-of-the-art products in the global market. By offering superior products and complete service, the company seeks to share the enjoyable computer life for worldwide end users.

GMC producys middle tower PC cases and HTPC cases (Home Theater PC) which supports mATX and ATX form factors. Our HTPC has a fantastic design and functions and supports up to MS Window VISTA and MCE (Media Center Edition).

Features

Specifications

Package & Content

GMC C70LCD comes with a pretty small packaging box; 200 x 410 x 475mm (W x D x H) as C70LCD is a slim PC case. As usual two foams are used to protect the case and the plastic bag is for protecting GMC C70LCD from being scratches as well as water proof since it comes with pretty nice LCD display.

Mylar is applied on the LCD display and the optical drive bezel since they are shinning and glossy. Basically nothing much is bundled together with GMC C70LCD except some installation screws, internal speaker and four rubber feet which aren't attached on the case since GMC C70LCD supports for both horizontal and vertical placements. No user's manual is included but it is always good to have it since GMC C70LCD is having different installation methods.

GMC C70LCD Exterior

C70LCD is one of the GMC C series casings and most of the C series casings are slim desktop casing unlike those middle or full size gaint ATX case. There are two colors available for C70LCD; black and white. Both of these colors looks very nice especially the white one when the LCD display is powered up. The elegant of the LCD display will be shown by a YouTube video file in later section for clearer understanding.

GMC C70LCD is a middle tower ATX case but it is only support up to micro ATX board so don't get confuse about this. The dimension of GMC C70LCD is around 136 x 370 x 350 mm (W x D x H) which is pretty slim and small compare with other standard ATX case. The overall net weight of GMC C70LCD is 6.7KG; not really that light compare with its size.

Although GMC C70LCD is a middle tower ATX case but it still comes with one floppy and one optical drive bay. The floppy drive bay maybe is not that useful for most of the users but it still good to have it as some of the other peripheral devices are still using this 3.5" bay such as fan speed controller, card reader and etc. At the bottom of the power button, there are front panel I/O ports with bezel; two USB ports and Line out/Mic audio jacks.

The ODD drive comes with an ODD door and the insertion is designed in such way for GMC C70LCD as most of such small casing will be placed horizontally on desk. Furthermore such positioning will able to save the working space and the LCD can be placed on top of it. At the bottom of the LCD display, there are four buttons; Reset, Set, Up and Down for adjusting the time.

There are some air vents on the GMC C70LCD right panel for better processor and graphic card cooling performance as usually such small casing will have bad ventilation so such air vents are required. For the left panel, it is a fixed blank panel but if user decides to station this casing horizontally then the case feet need to be installed on this panel rather than bottom panel.

Here are the bottom and back panels of GMC C70LCD. As we mentioned before the rubber feet are not pre-attached on the bottom base so that user can choose where to apply these rubber feet; either bottom panel for vertical placement or right panel for horizontal placement. Pad lock is included to secure the right panel with the case body for better security purpose.

For the rear ventilation, there are two 60mm air vents but only bottom air vent is equipped with 60mm fan. For the PCI slot, there are total four PCI slots and the good thing of GMC C70LCD is these PCI slots are for full height PCI card not those half height PCI card which is very limited in the market.

GMC C70LCD Interior

As usual for a casing review we will talk about its interior as well since it is one of the important factors before purchasing a casing. Here are the interior views of GMC C70LCD and it is much smaller than a standard ATX casing since it only supports Micro ATX board. Micro ATX board is not hard to be found as there are many entry/mainstream boards are come with Micro form factor for cost saving purpose.

Besides the Micro ATX board GMC C70LCD also just supports Micro ATX 12V PSU rather than full size of ATX PSU due to space constraint. One of the problems for such small case is the PSU availability as it is not that easy to get a Micro PSU except from OEM manufactures. As we mentioned before there is only one 60mm rear fan is included but topping up another 60mm fan will be better for the ventilation.

Here are the front drive cages for HDD, optical drive and floppy drive of GMC C70LCD. Maximum drives that can be installed on GMC C70LCD are one floppy drive (or other similar device like card reader), one optical drive and three HDD (one 3.5" HDD at hidden FDD bay & two 2.5" HDD at HDD cage). Luckily GMC allocates a space for a 3.5" HDD else it will be costly for puchasing 2.5" HDD.

Basically both of these drives are installed on two drive cages and both of these drive cages can be removed out from the case body. All the drives; HDD (2.5" & 3.5"), optical drive and floppy drive can be installed in the drive cage directly without removing the drive cage to simplify the installation method. For better ventilation, it is advisable to manually top up a fan at the front air vent especially when 2.5" HDD is installed.

Since GMC C70LCD comes with LCD display, we have removed out the front panel of GMC C70LCD for better understanding. If you have notice the PCB of the front panel, there is a CMOS battery which is used for storing the time information even though the system is totally powered off. A sensor and a fan connector are included for temperature and fan speed monitoring purpose which are nice to have features.

Here is the left panel of GMC C70LCD and As we mentioned previously there are two air vents. One of the air vent is paired with air guide which is used to direct more fresh air to cool down the processor. Due to the height problem of GMC C70LCD, the air guide may blocks with the CPU cooler but the air guide can be removed easily or replaced with a 80mm fan if it is needed.

Installation, Testing & Performance

For this review, we are not going to perform any testing as we are lacking of the Micro PSU which is the gating item for our test setup besides the Micro board. Anyway we don't foresee any critical installation issue except the space constraint for using tower cooler as well as high end graphic card. For those are planning to purchase GMC C70LCD, it is good to have a stock CPU cooler (or slim cooler), Micro ATX PSU, Micro ATX motherboard with built in video card, sound card as well as network card but Micro ATX board should have all these features since it is targeting for entry level users. Last but not least we have powered up GMC C70LCD in order to let you have a look on it.

As promised, here is the video file that we have captured to show the LCD display functionality of GMC C70LCD. The LCD display looks very nice and it is showing some useful information such as time, fan speed, temperature as well as HDD activity.

Conclusion

Overall C70LCD is another interesting and beautiful PC case from GMC which is targeting for limited work space user. With its slim dimension, it can be placed anyway on top the desk and it shouldn't occupy much working space. Besides that its attractive LCD display should gain extra points for those are looking for such case. GMC C70LCD costs around 90USD which is not really cheap since PSU is not come along with the casing as well. Anyway if budget is not a critical factor then this shouldn't stopping users from getting it but for those are interest, please ensure you have a Micro ATX PSU and motherboard.

Pros:

* Nice LCD display
* Sensor, time are displayed
* Slim casing; ideal for work space constraint user
* 2.5" & 3.5" HDD are supported
* Glossy optical bezel door
* Support full height PCI card

Cons:

* Availability of Micro PSU is limited
* Only one 60mm rear fan is included

Thanks to GMC for providing this sample for us to review.