GMC X-22 Middle Tower ATX Case Review

Main Menu

Login Form

Support Us!

Product: X-22
Manufacturer: GMC
Supplied by: GMC
Price: 115USD/RM400
Launch Date: TBD

Today we are going to review another amazing PC case from GMC which is X-22. In Short GMC X-22 is a standard middle tower ATX PC case with stylish design and fabulous features; half-mirror front panel, digital thermometer, front & rear fan speed controllers, 120mm front & rear cooling fans and etc. Without any longer delay, let's us go through this interesting case in detail.

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

4*5.25" & 2*3.5" external drive bays
Sliding door with clean outlook
2 external 3.5" drive bay for FDD or card reader
A front panel digital thermometer
A half-mirror of the front panel
Chrome coated Power and reset button
Front & rear fan controller
Gold coated front multi port
A detachable 3.5" HDD drive bay
120mm front & rear cooling fan
An height adjustable CPU air guide

Specifications

Package & Content

Same with other GMC cases that we have reviewed before, GMC X-22 is packed with a solid cardboard box but the breakable forms are not that ideal for long distance courier delivering unless the case is packed with another more solid and stronger outer box. Anyway a plastic bag is used to wrap over the whole GMC X-22 for avoiding it from being scratches especially the half mirror front panel.

No other accessories are bundled with GMC X-22 except a user's manual, installation screws, an internal speaker and four rubber feet. The user's manual is useful for the cable connections because GMC X-22 comes with plenty of cables and right connection will ensure the front and rear fans can be controlled by the integrared fan speed controllers.

A Closer Look - GMC X22 Exterior

As we mentioned previously GMC is a Korean computer peripheral brand where computer case is their major line of business; middle tower case (R-4 Bulldozer, X7 X-Station), noblesse AV case (AVC-S7) and slim ATX case (C-50). GMC X-22 is fallen under middle tower case and there are two colors available; red-black and blue-black. Our first impression on GMC X-22 is elegant with its stylish design and it is also suitable for home theatre setup although AVC case is better choice with its horizontal case layout and awesome LCD panel.

The overall dimension of GMC X-22 is around 510 x 440 x 200 mm (D x H x W) which is pretty standard for such middle tower ATX case. No weight information is available for GMC X-22 at GMC website but after our own measurement, this case weights around 9 to 10 kg; neither too heavy nor too light. Since GMC X-22 is a middle tower ATX case, it can support four 5.25", two 3.5" exposed drive bays and full size ATX board with 7 PCI slots.

The most interesting part of GMC X-22 is the front panel which is very elegant with its half-mirror panel. This half-mirror is a true mirror which is well harmonized with black chassis body and encircled by red or blue stripe. At the bottom of the front panel, there are two buttons and two switches for power, reset, and front & rear fan controller. The integrated fan speed controller is another great feature of GMC X-22 which is definitely useful especially to control those noisy cooling fans.

With the unique elegant half-mirror panel, all the exposed drive bays are protected with a sliding door. The sliding door is a solid and heavy door with is fastened on the front panel with magnetic force. if you look closely on the first 5.25" and 3.5" drive bays, basically these drive bays are attached with a plastic strip so that user can remove these drive bay fillers easily. GMC X-22 comes with gold coated front I/O ports which are located on the left side panel; four USB ports and two audio jacks.

Here is the side panel of GMC X-22 and it comes with two air vents for better CPU and GPU ventilation. The top CPU air vent comes with a removable air duct for guiding the fresh air to cool down the CPU in more efficiency way. Besides that an air filter is included for this air duct to minimize the dust so that the CPU cooler maintenance could be minimized.

Here are the rear and bottom panels of GMC X-22. Same with other standard middle tower ATX cases, the PSU is located at the top portion of the case. In term of cooling, GMC X-22 comes with 120mm cooling fan for the rear panel which is the ideal size for obtaining better cooling result. As we mentioned before, the rubber case feet are not preinstalled on the GMC X-22 bottom panel where users have to manually affix them.

A Closer Look - GMC X22 Interior

After gone through the exterior design of GMC X-22, now let us continue with the interior design. Something we would like to highlight about the interior design of GMC X-22 is the fine painting job where it is coated with an additional layer of paint for avoiding from corrosion. Anyway GMC X-22 can support standard ATX & micro board and those copper mounting screws are preinstalled on the motherboard plate of GMC X-22.

Besides the exposed 4*5.25 and 2*3.5" drive bays, GMC X-22 still comes with four HDD drive bays which are located right below the FDD drive bays. For better HDD installation method, the whole HDD cage can be removed out from the chassis by unfasten one thumb screw. However we still prefer the HDD to be installed in vertically way rather than such horizontal way as it may cause incompatible issue with those high end graphic cards.

Same with the rear cooling fan, GMC has chosen the same 120mm cooling fan as the front intake cooling fan. Both of these fans are standard GMC 120mm cooling fan with 12V DC fan and 0.19A; the estimated fan speed should be around 1500RPM. As we mentioned before, both of these fans can be controlled by the pre-integrated fan speed controllers which are located at the front panel.

Most of the time, the front panel is needless to be detached from the case body but this is needed for GMC X-22 by unlocking six clips because it is hard to remove the drive bay filler from outside else it may possible damage the drive bay filler accidentally. Although this front panel consists of fan speed controller but it is hidden inside the front panel so we can't show to you today but basically it is a simple voltage regulator.

Here is the side panel of GMC X-22 where there is a big air duct for focusing the fresh air to cool down the CPU but it is definitely only compatible with those slim or stock coolers but not those fancy tower coolers. There are plenty of cable for GMC X-22 because besides the standard front I/O cables, there are additional sensor cable for thermometer and Molex cables which are used for connecting and controlling the front and rear cooling fans.

Installation, Testing & Performance

The installation for GMC X-22 is pretty similar with other standard ATX cases since it doesn't come with any unique or special structure. During the setup, we have installed SpinQ VT CPU cooler and Nvidia GeForce 260+ which are the most giant hardware that could possible induce incompatibility issue with GMC X-22. However we are glad to tell that we didn't encounter such problem at all but the 2^nd and 3^rd HDD might be blocked by the high end graphic cards but this is not a severe problem because those additional HDDs still can be installed at FDD drives (futhermore HDD capacity is getting higher and higher so this is not an issue at all).

Before we move to cooling performance of GMC X-22, let us show you the fantastic thermometer of GMC X-22. As we mentioned before, GMC X-22 comes with a digital thermometer which is ideal to measure system temperature or HDD temperature as the sensor is not a flat type sensor so it can't be used to measure CPU or GPU temperature for accurate data. The digital thermometer is shown on the half-mirror of the front panel which is perfectly matched with the GMC X-22 and it is absolutely beautiful.

Test Bed:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 (Gigabyte G31M-ES2L)
Heatsink: Thermaltake SpinQ VT
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR2 8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: Galaxy GeForce GTX260+
Casing: GMC X-22
PSU: In Win Commander 750W
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Optical Drive: DVD RW
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2/Vista Home Premium
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

Here are the cooling performances of GMC X-22 in term of CPU, HDD, VGA and system. Basically these results are quite average for a middle tower ATX case with dual 120mm cooling fans but it is still good to see GMC X-22 is able to keep up other outstanding middle tower ATX case. Besides that the fan speed controllers are working perfectly as it can control both of the front and rear fan instantly especially for those are looking for low operating noise system and these fan speed controllers can be used for others cooling fans as well (GPU, VGA) with appropriate fan converters.

Verdicts

Overall GMC X-22 is a stylish middle tower ATX case with decent cooling performance. With its elegant half-mirror and sliding front panel door, we have to say that it is definitely attracting some of the users especially those are looking for a sturdy, spacious case. Besides that other features that we would like to highlight here are the integrated thermometer for system temperature monitoring and two fan speed controllers for balancing the cooling performance and noise level. If you are looking for a stylish case and don't mind for the no tool-less setup then GMC X-22 is one of the good choices that you should consider.

Pros:

+ Elegant & stylish design
+ Sturdy, spacious & decent cooling case
+ Good interior painting job
+ Sliding front panel door
+ Fan speed controllers
+ Thermometer

Cons:

- No tool-less system

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